2023 Chardonnay - day 5

 0630

Danger!  Danger, Will Robinson!

• Room 72 F; Outside 51 F
• Juice 78F; Brix -0.1

Things have gone insanely fast in the main tank.  So I'm moving everything to smaller vessels where I can top up and not worry about the lack of a CO2 cover.

The end result is 5+5+5+5+3+1.  Each of the fives has been topped up with juice from the original 3 gallon carboy.  The 3 and the 1 are pretty darn muddy with the bottom juice of the original vessels.  For volume comparison, this is 2.5 gallons more juice than last year, from the same weight of grapes.  It's either from the grapes being on the vine for something like 26 days longer this year, or the pretty intense amount of stomping the grapes gt this year - there was an awful lot of free-run juice.  Or a combination of both things.  Who knows?

Pics are of the boys, and of one of my favorite sites: the intense flow of pinprick CO2 bubbles up the glass walls of a carboy.

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2130

Extremely fine bubbles up the sides of the carboys.  The 5 gallon CBs are popping about 4 to 5 times a minute.  No measurements taken.

2023 Chardonnay - day 4

0000

Surprise!  First bubbler action in the CB, and creepy gaping foam in the primary.   Late and sleepy, did not take any measurements, but the smell of fermentation is all through the house.

 

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0730

• Room 72 F, outside 45 F
• Juice 84 F, Brix 6 (7 after bubbling rise)

Holy cow!  This is a giant shift.  You could feel the heat emanating from the primary tank as soon as you got near it.  And roughly 66% of the sugars that were present in the wine 24 hours ago got converted.  I'll graph this out and compare it to past years.  Unexpected, but maybe I've just forgotten?

And look how different things are from only 7 and a half hours ago in the primary:

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2000

• Room 72 F, outside 58 F
• Juice 82 F, Brix 1.9 on the short scale hydrometer

Things are continuing on at a whacky rate.  I wasn't believing my eyes on the regular hydrometer, so I switched to the short scale.  Really is 1.9.  So, again in a 12 hour span 66% of the existing sugar burned off into alcohol.  

2023 Chardonnay - day 3

 0800

• Room 71 F, outside 49 F
• Juice 72 F, Brix 18 (21 after bubbling rise)

Everything's gone shaggy again inside the main tank, and flat (but prickly) again in the CB.  Video is 10 seconds or so of what's happening in the tank.  Maybe too much ambient sound from the fridge and furnace to properly hear the CO2 bubbles bursting.  Play it big and load.  Below the video, the still photo is of the thermometer in the tank, showing, if you look very closely, that the shag, while active, is less than an inch deep.  (Six commas in that last sentence.  Oy.)

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1300

Suddenly it smells like a big ferment in the cellar.  Amazing change from this morning.

And foam returns to the CB.

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2023 Chardonnay - day 2

 0730

Cellar 71F, Outside 50 F, juice 66 F.  Brix 22 (maybe 22.5) in the primary tank

No surprises.  No real sign of fermentation yet, and I'm not expecting any until this evening, and would not worry about there not being any until tomorrow morning.

Just for yucks, I used two different hydrometers for the brix reading.  I wanted to test my worry that the older hydrometer's scale has slipped.  Verdict: not so much.  There was maybe half a brix difference between the two, and of course I couldn't say which was more correct.  But the new one has fancy colors, so that's the one I'll use.

1800

Shag, Momma, shag!  Might take a temperature or brix reading later this evening, but both vessels have started to ferment.  The shag in the primary is deep and bubbled, the CB more pf a stout's priest-collar.  Neither is pushing the bubbler, but there's a lot of head-room so I'm not expecting much.

2130

First there is a mountain...

Cellar 73 F, Outside 49 F, juice 70 F.  Brix 20.5/23? in the primary tank

OK, pic below is of the priests's collar that's still in the CB.  But the shag in the primary that was there at 1800 ... disappeared!  In it's place, though, is the fizz of ferm: listen to the audio here.  The big brix span I'm listing is because 20.5 is what I first got in the tube, but after leaving that to tend to the tank temp, when I returned to the hydrometer it had hoisted to 23.  I think that higher reading was due to the fizz / bubbles lifting the hydrometer in the tube.  I trust the low reading.

