Sometimes all it takes is a little stirring of the pot. Thank you
Trevor for your role in this spurt of livenliness in r.c.w.

And thank you TomW, Bob, Droopy, Bill and Paul for stepping up to the
plate to show r.c.w. is alive and well on this topic.
And thank you Lum for your, as always, kind and sage guidance.

Gene

Paul E. Lehmann wrote:
> "William Frazier" > wrote in message
> news >
>>Droopy wrote "In the future I am going tro expand my experiments on
>>spointaneous
>>
>>>fermentations with wine. I already do lambics in a pseudo spontaneous
>>>way adn I think I could manage that with wine as well."
>>
>>The fellows next door make wine as follows; Buy bushels of Concord
>>grapes, destem and crush with a machine rented from the local HBS, add
>>many pounds of sugar (this is done to taste) and let the mixture ferment
>>with what ever yeast came with the grapes or is floating around in their
>>garage. Nothing else. I can't convince them to at least use a wine
>>yeast. But, their wine is actually pretty good for a Concord wine with
>>residule sweetness. They have been making wine like this for decades and
>>they like it. I'm going to go watch next year and then try a small batch
>>of "spontaneous" wine using Baco Noir grapes from my vineyard. The high
>>acid in Baco grapes will benefit from some residule sugar.
>>
>>Bill Frazier
>>Olathe, Kansas USA
>
>
> The high acid in Baco may be a benefit for "spontaneous" wine as it should
> inhibit the nasty organisms that like a higher pH environment and can
> produce off flavors. I wonder if one could add tartaric to other must that
> have a pH around or above 3.5 and try the "spontaneous" method.
>
> I do not do the natural yeast thing but I do lower the pH of must to
> slightly below 3.5 before using the cultured yeast and keep the pH below
> 3.5. I have read that a lot of Australian winemakers do the same thing. It
> make sense to me as a 3.5 pH must will typically end up at 3.7 or above
> because of "spontaneous" Malo Lactic fermentation and at this higher pH the
> nasty organisms that produce off taste are happy doing their thing. There
> are ML cultures out there now that are quite happy below 3.5 so I see no
> reason to let the "wild" ones take over with the possible results of off
> flavor when it is a simple matter to keep the pH in check starting at the
> crush. The only disadvantage might be that there is probably less color
> extraction at the lower pHs.
>
>