{"id":255,"date":"2008-09-21T19:44:37","date_gmt":"2008-09-22T02:44:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wineintheshower.com\/?p=255"},"modified":"2010-02-27T09:57:18","modified_gmt":"2010-02-27T17:57:18","slug":"starting-fermentation-on-merlot-grapes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/2008\/09\/21\/starting-fermentation-on-merlot-grapes\/","title":{"rendered":"Starting Fermentation on Merlot Grapes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.claassen.net\/gallery2\/v\/us\/Hobbies\/brewing\/firstcrushmerlot\/Batch+B+at+innoculation.JPG.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-256\" title=\"Batch B at innoculation\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/Batch-B-at-innoculation.JPG\" alt=\"Batch B at innoculation\" width=\"494\" height=\"371\" srcset=\"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/Batch-B-at-innoculation.JPG 640w, http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/Batch-B-at-innoculation-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 494px) 100vw, 494px\" \/><br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<p>We did a cold maceration of the grapes for 48 hours, keeping them cold with additional dry ice.\u00a0 Our juice was at a starting <a href=\"\/index.php\/winemaking-definitions\/brix\/\">brix<\/a> (sugar content) of 26 \u2013 this reading is on the high end of what you want for a good wine that\u2019s not too hot or alcoholic.\u00a0 I also checked titratable acidity (TA) and pH.\u00a0 These both give information about the acid content of the wine, although they aren\u2019t necessarily linked.\u00a0 TA was 6-6.5, and pH was ~3.8.\u00a0 These are both in a good starting range, so I didn\u2019t do any adjustments to the juice.\u00a0 I really don\u2019t want to touch it more than I needed to anyway, since I have NO idea what I\u2019m doing!<\/p>\n<p>My partners-in-crime, Josh, Dave, and Paul, were pretty much in charge of starting up the shared batch at their office (where else would you make wine but in a server room?), and they added yeast nutrient and BM45 yeast that they got from Chris to the wine.\u00a0 I wanted to take the opportunity to experiment, so I added 2 different yeasts to my home batches.\u00a0 Lot \u201cA\u201d got RC212 yeast, which is supposed to tolerate high alcohol (which we would definitely have) and not produce a lot of H2S, which can be a problem with some yeasts.\u00a0 It\u2019s a by-product (like a burp) of fermentation and smells like rotten eggs.\u00a0 Not really what you look for in a wine.\u00a0 RC212 is also supposed to be good for \u201cgood extraction\u201d, which sounded good to me.\u00a0 It is also supposed to bring out fruit as well as spice components.<\/p>\n<p>Lot \u201cB\u201d got Pasteur red yeast, a yeast strain often used for Bordeaux wines.\u00a0 It is also supposed to be able to survive in high alcohol and not produce H2S.\u00a0 It also does not often get \u201cstuck,\u201d which means that it runs out of nutrients and just stops fermenting before all of the sugars are converted to alcohol.\u00a0 The descriptions of it say it brings out fruitiness and full body in wine.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-257\" title=\"Starting the yeasts1\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/Starting-the-yeasts1.JPG\" alt=\"Starting the yeasts1\" width=\"406\" height=\"304\" srcset=\"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/Starting-the-yeasts1.JPG 640w, http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/Starting-the-yeasts1-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 406px) 100vw, 406px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The yeast was rehydrated before stirring into the buckets.\u00a0 Then, time to wait and hope it starts to fizz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We did a cold maceration of the grapes for 48 hours, keeping them cold with additional dry ice.\u00a0 Our juice was at a starting brix (sugar content) of 26 \u2013 this reading is on the high end of what you want for a good wine that\u2019s not too hot or alcoholic.\u00a0 I also checked titratable [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[28,33,4,32],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1384,"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions\/1384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}