2022 Chardonnay: day 24

 18:00

Woo hoo!  Just tasted the juice again, and did an Accuvin MLF color test.

Taste: very different already than it was five of days ago.  Less tart.  Less weird.  

And the test: I read it as 110 mg malic acid per liter (110 mg/L).  Now I really wish I had tested last week so I would have the comparison.  Sigh.  

2022 Chardonnay: day 22

 

Airlocks popping about once every minute and a half.  

Many fewer pinprick bubbles still rising, but still constant.  

Color lightening, but, for comparison, a picture above of the 22 day old juice next to a years-old clear carboy (of muscat?  not labeled.  2018 Sauv. Blanc?  2016 Chard? 2015 Muscat A?  By color I'd guess the Muscat).

2022 Chardonnay: day 19

 Brix is -1.7, measured from carboy A.

The juice is becoming more translucent, very noticeable in the hydrometer tube.  Still far from transparent.  

Purchased AimTab Reducing Substance Tablets, which seem to be the popular replacement for Clinitest.  Have never used these before, but I wanted to see what an approximate chemical test would say in relation to the negative Brix readings.  After futzing around a bit and realizing, no, I should not simply substitute wine for urine in the standard diabetics test...  I found the relevant instruction sheet from the folks at Presque Isle.  I assumed we are in dry range, so:  

• 0.5 ml (5 drops) wine into the test tube, 
• add the AimTab and don't burn yourself (Warning! Contains sodium hydroxide...), 
• wait for the sort of violent, hot, boiling reaction, and 
• measure the resulting color in the test tube against the "2 drop" color chart.  

The result, to my eye, is 0.1% residual sugar in the wine.  Does that translate to 10 grams per liter?  Anyone?  If it does, we're at the upper edge of "dry" (1 to 10 g/L RS), and well below the standard definition of off-dry (17 to 35 g/L RS).

All of which is another way of saying, Uh huh, going pretty well.

Also, I tasted the juice.  Strange goings on at this point. Tart, apple-ish.  Really living in the middle ground between wine and juice.  Nothing bad, but maybe a taste that only a winemaker could love.  

2022 Chardonnay: day 16

 0600

• Brix -1.2 (carboy A)
• ~70F, pretty much ambient room temp.  45 F outdoors.

Hard to see any color shift in the full carboys, but in the hydrometer tube the lightening and thinning of the juice is a little more apparent.  

Seems like we'll just let MLF happen if & when it chooses.  Won't feed it, but with the cellar staying at 70 F, it would be hard to stop it, even with a big dose of meta at the next racking.  (Would be interesting to take one of carboys up to Doyle's garage and let it over-winter there...)

Futzed some more about caps versus stoppers.  One of the carboys was bubbling much more slowly than the others.  Changed the cap to a drilled #7, et voila.  

Looked through some prior years for when whites had clarified enough for racking after getting them out of the primary tank: about a month.  That would mean likely racking some time around November 2.

2022 Chardonnay: day 14

 0400

• Brix -0.6 (that's minus, from carboy D)
• ~70 F (juice is pretty much at ambient temp)

The juice seems a bit thinner to me, more in the unfiltered apple juice range than in the thick cider/nectar range.  Fermentation still clearly happening.  All the airlocks look good, clean.  No gunk, seeds, etc. floating up to the collar.  

Did not taste the juice but will the next time we take any measurements.

2022 Chardonnay: day 12

 1500

• Brix 0.1 measured from carboy C.

No foam in the hydrometer cylinder (filled with a wine thief).  Pin pricks up the glass walls, etc.  

Again, small numbers, but the surviving yeast are being voracious: almost 82% of the measurable sugars from 22 hours ago have been eaten and converted.  

