13 August 2007
[Epi 11] TintoTV - keeping a crush log and knowing the oxygen effects
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So Tinto TV welcomes the 11th episode talking about two key components for home winemaking: logging your winemaking progress and understanding how oxygen can affect your wine.
First the wine log: this can be as simple as a notepad or as complex as a consistent set of recorded elements in a set of consecutive spreadsheets; either way, it just has to be a consistent system where you an keep track of your wine recipe, your customizations, and the development of the wine as it ferments and as it ages. Stephany and I can double up our notes with this winemaking video blog to help us keep track and remember what we did to make our successful (or unsuccessful) batches. This, while it may seem trivial, is extremely important for the home winemaker, especially because we don’t really know the true fruits of our labor till possibly multiple years after the must’s creation. With our crush log, we’ll be able to repeat successes and diagnose trends that ended in more unfavorable results. Here, for your convenience, are two example templates of set logging formats per batch (neither one is ours):
Now, the effects of oxygen (and air in general) on your wine: oxygen and air exposure to your wine has the general reputation of being harmful to your wine as it is developing. The truth is that oxygen does have its time and place in the creation of your wine. Fermentation can be broken into two parts, aerobic and anaerobic. Aerobic fermentation lines up best with your primary fermentation – during this stage, your must should be stirred well to mix the oxygen into the juice, this aids fruit flavor and aroma extraction. Also, as the yeast begins its magic, the oxygen assists the yeast in its reproduction. During this time, carbon dioxide is expelled and provides a protective layer from over-oxidation. As fermentation continues and carbon dioxide lessens, your wine becomes more sensitive to air; enter anaerobic (or secondary) fermentation. At this point we rack into our glass carboy and trap our wine with an airlock to prevent the air’s over-exposure to wine.
A level deeper, however, wine can undergo macro or micro oxygenation per the winemaker’s styling. In a nutshell, macro oxygenation connotes a wine’s large exposure to air, and micro conveys a wine’s tiny exposure to air. With our must, our montrachet yeast has a reputation of introducing excess amounts of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) into our wine. To dissipate this sulfur-rotten-egg component from our wine, we macro-oxygenated by “splash-racking” our wine. Hopefully, this was enough to tame any traces of the H2S. Micro-oxygenation goes a bit beyond our home-winemaking but is typically characterized by the slight permeability of oak barrels as a wine “breathes” as it ages.
OK, sorry for being a little long-winded, but we hope this provided some value. Like we said, we are looking for the next hot recipe to try out on camera for you and keep this as the best winemaking video blog out there! PLEASE leave your comments below (or if you’re too shy, you can email us - Tinto TV – with your questions or comments.
Thanks for joining us!
Nico & Steph, I love checking the videos. Since I am in my first year of wine making I hope you don’t take any of my comments as gospel. With that said, I think that your primary ferment wasn’t quite done on the Welch’s wine; it was still too violent even thought the sg was low. Great idea to bottle some wine in a spare bottle, that way you won’t have to add water to top it off after subsquent rackings, I always forget that part.
In a future episode, could you show what your different wines look like so far. I am always asking my buddy/vinting mentor what my wines are supposed to look like in the various stages.
— Bob Aug 20 #
I am thinking about picking up one of those auto-siphon kits online. They are roughly $15 and should eliminate the aggravating manual siphon process. The inside back cover of the Wine Maker mag where you guys were featured has a picture of one. For beer I typically fill the hose with water to start the siphon. The same approach works with wine but adding too much water to a small batch may dilute I suppose. Ciao and Salute.
— Rich Aug 25 #
Very, very imformative!!! Great for someone lacking in knowledge like me!
— Juan Carlos Oct 3 #