2018 Sauv. Blanc & Syrah, day 3

05:30
Room 73 F.  Outside 61 F and raining.

Drier grapes being
pushed up into the cap.

Syrah: 72 F, up 2 degrees in last 12 hours.  Too many solids in sample to take a brix reading by hydrometer.  There is now an obviously drying cap forming, and getting your face below the lip of the fermenter gets you a quick CO2 rush.  Punching down feels good.  Things are happening.

Sauvignon Blanc:  74 F, also up 2 degrees since last night.  Brix 24.  No action on the airlock yet but fermentation is good.  Do we chance adding SanJ coolers now?  Will wait until this evening (at which point it might have gotten hot in there and I'll regret not having put them in this morning: like every year!)

I purchased a small submersible water / glycol pump that should arrive tomorrow.  Will try setting it up so that I circulate iced water through the must.  Might be too goofy a rig, but will be worth a try.  It will mean leaving the airlock off the fermenter, but that should be fine given that it will only be used during the heavy fermentation - yes?  No?

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18:00
Room 74 F, outside 72 F, rainy & 93% humidity.  Blows!

Syrah: 76 F, 21 Brix.  It was a very purple affair getting enough liquid into the tube for a hydrometer reading.  (Look at that color!) Cap has risen a couple of inches.  Punching down there was more give than this morning.  Will try to watch the temperature carefully - this is about as hot as we want it to get, but it's not as active as the fermentation is going to get.

Sauv. Blanc: 76 F, Brix I'm going to call 21.  See the two photos.  There's so much foam in the must that's been drawn off that it's tough to get a decent reading.  I added one SanJ gizmo, and will check in about 4 hours to see how close to exhausted it is. As with the red, I don't want this to get hotter.

So both wines have blown off roughly a fifth of their sugar in the 48 hours since pithing, and really mostly in the last 12 hours.  Hike!

On left, the foam as the must was drawn.  On right,
trying to slice off the cap like a bartender on a beer.

21:00

The temp of the Sauv. Blanc is down 2 degrees, and the ice in the SanJ is completely melted.  So, nice quick cool-down, but not far and not for long.