2019 Muscat C., day 7

7:30 AM 
Cellar 75 F, outside 59 F, must 76
Brix: Probaby 6

The long scale hydrometer is saying that Brix is 5ish and the short scale hydrometer is saying No way, dude, I think you're at least 6. So I've put it into the chart as 6.  Happens every year, this disagreement, at right about this stage.  You'd think I'd try to calibrate the two.

The must is so chunky in the test cylinder, and there's no foam in the fermenter, so that it's become easier to test Brix in the fermenter itself.  I also thought about just straining what I put into the test cylinder.  Maybe this evening.

I haven't said anything about color.  It's still apple juice brown.  It's hard to imagine it becoming the custard yellow and then the final mellow yellow that we've seen in the carboys each year we've made Muscat A.  (And, coinkydink, last night with dinner we drank Zibibbio in Pithos from COS - Zibibbio is the local name for Muscat Alexandria. Alissandria.  It's yellow.)

Rough calculation is that the must is now something like 10% alcohol, using the low end of the sugar to alcohol conversion rate (.55), and heading to 13%.

(The conversion rate can be from .55 to .64. From what I read, you'd need a cooler ferment to get to higher alcohol in white wine - a lot cooler than ours. And QA23 yeast dies at 16% alcohol.  So, assuming we ferment to dryness at high heat and the starting juice was at 24 Brix: 24*.55=13.2% alcohol.  We might have residual sugar lowering the alcohol, or we might have a higher conversion rate raising the alcohol, and we won't know.  We've never had the alcohol level of the wine professionally tested.)

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9:00 PM
Cellar 75 F, outside 65 F, must 76
Brix: Probaby 4.5

Fizz continues to get slower and finer.  At this point we can probably just move to carboys, especially given how little foam is being generated - none, really.  On the other hand, there's so little headspace in the fermenter that it feels fine to let it go closer to zero.  Will decide tomorrow.

Not clear how much will be lost to the gross lees, or how much of those lees we'll want to transfer into the last carboy, but we're likely looking at five full 5 gallon carboys with a gallon of lee-chunky juice to toy with.