The rewards and frustrations of home winemaking

Tag archive: MLF

Checking the MLF Initiation on Merlot

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 […]

Malolactic Fermentation on Merlot

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 […]