Mission Accomplished

above: bottles have been de-labeled and await sanitation

The Drinking Goat Brewing Co. closed March by bottling our ultra dry red wine. First we had to determine the acidity levels in our wine to decide whether or not we were going to have to treat it to raise the pH. Remember when you were in chemistry class in high school or college and you complained that what you were learning was entirely useless? Well get ready to stick your foot in your mouth. To determine the unknown acid content of our wine we turned to our old friend titration.

Materials:

- 3 drops of phenolphthalein (your indicator)

- 10 milliliters of wine grade sodium hydroxide (your reagent)

- Lab grade syringe with at least a 15 milliliter capacity and milliliter hash marks

- 15 milliliter sample of your wine (your unknown)

- small glass cup or beaker

Directions:

1. Put your indicator and wine in the glass beaker or cup

2. Add 1/2 a milliliter of your reagent

3. Swirl cup to mix reagent, indicator, and wine

4. If your red wine momentarily turns gray but stays red then repeat step #2 and #3, however if your red wine turns gray and stays gray you’re done and you should add up the number of milliliters of reagent to determine your titratable acidity in step #5

5. 1 milliliter of reagent = 0.1% titratable acidity

above: sodium hydroxide is added to our ultra dry red wine and phenolphthalein solution during titration

For a dry red wine you’re hoping for a titratable acidity of 0.6% to 0.7%. Our ultra dry red wine had a titratable acidity of 0.6%. We are relieved that we didn’t have to add any calcium carbonate (by way of smashing calcite and skeletal limestone with our rockhammers!).

Next, we soaked two dozen wine bottles we’d been collecting for the past several weeks in buckets of warm soapy water. After they soaked for about 24 hours all it took was a little scraping, hot water, and in some sticky cases some Goo Gone, to de-label the bottles. Then they were sanitized with a B-Brite solution and left to dry.

above: the fake-Frenchman fills a bottle with wine

For easier bottling, we racked our wine off of the French oak chips and into an Ale Pail with a stopcock spigot at the bottom. Then we filled each wine bottle, leaving about two inches of air at the top, and afterward we corked with agglomerated corks and our hand corker. The color is still a little on the weak side, but it has greatly improved from day one. The smell had improved since our last racking (thanks to the oak chips) and we noticed that as the wine trailed down the side of the carboy it seemed to have pretty nice legs. We ended with 19 bottles of our ultra dry red wine. Considering the low wine quality of the grapes that were available to us (Concord) and that this is our first time using an entirely fresh grape must, I’d say that the DGBC can be proud of their efforts.

On call throughout this final stage we had the real-Frenchman, the fake-Frenchman, the avid Archeologist, the auburn Appalachian, the beautiful Swiss lady, and a newbie who we’ve come to call the aboriginal Anthropologist.

Stay tuned as we finish the semester bottling our cyser and brewing our oatmeal stout (among other beer adventures).

above: the aboriginal Anthropologist (left) and the auburn Appalachian (right) use the hand corker on one of the wine bottles

above: the aboriginal Anthropologist (left) and the auburn Appalachian (right) admire the finished project, 19 bottles of ultra dry red wine