{"id":406,"date":"2009-06-18T20:34:08","date_gmt":"2009-06-19T03:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wineintheshower.com\/?p=406"},"modified":"2010-02-27T09:43:24","modified_gmt":"2010-02-27T17:43:24","slug":"rack-and-test-home-merlots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/2009\/06\/18\/rack-and-test-home-merlots\/","title":{"rendered":"Rack and Test Home Merlots"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"wine I noticed that quite a bit of sediment fell out of the home merlots, so I decided it was time to rack<\/a> them off again and test them for pH and acid levels.\u00a0 I also figured the Free SO2 <\/a> levels had dropped (I give up on the test strips) and added \u00bc tsp Kmeta<\/a> to each after racking.\u00a0 Also, I wanted to check out the carboy of barrel merlot to see if the acetone<\/a> was still present.<\/p>\n

Lot A was at pH 3.73, and the malic acid levels looked like the might<\/em> have dropped to below 200 mg\/L, but it\u2019s hard to tell with the strip.\u00a0 If I really wanted to know I could send in a sample to a real lab, but I\u2019m not too worried about it.\u00a0 I\u2019m more concerned with the taste:\u00a0 lot A still has less fruit than lot B, and is still kind of harsh, but is not so acidic as before.\u00a0 It seems to have mellowed out at least a little;\u00a0 maybe this lot will be the cellaring lot and just needs time to chill.<\/p>\n

Lot B was at pH 3.74 and malic acid had not changed since the last test, it was still at about 300 mg\/L.\u00a0 It is very fruit-forward on the nose with good oak and spice.\u00a0 Overall it is quite spicy with good fruit, and is very drinkable already.\u00a0 I racked this one out of a 6.25 gallon glass carboy into the 6.5 gallon carboy, and topped it with some excess barrel merlot.<\/p>\n

And finally, the real test:\u00a0 the carboy of barrel merlot.\u00a0 Happily, the acetone<\/a> is gone!\u00a0 Big relief!\u00a0 The pH on this lot is 3.53, malic acid reads high, 300-500 mg\/L, so no change here either.\u00a0 It tastes as nice as it did before, with a lot of oak and light fruit aromas. \u00a0It tastes smooth, with fruit-forward flavors of toasted oak, blackberry, and spice.\u00a0 Excellent!<\/p>\n

I think I\u2019m ready to have a tasting\/blending party with some friends and get these guys into bottles!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I noticed that quite a bit of sediment fell out of the home merlots, so I decided it was time to rack them off again and test them for pH and acid levels.\u00a0 I also figured the Free SO2 levels had dropped (I give up on the test strips) and added \u00bc tsp Kmeta to […]<\/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":[55,4,32,27],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406"}],"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=406"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1363,"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406\/revisions\/1363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}