* 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.
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