{"id":327,"date":"2008-12-20T14:28:45","date_gmt":"2008-12-20T21:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wineintheshower.com\/?p=327"},"modified":"2010-02-27T09:51:12","modified_gmt":"2010-02-27T17:51:12","slug":"splash-racking-the-merlots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/2008\/12\/20\/splash-racking-the-merlots\/","title":{"rendered":"Splash Racking the Merlots"},"content":{"rendered":"

The merlot has been on my mind.\u00a0 I\u2019m bothered that the MLF<\/a> didn\u2019t finish, although the MLF in the barrel batch did not complete either.\u00a0 But, since the Cab MLF went great, I feel like there should be something proactive I can and should do to try to make it work.\u00a0 I\u2019m worried that it won\u2019t be stable, or worse, that after it is bottled the little buggers will wake up and the bottles might explode.\u00a0 Not having done this much (ever?), I have no idea if that is a silly worry or not.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been trying to research it, but can\u2019t get a good conclusion.\u00a0\u00a0 In the meantime, I got some more dried malolactic bacteria<\/a> from my friend, and some nutrient.\u00a0 His<\/em> MLF finished in his merlot, so I thought maybe it was the bacteria I used.\u00a0 I\u2019m still not in an optimal situation, because the bacteria is not fresh, and it is much more finicky than yeast when it comes to returning to life again.\u00a0 I just wanted to have it in case I could try to start it again.<\/p>\n

One thing I do need to do is give my home wines a little more oxygen, since the carboys don\u2019t \u201cbreathe\u201d like the barrel does.\u00a0 So, when I racked<\/a> them off today I splash racked<\/a>, making sure the wine splashed around a good bit instead of being careful to make it go down the side of the carboy.\u00a0 I actually got a little overzealous and accidentally splashed it all over my leg at one point.\u00a0 Oops.<\/p>\n

I tested the Free SO2 <\/a> with a color-changing tube quick test, which again was difficult to interpret.<\/p>\n

\"SO2<\/p>\n

Both lots seem to be about 28 ppm free SO2, which is definitely too high to try to start MLF again.\u00a0 The splash racking should also help bring the free SO2 down so I can try again later.\u00a0 In the meantime, I tasted some of the wine I *didn\u2019t* splash all over my leg.\u00a0 They are both tasting good, and lot B is still much fruitier than lot A.\u00a0 I left the oak in both of them again, they\u2019re not quite oaky enough for me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The merlot has been on my mind.\u00a0 I\u2019m bothered that the MLF didn\u2019t finish, although the MLF in the barrel batch did not complete either.\u00a0 But, since the Cab MLF went great, I feel like there should be something proactive I can and should do to try to make it work.\u00a0 I\u2019m worried that it […]<\/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":[33,4,40,32,41,8],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327"}],"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=327"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1378,"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327\/revisions\/1378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}