2013 Muscat, day 9, Sep 30 2013

* 6:30: brix at 0.9, bubbling strong but foaming low, I decided to top off the carboys. Ended with 5+5+5+growler. Have arranged the cb's so I can stack ice packs between them.

* 21:00: One bubbler fouled and cleaned, all three firing steadily.  May test sugar level again in the morning for yucks, but things are on auto-pilot now.  Put fresh ice packs between the cb's.

2013 Muscat day 8, Sep 29 2013

A morning without measurements.  All of the cb's are going at their own rates, with the last of them - the one that got the tilted out lees - continuing to go whacky and foul the bubble.  Will clean that bubbler one more time, but if it happens again I'll try to draw dome of the must off to the other 2 cbs and see what the wild jimmies do there.  Will shoot for an afternoon brix reading.

Bubblers cleaned and burping.

* 15:30: Cleaned the bubblers of all three cb's - two of them, the first and third, were fouled with yeast & foam.  How much CO2 is still getting generated?  It took less than a second for the replaced bubblers to start burping.  If you click on the image and look at it full-sized you can see all the CO2 bubbles making their way up the side of the glass and into the foam.

For the heck of it I also wedged an icepack between the cb's.  I guess that means the middle one gets a double-dose?  Maybe I'll arrange then into a triangle.

*23:30: All ditto, looking very good, put some more ice packs between the cb's but did not take their temp or any other readings.  All three cb's bubbling strong.  Tomorrow might be a good day to further top the cb's and maybe transfer what remains in the gallon to a growler.

2013 Muscat, day 7, Sep 28 2013

* 0:30: Room 70, Must 70, Brix 5.5.  Giant drop in the last 18 hours.  Surface of the must is now back to fine fizz rather than the giant foam.  Will need to move the must to carboys in the morning.  For now have removed the paddle and swapped the ice packs.  Not expecting much temperature rise.

* 6:30:  Is it at this time every year that I say that the exact numbers I out down in these notes are not as meaningful as the trends and that I take the measurements in a consistent way?  Should be.

Room 70, must 68, brix5.  Or let's call it 5 for now.  After being as low id it showed this morning I decided to use the short scale (5 to -5) hydrometer, but that showed us clearly over 5.  So I decided to check both hydrometers with distilled water.  Short scale showed the water at 0.1 brix, regular (30 to -3) hydrometer showed it at -1 brix.  I could go back and adjust all the notes (no) or do a corrected chart (probably), but foe now calling it +5 seems fine.  Whatever the exact number, late today seems right for the transfer to carboys.

* 16:30: Well, with the room and must at 71 F and the brix at 4.5 on the short scale hydrometer, and the likelihood of not being around on day 8, I transferred the must from the tank to three 5 gallon carboys and a 1 gallon jug.  I tried to leave a good deal of space in each vessel so that the ferm could foam up without fouling the airlocks (and I'd use the gallon to top off when things died down) but in the last cb, which got more than it's fair share of the lees, the airlock was getting fouled within 30 minutes.  Made some adjustments.  Everything is cleaned and stowed.

2013 Muscat day 6, Sep 27 2013

* 6:00: Room 70, must 69, brix 9.
No bubbler action but a 25%, 3 brix drop in the last 13.5 hours.  The yeast is in a very thick, coating state.  It was sloppy getting the ice packs changed - a little must made it into the sack I keep them in - and the sack was so coated it was tough to hang on to.  (The sacks also always fill with CO2 - what's with that?.)  Also changed the paddle.

We're 106 hours in and at 9 brix; last year at 110 hours we were at 7 (at 97 h we were at 8 b).  We're slower this year, and a good deal cooler.  From hour 27 until 133 when the must went into carboys the temp averaged 72.8 in 2012.  The lowest temp reading during that period was higher than our highest so far this year.  How come?  We iced earlier this year; we're using a cooler temp yeast; there was a warm-spell during the 2012 fermentation week, though not until day 4 or 5.  Your choice, skill or luck.

Something I haven't seen talked about in any of the home winemaking books is the fact that brix readings in a hydrometer will change over the course of minutes with actively fermenting must.  In the first stages of active fermentation it seems to me that the hydrometer will sink in the sample after a few minutes as surface bubbles die away.  In middle stages where there's lots of CO2 being generated the hydrometer will rise in the tube - sometimes by a lot - as the bubbles adhere to the device and lift it.  For this morning's sampling, 5 minutes after having settled at 9 brix, the device raised to 15 brix.  Twirling it to shake off the bubbles let it back down.

2013 Muscat, Day 5, Sep 26 2013

* 6:30: The bubbler on the big poly tank is active for the first time - that cheered me as soon as I walked into the cellar.
Room 69.5, must 69, brix 13.  Drop of 1.4 or 2 brix in the last 11 hours, 10% of what was there.
Changed the paddle and ice packs.  Forecast is for an outside temp of 72 today.

