2016 MLF Complete
- Details
- Published: Saturday, 14 January 2017 16:51
- Written by David DeCiero
The 2016 malolactic fermentation has now been completed! I find that using my fermentation chamber and keeping the ambient temp at 70 degrees F gives the MLF bacteria a chance to get their job done by the beginning of January. Since I had an abundance of carboys this year, I also had two outside the chamber with brew belts attached. Those also completed at the same time. I am always pretty happy with VP41 as it chomps through the malic acid pretty easily, even on my "acidic" wines from Rhode Island. This was the second year I did not use BM45, instead using BM4x4. This removed my problem with the amount of SO2 produced by that yeast. This was the first year I used only one packet of VP41, so I saved about 30 dollars in the process. I had always innoculated with way more than prescribed (1 packet does 66 gallons), so since I had about 45 gallons, I used 1 packet and it turned out fine. I have added 30 ppm of SO2 and will check the free SO2 and rack in 1 month. This tends to remove almost all of the lees and minimizes the loss of wine from racking.