It’s been about 4 weeks since I added fresh malolactic bacteria to the syrah to try to get MLF going again. I’ve been stirring it once or twice a week and keeping a heat pad on it overnight and in the cool parts of the daytime to keep the temperature between 70 – 80∘F. I [...]
Tag archive: malolactic fermentation
Today was a game of wine shuffling. My hubby commented I’m playing Towers of Hanoi with the wines. Here’s what I have to do: I have 2 carboys of the syrah, and Paul needs those carboys back, so I need to move them into 5-gallon better bottles. The only 5-gallon better bottles I have are [...]
It’s finally time to bottle the barolo that has been bulk aging since March. I wanted to avoid bottling any of the goop that has settled out at the bottom, so I racked off the clear wine into a bucket. I noticed a white film at the top similar to what I saw a few [...]
With four different varietals in various stages of progress, as well as the last of the 2008 merlot to bottle, every weekend is going to be quite busy for a few more weeks. Since I was out of malic acid tests last weekend when the primitivo was racked, sulfited, and oaked, I took a sample [...]
Lots to do this weekend! Of course, there were 2 trips to the office winery to punch down the newly pitched Petite Sirah. By the evening, the temp was up to 78 degrees (in an air conditioned room) and there were serious caps on all of the buckets. Then I had to deal with trying [...]
I checked in with the guys yesterday, the petite sirah was due to be pitched. In fact, it looked like it was already bubbling away, like what happened with the merlot this year. But, it looked great — Paul added vinozyme, and the juice was a lovely inky dark purple color. Then I got a [...]
All of our wines are fermenting fast this year, the merlot was already at 0 brix by Friday. Dave retested all the cans Saturday morning after we had all gathered for pressing, and noticed that the hydrometer he had used was broken — there was juice inside of the hydrometer. But, luckily the juice was [...]
Yep, harvest season is in full swing. Our merlot from Dry Creek Valley in Sonoma arrived Tuesday. The plan was to do a 4-5 day cold soak, then pitch the yeast on Sunday — except it started spontaneously fermenting on Friday! Paul ran out and got the yeasts to pitch, ICV-D21 and BM4x4. Chris recommended [...]
I’m pretty sure the MLB is not viable anyway, but I don’t want to risk exploding wine bottles, either. What we needed to do was treat our merlot with lysozyme. Lysozyme is an enzyme that will lyse the bacterial walls, which definitely completely destroys any bacteria that might still be hanging around. Chris Van Alyea [...]
I finally joined San Diego Amateur Wine Society (SDAWS) and went to an actual meeting. It was very interesting, I met a lot of home winemakers and several people also have small home vineyards (yep, totally jealous). I decided to ask around for advice about my merlot-no-go MLF problem. Everyone steered me to the same [...]