Saturday, December 26, 2009

Last wine making supplies purchase of 2009

Just put in an order at Presque Isle for:
  • 3/8th inch tubing - 10 feet of it and we can cut it to size as we want.  Some of the last tubing we bought got left in a bucket of water, and while it's still fine to use, the clear vinyl has turned cloudy.  Yuck;
  • Solid rubber stoppers in sizes 6.5 and 7, 4 each.  It's finally occurred to me that the 2 year old Sangiovese and other old carboys really don't want a gas-lock on them any more - they want solid stoppers to hold off evaporation.  Got the two sizes because it seems that the 5 gallon carboys have changed in recent years.  Who knew?
  • Titratable Acide tests from Accuvin.  This is a splurge, especially since the shelf life of the tests is only 6 months and I'm buying them now, after fermentation.  But it might be an interesting learning experience for us to match acid measurements against what we taste.  I'm betting Syrah the juice Mike & Pam have fermented will measure very low and, who knows, maybe can be touched up with just a bit of tartaric acid.  (Smart money might be against me.)
  • Bentonite: the Muscat wants fining.  Whether now at 2nd racking or at a third racking, I dunno.  
  • Narrow gauge hydrometer.  This will be fun for next year.  Measures from 5 to -5 brix.  Might even be interesting to look more closely at the Muscat to see how dry it really is.  I don't see it changing anything we do, just knowing a bit more.
  • Corks, 1.75 inch amalgamated.  These are the cheapest natural corks PI sells, and just fine for a few years or more.  If the Grimaldi Savino gang wants to shoot higher, go for it.  I did in the 2nd year of our winemaking.  Only bought 100, at about 26 cents each.  
That's it.  Still need to make oak decisions pretty soon, and a bunch more corks later.

1 comment:

sinequanon said...

Hey, haven't checked the blog in awhile. Will call you tomorrow about second racking, corks, etc.