2022 Chardonnay: day 11

 1700

235 hours since inoculation and Brix is just a smidge above 0.5 (measured from carboy B).  Steady as it goes.  Very clean.  Still waiting on a magical MLF decision (or non-decision, seeming ever more likely).  And here's a pic of the lees settling in carboy A.

2022 Chardonnay: day 10

 0630

Not taking any direct readings this morning.  

Everything looking exactly as you would hope.  Super-clean.  Each vessel's airlock popping every few seconds.  All those mesmerizing pinprick bubbles sliding upward along the surface of the carboys.  

Now the big question to consider:  malolactic fermentation?  What do we want to do?  Promote it?  Inhibit it?  Just let the juice do what it wants to do and hope that MLF doesn't start or continue after we've bottled the wine for the party?  We know we are not using oak: does that dictate anything re MLF for Chardonnay?  The little reading we've done is not conclusive on the last point.  We'll need to decide in the next few days.  Green apples, or golden apples?

Here's a typically unhelpful (to me) article in Wine Industry Advisor.  Something judgemental from Wine Folly.  Maybe there's something helpful in this Wine Enthusiast article - 

An unoaked version could also have buttery flavors, because the wine can still undergo malolactic fermentation in any type of container. Toad Hollow Vineyards has a perfect example of this in their Francine’s Selection Unoaked Chardonnay from Mendocino, which brings the butter without the oak.

So, quick, let's go get a bottle and taste it. 

And, for what it's worth, when we made Chardonnay in 2016 we did not prevent or promote MLF, and we kept the free SO2 low - lower than I'd be comfortable doing this year.  And in December MLF started up on it's own.  

2100

• Brix = 1.0

Juice is at ambient room temperature.  Measured brix from a single carboy.  Will rotate going forward.

2022 Chardonnay: day 9

 0730

• Brix 2.1
• Juice temp 72, room temp 74, outside 59 windy and about to drizzle

Another 20% drop in the last 10 hours.  No foam to speak of, lazy bubbles, and if you put your ear to the side of the tank there's still crackle.  If today's like yesterday we can expect something like 1.6 or 1.7 this evening and maybe 1.2 on the morning of day 10.  Maybe rack this afternoon and let ferm finish ina more airtight place.

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14:30

• Brix 1.5
• Juice 72 F, room 71.5 F, outside 58 and rainy

Boom!  Done.  Lori and I moved the juice from the primary fermenter to 5+5+5+5+1+1 carboys and jugs, leaving behind maybe close to a gallon of watery sludge: maybe we could have used it to get to a 3-gallon CB, but we didn't.

Transfer was as easy as pie and very neat - no spillage.  Took the extra paranoid step of wrapping the carboy caps and drilled stoppers with cling wrap.  Washed the primary fermentation tank out in the street, and if it ever stops raining we'll get it meta'd and stowed.  (Did this now because tomorrow looks just too busy and I didn't want to let the juice go below zero in the primary if we weren't around.)  Took lots of pics & videos.  Using caps on the carboys, drilled stoppers on the jugs, and 3-piece airlocks all around.  

A couple of videos.  What the xfer looks like - long and sort of boring, but, hey, it takes a year to get to where we're going, so relax.  And a look at the sludge at the bottom of the fermenter.  Much more liquid than I expected and, repeating what I wrote above,  I wonder if we should have simply saved it in a 3-gallon CB along with the 2 gallons that went into jusgs.  Too late.

The darlings,

2022 Chardonnay: day 8

 0800

• Brix 3.5
• Juice temp 72, room temp 71, outdoors 54 and raining

Small as the numbers are, 16% of the sugar that was there at last night's reading have been converted.  

Sound and sight are the same as last evening.

The juice temp is within a degree of the ambient room temp.  At the hottest point in the fermentation it was 6 degrees warmer than the room.

Probably today's the day to clean the carboys.  The last time we had this quantity of white juice (Muscat C) we went into 4 5-gallon carboys, and one 3-gallon.  Will prepare five 5's, a 3, and a jug or two.

