{"id":69,"date":"2007-07-13T12:00:22","date_gmt":"2007-07-13T16:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.washingtonwinemaker.com\/blog\/2007\/07\/13\/oregano-wine-recipe-ph-crash\/"},"modified":"2007-07-13T12:00:22","modified_gmt":"2007-07-13T16:00:22","slug":"oregano-wine-recipe-ph-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/washingtonwinemaker.com\/blog\/2007\/07\/13\/oregano-wine-recipe-ph-crash\/","title":{"rendered":"Oregano Wine Recipe: pH crash"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"pHMy oregano wine<\/a> has been fermenting very slowly, and I suspected a pH problem. I was following a recipe that called for 3 tsp of acid blend. I decided to add only 1 tsp at the beginning, because I was afraid the pH could drop so low that it would inhibit the yeast. The must was mainly sugar and water, so there wasn’t much to buffer it – a little acid could push the pH a long way. Yeast has a difficult time when the pH drops below 3. I decided to take a sample and do some measurements. The pH meter, reading 2.69, confirmed my suspicion. The specific gravity was 1.052, which is less than the 1.060 on 6\/30\/07. That means it’s still fermenting, but it’s been over a month and it’s still got a long way to go. I measured the TA as 6 g\/L (tartaric). I’m not sure what to do about this yet. I might be able to rack it and let it ferment out slowly under an airlock. I could try and neutralize some of the acid, pushing up the pH, to get fermentation going again.
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Update 7\/25\/2007 – Fixing the pH crash by neutralizing acid<\/h2>\n

To fix the pH crash<\/a>, I neutralized some of the acid with potassium bicarbonate (KHCO3). This will raise the pH and should get things going again <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My oregano wine has been fermenting very slowly, and I suspected a pH problem. I was following a recipe that called for 3 tsp of acid blend. I decided to add only 1 tsp at the beginning, because I was afraid the pH could drop so low that it would inhibit the yeast. The must […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,17],"tags":[48],"class_list":["post-69","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-enology","category-herb-wine","tag-nad"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t