Additions & Inoculation

Yesterday morning I raised the Pod temperature setpoints to 70° and 73° F and added 12.9 grams each of Booster Rouge and OptiRed to the must (30 g/hL).

In the afternoon I prepped 8 grams of the Uvaferm 43 yeast in 104° F water plus 12.9 grams of Go-Ferm. Last ferment I over-inoculated; this time I under-inoculated: 8 g/43 L is 18.6 g/hL, and the recommended inoculation rate for these specialty yeasts is 25 g/hL. For the WinePod the yeast should be packaged in 11 gram sachets.

Twenty minutes after starting the yeast rehydration I added about a gram of sucrose to the inoculum to proof it, and then punched it into the must after I saw good foaming. After punching in the inoculum I raised the setpoints again, to 75° and 78° F.

Today the cap was up. I punched in 17 g tartaric acid (0.4 g/L) and 11 g DAP (0.25 g/L) and raised the setpoints again to 80° and 83° F. I am determined to get this ferment off to a quick start to make up for the under-inoculation.

I received juice analysis results back from the lab today:

Ammonia	32	mg/L
Assimilable Nitrogen	95	mg/L
Disssolved Solids	23.3	°Brix
pH	3.84
Titratable Acidity	3.34	g/L
Malic Acid	1.16	g/L
Buffer Capacity	31.2	mmol/pH unit

The available nitrogen is quite low – I will add the full allowable gram per liter of DAP to make up for it. The buffer capacity is something new for us. I'm waiting on the potassium analysis from the lab, in order to use this number along with the other juice parameters in a calculation of the correct acid addition to achieve a target pH. More on this tomorrow.

Regardless of what the calculation shows, based on my experience with the Rancho Sarco fruit in the last ferment it is my intention to add 4 grams of potassium carbonate to follow up on the acid addition I made today.