At what brix do we want to transfer to carboys this year?  Last year we did it on day 7 at 4.9 brix.

*16:30: Had to jiggle the schedule around a bit, so we're early.  Room 70, must 68, Brix 12.  No bubbler action, but the foam is plenty active.  Left the packs in place but swapped the paddle (thank you Doyle).  

2013 Muscat, Day 4, Sep 25 2013

Hubba hubba at 5:30 AM

* 5:30 AM: Room 70, must 69, brix 15.  Love it!  Fermented off 25% of the sugar in 10 hours but the temperature of the must is slightly below that of the cellar.  The blessing of the ice packs?  The D47 yeast?  The phase of the moon?  Crickets in the house?  I vote for all four.  We're charting very differently than last year.  Maybe I can work that up later today.

Replaced the paddle and the ice packs.

(Actually, now that I look, the charting of the temp is very different, but not the brix.  Last year at 61 hours we were at 15 brix and 73.5 F; this year at 57 hours we're at 15 brix and 69 F.)

* 19:30: Here's a real puzzler: room 71, must 71, brix 14.5.
Virtually no sugar drop in the last 12 hours, after a 5 brix drop in the preceding  10 hours.  Is D47 that fussy about temp?  Was I just amazingly fuzzy-headed when I took the morning readings?  Surface foam & action much like the morning.  Can't quite figure it.  Put in a couple of fresh ice packs.

* 22:30: The cellar is still at 71 F.  Mihai brought over a fresh ice paddle and we added that.  It's pretty warm out - 64 F - and there's not a lot of hope for the cellar temp to drop.

2013 Muscat day 3, Sep 24 2013

* 6:30 AM: Well, not stunning footage, but in any case you can see the active CO2 bubbling at the side of the paddle.  Houston, we have ignition.  Very visible and audible.

Room 70, must 70, brix 21.  The must was so carbonated it took a while to get the brix reading. The paddle was completely melted and I replaced it with a new one plus an ice pack.  Unfortunately I know we won't be around in the afternoon to refresh these, so we might expect to see the temp spike today.  Last year's experience was that when the wine moved from 22 brix to 20 brix the temp moved from 67.5 to 72.  Buckle up.

* 8:00 AM: had a great interaction with one of the Sanitation guys on the block. I was leaving late and they were just about at the house.  I waited so I could apologize for the bags of skins, which were heavy & sloppy.  He asked if they were filled with dirt, and I said No, grape skins from making wine.  Then he told me how he used to be on a route in Dyker Heights and there was one old Italian guy who was a winemaker and who would give hime a bottle each year.  Strong stuff! That's when I pledged mine.  My new friend helped me bring the sacks out of the yard that I was going to hold back until Friday.

* 6:30 PM: Room 70+, Must 70, brix 20, ph 3.38, sulfuric acid 4.32 ppt.
Putting your ear to the tank is like listening to the ocean in a shell if the ocean was made of rice crispies.  Removed the paddle and ice packs - the surface yeast is at that brown viscous coating stage.  Very very happy with where the acid is at - that's exactly what we were aiming for on Sunday night.

* 8:00 PM: No new measurements but we got a fresh ice paddle from Doyle and put it into the must, along with a couple of ice packs.  Should be able to do the same in the morning from our own freezer, and then tomorrow night again from either M&C or Doyle.

Mihai sent a batch of photos from crush-day!  I've posted them in a slideshow over in the right hand column.

And here's a nice comparison against last year.
48 hours into lasy year we'd dropped from 25 brix to 17, and the must was 74 F - we'd really lost control.  48 hours in this year we dropped from 23 to 20, and the must is 70 F.  Mo better, so far.

2013 Muscat, day 2 Sep 23

About 60 l. of juice w/ yeast gathering at 6 AM.

* 6 AM: Room 70 F, must 68 F, brix 23.
This was the first brix reading from the hydrometer. Nice that it's the same as last evening's measurement from the refractometer. The pic is into the opening of the poly tank that we've used for the Muscat the last three years. Clusters of yeast, but no real action yet. Nothing audible. Did not take an acid reading to see what the affect of adding the tartaric was, but will this evening.

*4:30 PM:  Cellar 70, must 69.5.  Surface of the juice if fully colonized now, but still no audible bubbling or visual cues.  Pretty sharp temp rise given no real activity: could be just matching the cellar or it could be there's more activity below the surface than obvious.  This evening will likely add one ice paddle just so we don't see a breakaway.  (Or, on second thought, let's do it now: from the D47 notes, "This strain tolerates fermentation temperatures ranging from 15° to 20°C (59° to 68°F) and enhances mouthfeel due to complex carbohydrates.")

3 years of Muscat fill-line markings.