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Interlude:  Cleaned five 5-gallon carboys and one 3-gal.  Will clean them again with meta when rack into them.

Also sorted through stoppers and bubblers, and whatnot, gave them a little scrub, and set them into meta to soak.  It's a little goofy to see all the types of stoppers we've used through the years.  I'm not a fan of the two bubble airlock any more and much prefer the three piece.  I always worry about rubber stoppers popping our, so I've wound up with a few theoretically breathable silicon thingies, and lots of those orange two-spout carboy caps (which I don't trust, either).  It's a hard life.

20:00

• Brix 2.6
• Juice 72 F, room 73 F, outside 60 F and overcast.

42% of the available sugars were eaten by the surviving yeast since last evening.  Only day 5 really compared.  Still, it doesn't seem like we'll get to zero tomorrow.  Maybe Monday (day 10).  Or maybe we just go a little early into the smaller vessels.  Same considerations every year.

Tasted the juice: would have more quickly guessed it was hard cider than that it was becoming wine.  Color may have influenced taste - it's that custardy thick yellow the whites always have at this point in the process.  Whatever the reason, it tasted good.  

2022 Chardonnay: day 7

 0500:

• Brix 5
• Juice temp 74 F, room temp 72 F, outdoors 55 F & cloudy

OK, still not quite 5 on the short scale, but closer.  

No visible bubbler activity, but I've made this sound recording of the sizzling inside the tank (after turning off the noisy exhaust fan).  Plenty of action.

Fiddling with the numbers while the juice burns: even though the brix numbers are getting small, the % of remaining sugar that's being converted daily is remaining large.  On day 6, when the brix budged from the prior evening's 7.5 to that evening's 5.25, 32.5% of the available sugar was converted, making it the third most productive day of fermentation.  (Why, really Why, do I feel like I need to say these things.)  

17:30

• Brix 4.2 (short scale hydrometer)
• Juice temp 74 F, room temp 72 F, outside 62 F and cloudy

OK, we're really under 5 brix, per the short scale hydrometer.  Juice looks and sounds much the same as this morning.  141 hours in since pitching yeast and about 84% of the sugar has been converted.  The current ABV is theoretically as high as 12.2%, with plenty more to go.  We'll see where we are tomorrow morning, but it feels a little less likely today that we'll be racking on day 9 than it felt a couple of days ago.

2022 Chardonnay: day 6

 07:00

• Brix 6
• Juice temp 76 F; room 72 F; outside 54 and clear.

Flat surface, little or no foam, some sizzle and circulation.  Bubbler is popping once every 5 seconds.  Alcohol possibly above 11% now, and a little more than 22% of the sugar still present.  Will add the chart tonight.

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18:00

• Brix 5.25.  Well, not really.  But the hydrometer said 5, so I switched to the short scale hydrometer, which said more than 5 (it only really mesures 5 and lower), so I'm saying five and a quarter and living with it.  Poo.  Not unusual for hydrometer readings to vary.
• Juice temp 74, room 72, outside 65

118 hours since inoculation.  Bubbler is popping about once every 38 seconds.  CO2 production way down, juice is cooling, a hell of a lot less sugar for the yeast to eat, but still enough CO2 to protect the juice.  

Here's what the firm looks like now.  Excuse the sound, which is fans and fridges.

2022 Chardonnay: day 5

 06:00

• Brix 9.5
• Juice temp 78 F, room 72 F, outdoors 54 and clear.

82 hours since adding yeast.  CO2 is popping the bubbler once every 2 seconds.  Foam is flat, sparkly.  About 1/3 of the sugars are left.  

The lines for brix and likely current alcohol content are kissing now (9.5 Brix and 9.35 ABV), and will likely be crossed at this evening's reading.  

For comparison, 

• the 2019 Muscat C, which started at about 24 brix and had a very slow start to fermentation, crossed at about the same brix and ABV, but at closer to 120 hours.  
• The 2018 Suav. Blanc, which started at about the same sugar level as this year's Chardonnay, crossed during the evening between day 5 and 6.

