Casey Wilson wrote:

> First racking -- 1/7/7 -- 0.996SG, 0.8TA(*), 74F.
>
> Tastes like alcoholic pomegranate juice, albeit a bit harsh. Very dry --
> will need sweetening before bottling.
>
> I wish there was a better way of determining TA than the titration kit and
> its sparse instruction sheet. I ran the test with distilled water buffering
> and as a straight sample, since the red product is neither white nor grape
> in color. What I need, is to observe an experienced person demonstrating the
> titration to me. Alas...., lots of beer brewers and one cider entushiast,
> but no wine makers besides me in the whole valley.
>
>
There is a comparison method you could try, not perfect but probably
close enough. Please note that this only works for dry wines... any
more that about 0.5 % residual sugar will throw off your taste buds
(that is unless you make your reference solutions with similar residual
sugar levels as your wine).

Mix up solutions of tartaric acid in water to 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7,
0.8, 0.9 percent by weight. Then taste test your young wine against the
reference solutions.

There are also enymatic-spectrophotometric testers available. Our local
winemaking supplies shop has one, and the tests are pretty inexpensive
compared to sending out to a testing lab.

Gene