This pic of the poly was taken when the last readings were made.  You can see the lines of where the 2011, 2012 and 2013 fresh musts reached.  You can also see (and I didn't notice this earlier) that there's enough ferment happening to slightly raise the must above yesterday's fill line.  The wider black lines at the right are the 50 and 75 liter markings.

*9:30 PM: Room 70.5, brix 22, must 67 (maybe).  Hard to say if the must reading was really good or I was too close to the ice paddle, but I'll take it.  Should we push it down further with a little more cooling?  Let it go to morning (when it might be in break-away)?  No noticeable action, but the first fall in brix and the layer of foam up top is like a shag rug.

2013 Muscat: Day 1, Sep. 22, 2013

* 6:30 and the weather is better than we expected: 64 F and a mostly clear sky.  Ground very wet but the air is drier.  Grapes look well protected.  Time to start shuffling.  10 AM is when the cavalry arrives.

The fan-belt and gears exposed.

* 10:00 AM Mihai and Colleen, Peter, then Doyle & Jon Fab.  Equipment out to the street for washing, sorting table set up, grapes moved into position.  The first picked over buckets of grapes are loaded into the destemmer and... Unhhh.  Unhhh.  Unhhh.  Power going to the motor but it's clearly jammed.  15 minutes later the housing was off the fan-belt and gears and everything was being turned by hand, and whatever was the jam let go.  Sealed everything back up & hallelujah.

First focaccia, with grapes in it, out of the oven soon after.  Michael Hearst dropped in and out.  Mike & Pam & Mello after noon.  Steady flow of work until 1 or so, when the third press load was being worked and the rest of the crew turned its attention to cleanup.  By 2 or so we were all in the back yard (now with Heidi R and Stella, too) having lunch that lasted until after 7 PM, with the remainder of the 2012 Muscat and  handful of bottles of the 2012 Merlot and a fe other commercial odds and ends.

The grapes, in quality, were very similar to last year.  Having left them out overnight they were warmer to work with, and I think we got more free run than last year, but the total yield was about 60 liters and slightly less than last year.  We tasted the remaining ramato CB and I decided it was not worth trying to ferment the still juicy skins again their own.  Mike chose ICV D47 for the yeast we'd use.

6:00 PM: tested for acid a couple of times and both times came up a low at 3.76 ppt sulfuric.  So for the first time decided to raise the acid with tartaric - I used 1.5 oz for the 60 liters, looking to raise to 4.2 ppt.  I also added 30 ml 10% meta solution (30 ppm for the volume).  Then mixed 15 grams of the D47 with about 150 ml warm water, let it sit for 15 minutes, and added it to the must.  Basta!

2013 Muscat: camouflaged

504 lbs of Muscat Alexandria waiting for dawn...

Well, we went back and forth on this a little, but ultimately decided to pick up the grapes on Saturday afternoon to work with on Sunday morning, instead of picking them up at the crack-o-dawn Sunday.

12 42# cases from Lapide, $43 each.  They came right out of their refrigerated warehouse and into Mike's rig.  So the first part of our gamble was right: they'd be damned cold when we got them.  But it's much warmer out this evening than it has been the last few nights - 9:45 PM and still 72 F.  Begorah!  Doesn't look like it'll get cooler than the mid 60's, while tomorrow night is supposed to dip into the 40's.  We'll find out by mid-day Sunday where the grapes are at.

We discussed a number of yeasts today that we might use.  We have the standard Montrachet from the market, but Brooklyn Homebrew also has ICV-D47 and QA23.  I think Mike might pull the trigger on one of these.  The only potential worry is whether either needs nutrients and whether either needs low temps for the ferm - looking at last year's figures we were not able to keep the ferm under 73 F once it really took hold.

Flawed and damned good

This evening I roasted tomatoes from Wiklow Orchards in the Big Steel Keg, each halved and squeezed out with a sliver of garlic in them (a la Waxman from the cooking demo at De Gustibus, thank you, Mike), and roasted sweet sausage from Flying Pigs, and then used them as a base for mixing in cavatelli from Russo's. The tomatoes were seasoned with oil and salt and black pepper and red pepper flakes and oregano from the herb pot. Cut up the roasted sausage, cut up the roasted tomatoes, added the not quite finished cavatelli and cooked them together. Did I mention that I threw thyme from the garden into the fire while everything was roasting? More oil. Into a bowl with pecorino Romano. It was good. It was very, very good. But here's why I'm telling you:

Because I had it with the merlot we bottled this past weekend. Chilled. Far effin' out! Flawed in that it's slightly fizzy (slightly) which is no doubt because I added meta before a malolactic ferm could take place. But double-d-f-olicios. (Yes, I've had enough to be tipsy.). Double D!!!

Attending to past sins

5 hours in the cellar this morning and it looks like we're in shape to at least make white wine next weekend - grapes and time providing.

