As of 3:20pm on Sunday the Petite Sirah is fermenting well. We mixed it up well. Temp is 67-68 degrees and Brix are at 25 (down from 28). Color and flavor are FABULOUS!
The target brix for adding the spirits is 10-12 brix with a target residual of 9 brix. When we add the spirits we will need to pour back and forth between 2 containers to ensure that fermentation is stopped.
Now that the temps are up we expect fermentation to accelerate. We will continue to punch down frequently the next couple of days and monitor brix. We estimate adding the spirits on Wednesday and pressing Friday morning. We might have to shift the dates 1 day either way based on fermentation--we can't miss the window of 10-12 brix. Lee leaves town for the holidays on Wednesday so Troy will continue to punch down and monitor brix if needed.
We estimate 32G of must. The yield of wine on Roger's petite sirah was 66%. If we get the same yield on Larry's grapes we will get 21G of wine (we should press lightly so we may get less volume). Using the fortification calculator on www.vinoencology.com we would get a port with a residual sugar of 8-9 brix and an alcohol level of 17%. For Port we would like at least 18% alcohol so we may add some extra lower proof spirits. It would take 1.5L of the 75% spirits to boost us the extra 1% percent. That happens to be exactly how much we have! So it sounds like we should name our port "Destiny". :o)
The group plans to bottle some more of the Reisling on Wednesday morning at 10am. Bob has some bottles de-labeled. There are about 300 corks in the garage.
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