Monday, September 16, 2013

...and this year is not slow

So last year, in the panic of downy mildew, I had to spray sulfur everywhere.  And the opinions of the fine folk at The Beverage People notwithstanding, I went from 3 years of wicked fast fermentations with a yeast that is usually referred to as "slow starter" (it usually takes a week), to a nearly 2 week stalled fermentation (in years past I'd not had to use yeast food).

This year, in under 24 hours, I've got a huge cap floating in the fermenter, and I'm having to do punch-downs.  In other words, back to normal.  I used a non-sulphur based "organic" (not sure how much I trust that whole "organic pesticide" thingy) fungicide and I had minimal powdery mildew, none on the grapes, and I'm on track for another wicked fast fermentation.

Altho this year, I'm still gonna use some Fermaid.

*** 1 level tsp. is ~4.5 gm ***

Update: 19:30 PDT -- Put about 1.5 tsp Fermaid-K into the must.  I'm guessing I have about 9 or 10 gallons of must, so about 6 or 7 gallons of juice, and it's recommended to do 1gm / gal near inoculation (I waited 24 hours to see what would happen on its own) and then another 1gm / gal near the 2/3 finish point (so in my case about a brix of 7)

No comments:

Post a Comment