Spent a chunk of time going through past posts and other notes and see that our white wines seem to loose about 10 to 15 ppm per year in carboys. Seems to be true regardless of fermentation with or without skin contact, and whether or not the wine was left on its lees. With zero proof or correlation to the reds I decided to treat them the same way, so where we've raised them by N in the past I figured a year later we were N-10 to 15. Sue me.

Made a new batch of 10% solution, and this time did it in a wide jar so I could easily draw off by the ml instead of pouring out into spoons.

Added 3 ml 10% solution to the 3 gal WA Merlot.
Added 14 ml 10% solution to the fusti of WA Merlot.

Took a taste of Peter's unchapatized 2008 LI Cab S. Remember, these grapes measured a very low brix, and finished ferment in 3 or 4 days. Bernardo and I decided to chapatize and restart the fermentation, Peter didn't. (Lori would have stopped me if I didn't decide so quickly.) Got this wine to my lips and gasped That's Not Wine!! It was something like wine, but I don't know what exactly. Down the drain I sent it.

Then there was a 5 gal CB of my chapatized version. It was wine, but it was not good. Salute!

Then there was a 5 gal mystery CB. Salute!

Then there was a 3 liter growler of 2006 Zin that I decided to re-oak as an experiment, then forgot about. It has a bubbler n it that, no surprise, had gone dry. Salute! and the glass was so stained that I pitched it.

Then there was a 1 gal bottle of the 2009 Merlot / Cab S / P Verdot blend that was overflow from one of the rackings. Another dried out bubbler. Idiot. Too bad, because this was good party wine. Salute!

Then I tasted the two remaining 2010 Primitivo carboys. The first one, honest to god, seemed to have zero barnyard odors and I quickly decided to rack it. The second was not so completely clear (this was the CB I referred to as Charlie in all of my notes) and I decided to add so2 and set it aside. I also decided to raise the so2 in the bottles I was making - I did that by mixing 10% solution with wine, and that adding that mixture to each bottle before filling.

I've got to say that I was not so confident in the lack of barnyard odors during the bottling, while there was lots or aerating happening, but I persevered. It left me less sure of what I would do with the 2nd cb of primitivo, long term.

What was left to deal with was the 8 gallons of cab f. But by now it was 1 PM, I hadn't showered or eaten yet, and called it a day.

2012 Merlot that didn't make it into the fusti... and SO2

Managed to make it into bottles.

Checking through notes I see that we raised this wine and the cab f. by about 30 ppm back on Nov. 11, 2012.  No other meta went into it before bottling.  Eyeballing lots of notes it seems to me that wine we store in carboys in our no-temp-control cellar and with our lackadaisical racking schedule lose about 10 to 15 ppm a year - at least that seems to hold true for the whites with and without skin fermentation.  So I think I'll go forward with bumping anything staying in bulk by about 15 ppm.  (The fact that 1 ml of the solution I mix raises 1 gallon 15 ppm is probably not a coincidence in all of this reckoning.)

2012 Merlot - productive morning

Up early to start condensing things in the cellar.

2 5 gal cbs racking into the fusti.

14 gallons of the 2012 Merlot into a fusti - 13 of it free run, one of it from a mixed free run and pressed cb.  The remaining wine got racked into a 3 gallon cb, and a half dozen 750 bottles: we'll have one this evening with Mihai and Colleen.

My first taste from the 1st carboy got the immediate reaction from me that this is the best wine we've made.  The 2nd carboy I thought was a bit sweeter, and by the third I was lost.  Help!  Someone else taste this wine.  (Or maybe I should again after breakfast.)  Need to figure out what to do re meta.  I'd like to keep this 14 gallons together for at least another half year.

I also racked the 2012 Muscat ramato.  This was left on it's lees for a year.  And there were plenty of them.  I decided to not get too crazy, and just take the top 3 gallons of the 5 into a clean cb.  That worked well - I need to bring the SO2 up - it's down below 15 ppm or so.

Did not touch the 8 gallons of 2012 Cab F.

Unearthed a case of the 1st wine Mike and Pam made at our place - the Syrah from juice.  Awaiting instructions.

Tidied up all of the empties - decided to chuck about a dozen bottles that looked like they got less than a good cleaning back in June after the party.

And I'm hoping to deal with the last of the Cab S. we made with Bernardo and Peter from Long Island grapes back in 2008.  At least 10 gallons of it.

Empty CBs are piling up.

2012 Muscat 90 / 10 bottled

We had one carboy that was 90% straight muscat alexandria, and 10% ramato made from those pressed grapes.  We bottled that this afternoon.  Clean and, at least at room temp, pretty zippy.  Titrette test put SO2 between 25 and 30 ppm and we left it there.  The only muscat now left from 2012 that's not bottled is the straight ramato that I expect to use for vermouth.