I decided to thief out a little taste of each merlot before giving them a stir and testing for malic acid levels this time. They are both quite acidic and kinda harsh, but seem to be taking on some oakiness from the cubes I tossed in. Both lots were at max malic acid levels, >500 […]
Tag archive: malolactic fermentation
I gave the merlots a stir to mix up the oak and give the malolactic bacteria a little oxygenation to make them happy, then took a sample to check on the strip tests for initiation of malolactic fermentation. It’s kind of a given that there is already malic acid in the wine, so the first […]
Something interesting happened, the 6 gallon carboy of lot B merlot blew its top overnight. I thought it was done fermenting …. oh well. I’m sure it’ll be fine. A lot of solids also fell out overnight, so I racked them both into clean carboys. Each carboy got a dose of White Labs malolactic bacteria […]