Hello,
I am making my first red wine. I bought 550lbs of CAB from UC Davis's
Hopland research station. They said the TA was .62 and that the pH was 3.6
and the brix was 23.2. I picked the grapes about a week after they measured
this and when I got them home I found:

TA .52
pH 3.88
Brix 23+ ( I don't have a short range hydrometer I just know it is above 23
and below 23.5)

I don't know why the acid changed so much but we put the grapes in the back
of a pickup with a black bedliner. It wasn't very hot but I am wondering if
this could make the acid drop and the pH rise?

Anyways I attempted to correct this by adding some tartaric acid. I wanted
to bring up the TA to about .7 and hopefully drop the pH. I figured that
the 550lbs should yield around 30 gallons of wine so I added 1.8g/L for 118
L for a total addition of 212 grams. I took a sample of juice to my lab and
got the following:

TA 9.2
pH 3.7

So I am a little concerned. First off I don't know how the TA got so high
with this acid addition. We have a high end pH meter in my lab and yes I
calibrated it with fresh standards at pH 4, 7 and 10. Is the acid
artificially high since some of the juice is still stuck in grapes that may
not have been crushed very well? The total volume of the must is about 53
gallons and even if I messed up my original titration and I go by the
previous weeks numbers my acid addition should bring the wine from .62 to .8
which is still in the ideal range for reds. I figured 30 gallons from 550
lbs to be conservative since Lum's book says 13-14lbs of grapes for a gallon
of wine even at 15lbs/gal that would be 36 gallons. So can someone explain
how they figure the amount of acid to add when you have all those peels in
there? None of the books I have really address the issue. I have made a
few white wines and since there are no peels in the must I had no trouble
adding acid and getting it where I wanted it.

Because of circumstances I went ahead and pitched the yeast. I am not sure
I should do any more adjustments and I am hoping the acid will drop to a
normal level. Do I add the MLF culture I bought or save it for next years
wine? Any advice will be appreciated.
-Alex