{"id":172,"date":"2008-02-28T06:00:47","date_gmt":"2008-02-28T13:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.washingtonwinemaker.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/28\/titratable-acidity-mystery-consistency-and-too-much-acid\/"},"modified":"2008-02-28T06:00:47","modified_gmt":"2008-02-28T13:00:47","slug":"titratable-acidity-mystery-consistency-and-too-much-acid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/washingtonwinemaker.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/28\/titratable-acidity-mystery-consistency-and-too-much-acid\/","title":{"rendered":"Titratable Acidity: Mystery, Consistency, and too much acid"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cherry Mead<\/a>: The case of the disappearing acid<\/strong><\/p>\n

Suppose you measure 6 g\/L titratable acidity (TA), then add about 1.3 g\/L of tartaric acid. After you let it sit for a while you’d expect a TA over 7, right? Me too. You certainly wouldn’t expect just a little over 5 (call it 5.2), would you? I didn’t either, but that’s what happened and that wasn’t the end of it. I’m talking about my cherry mead and after that 5.2 measurement, I added another 1.3 g\/L of tartaric acid. When I checked again the TA stood at just over 5.5 g\/L, not the 6.5 I was expecting. Over the course of six months, my starting TA fell<\/em> from 6 g\/L to 5.5 g\/L as I added<\/em> 2.6 g\/L.<\/p>\n

What happened? I don’t know, but a look at pH tells me that the additional acid was affecting the mead, even if I wasn’t detecting it in my titrations. While TA went from 6 to 5.2 to 5.5, the pH went from 3.56 to 3.39 to 3.13. I’m going to have to chew on this for a while. Got any theories? I’d love to hear them.<\/p>\n

Honey Apple: Promising, but not ready yet<\/strong><\/p>\n

Compared with my cherry mead, the honey apple is a model of consistency. Yesterday’s measurements:<\/p>\n

SG: 0.996, pH: 3.56, TA: 7 g\/L<\/p>\n

were exactly the same as on 11\/15\/07. This is reassuring and gives me a (false?) sense of precision. It’s not ready to drink yet; tasting it all I could think of was “tart and young.” The Lady of the House would only say that, yes, it was an apple wine or mead but refused to offer anything more. It’s clear with compact sediment, and the numbers look good, so I think I’ll rack without making any adjustments.<\/p>\n

Tomato Wine<\/a>: Young, tart, and bone dry<\/strong><\/p>\n

It tastes just as harsh as you’d expect it to from these numbers:<\/p>\n

SG: 0.990, pH: 2.97, TA: 9- g\/L<\/p>\n

In addition to being tart, there is an unusual flavor that I wouldn’t recognize if I didn’t know I was drinking tomato wine. I’m not sure whether I like this tomato flavor or not – its hard to get past the harshness of this wine. The Lady of the House knew it was the tomato wine, even though I didn’t tell her. She made a face and said it was young and that there was “an acid thing” going on. This one needs some more time, and I need to neutralize some of the acid.<\/p>\n

So, I’ve got a mystery to solve, some acid to neutralize, and some mead to rack. Time to hit the “save” button.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cherry Mead: The case of the disappearing acid Suppose you measure 6 g\/L titratable acidity (TA), then add about 1.3 g\/L of tartaric acid. After you let it sit for a while you’d expect a TA over 7, right? Me too. You certainly wouldn’t expect just a little over 5 (call it 5.2), would you? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,22,23,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apple-wine","category-mead","category-measurement-testing","category-tomato-wine"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t