So this year looks to be faster to this point than the last two outings.  

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So maybe we should start projecting out to when we might rack off the gross lees?  Here's some white grape history.

• 2019, day 9
• 2018, day 9
• 2016, day 9 (and this was Lanza Chardonnay)
• 2015, day 8

Sunday, Oct. 2 looks most likely.

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23:00

• Brix 7.5
• Juice temp 76 F; outside 63 F and cloudy.

Little foam, if any.  Sparkly.  Still popping just under 1 every 2 seconds.

All is well.  ight switch to the short scale hydrometer in the morning, or certainly by tomorrow evening.

2022 Chardonnay: day 4

 4:30

• Brix: 15
• Juice temp 80; room temp 74; outside 61 & cloudy

Much flatter foam, did not foul overnight.  Still popping the bubbler 1 per second.  2 degrees F hotter.  About 57% of the sugar is left to ferment.  Alcohol level probably now 6%.  

19:00

• Bix: 12
• Juice 79 F; Room 74 F; Outside 65 F, partly cloudy.

Still pumping once per second, but foam is now flat and sizzly.  Slight decrease to temp.  All is well.  Tomorrow will compare it to other years.

2022 Chardonnay: day 3

 05:30

• Brix 22 (hydrometer)
• Juice temp 74 F; room temp 73.5 F; outdoor temp 59 F and clear

Big, lazy shag, 5:30 AM

Big, lazy, shaggy foam.  We've dropped just a smidge over 10% of the sugar in the juice over the +35 hours since we added the yeast (43 hours since we started sorting and everything else).  Yes, we have a spreadsheet going and will be able to compare things to prior fermentations.

13:30

Mayhem!  Thought I'd come home to work from there this afternoon, opened the cellar door and was nearly blown backwards by the smell.  It's official - we don't have to worry that the fermentation will be week because we did not add any yeast food.  

Bubbler was blown out and yeast scum had flowed down all four sides of the tank.  Cleaned it up as best I could, put the lid and bubbler back with less water in the trap (so it would burp less violently), but it was burping every couple of seconds and nearly throwing itself out.  So for the next hour or two I'm letting the ferm go without the bubbler: no worries about oxygen while the juice is throwing off so much CO2.

15:20

Bubbler back in.  12 burps every 10 seconds.  That's a lot of gas. Can feel the heat through the poly.

18:30

• Brix 18
• Juice temp 78 F; room temp 73 F; outdoor temp 71 F & cloudy

Pretty awesome.  steady bubbler popping but no overflow.  Given how active everything was I'm relieved we're still as high as 18 brix.  Hot as the juice is, we're still a long way off from it's max survivable temp of 86 F.  

13:30 megaspew

... under the hood

2022 Chardonnay: day 2

 07:45

• Brix 26 (hydrometer)
• Juice temp 68 F; room temp 73; outdoor temp 62

Yeast action starting.  7:45 AM.

A little yeast action already happening - happy to see that.  The juice is still very cool from the grapes being stored at Musto and then worked yesterday when the temps ranged from 56 F to 70 F.  Will keep an exhaust fan on in the cellar and maybe a cooling fan pointed at the tank.  Don't know whether I'll use any ice-packs inside the juice: might tape some to the tank once fermentation gets going in earnest.  

Can see that lots of sediment is already drifting down and, if not piling all the way across the bottom, is at least piling along the edges of the tank.  We did use a coarser sieve when adding juice to the tank this year: could add to the goop.  

13:00

Put your ear against the wall of the fermenter.  Sizzle.

21:00

• Brix 24.5 (by hydrometer)
• Juice temp 72 F; room 74 F; outdoor 66 F and pouring rain.

Notable lack of foam, but a constant fine bubbling.  Listen to the sizzle (and try to ignore the hum of fridges and fan).

And thank MH, StVH, for the awesome caches of photos: will get some posted soon.