2012 SI Cab Days 2-7

Day 2 Temp increased to 65; the cake was already about 18 inches thick. The froth was already purple, and the must began to produce quite a bit of fizz when we punched down the cake and stirred. Day 3 Temp 70; specific gravity 1.08==19.1 bris. Grapes going red, juice already pink purple, loads of froth and fizz. Cake 2 ft thick Day 4 Temp 72;spec grav 1.045--brix 12.1. Grapes are soft and going limp. They look and feel cooked. The juice is much more alcoholic than sweet--we're at about 11% alcohol on our way to 13.8 or so. The tartaric acid I added--about 3 tablespoons per barrel--took us up from .53 to about .63 acidity. We're not into day 5; day 6 starts Thurs morning at 10. I'm anticipating that we will press about 6 hours into day 7 on Friday afternoon. Predicting brix will be at or very close to 0 by then. Malo bug was introduced. Still no meta. Temp still 72. Day 6 saw a reading of 1.03 and a temp of 70, and on day 7 we got down to about 1.015, which is about 3 brix. Doug at PIWines concurred that we could press even though the must was still producing some froth and fizz. We went 11 large and one small 3 gal cboy for a total of 48 gallons. I'm guessing after racking, we'll have about 43 gallons, which is less than the 50 gals (240 bottles) I was shooting for, following the red rule of thumb that 2 cases of grapes usually yield a 5 gal. But the wind blows for no man and so does the grape. Basement temp is 64, and the cboys are bubbling more than I've seen before. Once they calm down, we'll add some meta and stir up the sediment to flush any yeast out of hiding--I'm guessing two weeks or so. We'll rack a couple weeks later, probably before Thanksgiving.