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Showing posts from 2008

Thermistor Fixed on Winepod

This past Sunday night I made a trip to the Shier to make the repair to the temperature control mechanism on the Winepod . The thermistor, a little temperature sensing resistor attached to the vessel burned out right at the conclusion of our primary fermentation. Fred Hekking of ProVina walked me through the repair while he was driving back from a weekend vacation in Northern California. The repair involved using a soldering iron to melt the polypropylene material in which the old thermistor was buried. I melted the poly, destroyed the old thermistor and carved a trench for the new thermistor. Then I used my finger to push the melted poly over the new thermistor. Fred said that the thermistor was rated to 700 degrees, so I was not afraid that the hot plastic would destroy the replacement part. When the repair was complete, I turned the unit on and it accurately measured the ambient tank temperature. Success! The wine continues to dry down and clear in the carboys. A dark se

Secondary Fermentation Continues

At three weeks into the second phase of fermentation, the Riesling wine is beginning ever so slightly to clear. Last weekend I had a scare when I logged into the server and saw that the air temperature in the basement was 52 degrees. The furnace went out the night before and the temperature was in free fall. I made a brief trip up to the Shier and re-started the furnace. I am wondering if poor ventilation and the high level of carbon dioxide was affecting the oil furnace ignition. The thermometers on the carboys were each at 54 degrees. Again, the D47 yeast survives down to 50 degrees. Close call. When I returned this weekend the carboy temperatures were back up to 57 degrees and the wine was still bubbling up. I measured the SG on a wine sample from the third carboy. It measured 0.999. So far, so good. I will add oak chips to the third carboy in four weeks. If all goes according to plan, I will rack and cold stabilize in five weeks. I also tried to measure the free SO2 level using a

Racking and Winepod F/A

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I am sad to report that the temperature sensor on the Winepod stopped working last Thursday. When I checked on the Winepod over the Wine Coach Software, the cooler was on and the temperature read 133F. Since it was clear that the juice was not actually 133F in the Winepod, I turned off the automatic temperature control. The temperature sensor shortly thereafter raised to 150F. It is stuck at 150F. On Sunday, the brix read just under 1.0, so I decided to rack and not take any more chances with the Wine Pod temp control. The actual temperature of the juice was 60F. After email and phone correspondence with Greg Snell and Fred Hekking of ProVina, it seems most likely that the thermistor has failed. Fred will send out a temporary test thermistor which I will wire into the system to confirm that diagnosis. Considering the cost to ship the WinePod to and from San Jose easily approaches $1000, Fred will probably make the repair in person on his next trip to the east coast. Hopefully the therm

The Brix Fermentation Curve

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The above chart shows brix and temperature over time since the beginning of fermentation. Perhaps with a little effort I could derive the equation that produces the brix curve. Looks to me like brix will be zero on 11/9/2008, about 21 days total when fermenting at 61F.

Not Done Yet?

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Alicia made a trip up to the Shier on Friday afternoon. When she arrived, the house was ice cold. The thermostat read 45 degrees -- indicating that the furnace was malfunctioning and likely off for the past three days. It gets worse. A 30 foot tree has fallen in the backyard. Luckily it only grazed the trellis on the back of the house. Alicia calls me at work. She goes downstairs. There is the sound of a high pitch squeal. I ask her what that Winepod screen says. Alicia can see the reflection of the lamp in the Winepod display, but there are no numbers. The squeal is unbearable. The Winepod is off and has been off since the power failure on Tuesday morning. Alicia presses the reset button on the battery backup and the squeal stops. She presses it again and the Winepod comes back on. What kind of battery backup leaves you shut down when the power returns? Unbelievable. The must is 54F and the brix is 6. The yeast can survive down to 50 degrees, but not below 50. Did the temperature dro

More Power Failures and an Acetic Acid Alert!

On Tuesday morning I awoke at 7:30am to a call from Rest Assured Alarm Systems. The power was out again the Shier as of 5:30am. Considering our apartment building was swaying in the high winds, it was not all that unexpected. The power stayed off until 9:30am, knocking the server out. I researched the power restore features of office servers and it turns out that many newer computers have a BIOS power management option that allows the computer to restore the computer to an on state following power restoration. When I return to the Shier, I will check to see if my computer offers this option. In the meantime, I am hoping that everything is okay because I cannot access the Winepod remotely. Based on the fermentation progress chart, I project the primary fermentation to conclude on Sunday with a brix reading of zero. I will rack to carboys at that time. Meanwhile, I received my juice analysis from the Cornell Wine Lab. Even though I was careful to freeze the sample and send it by Federal

Temperature Control with the Winepod

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The controller on the Winepod is probably the most important feature, even more important than the brix meter (since brix can be measured with the hydrometer). Fermentation at a steady temperature is critical to winemaking because it reduces the variation in fermentation byproducts (no banana odors please!!). The Winepod has an automatic temperature controller. It requires the user to enter lower and upper set point temperatures. The controller turns on the heater when the must drops more than 1 degree below the lower set point and turns on the cooler if it reaches 1 degree above the upper set point. I keep the Winepod in the basement where the temperature is between 54 and 57 degrees F. I originally set the set points at 62 and 63F. Bad idea. This caused the Winepod to constantly switch between running the heater and cooler. The heater would raise the temperature at the sensor so rapidly that it would overshoot 64F and the cooler would turn on. The cooler would overshoot in its coolin

The Power Failure

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Last night New York had its first significant rainfall in nearly a month. The rain brought strong winds and lightning. Around 8:30PM, I logged into the server at the Shier. The Winepod software showed no connection to the controller. I quickly switched to the camera. Pitch black. I realized that the power was out and the server was running on the battery backup surge protector. The battery keeps the laptop, router, and cable modem alive for about 30 minutes once power is gone. Past 30 minutes, the laptop stays on with its internal battery, but I cannot access it because the internet is down. If the power failure lasts more than 3 hours, then the internal laptop battery is exhausted. Unfortunately, the laptop, like most computers these days, does not have a rocker switch that can be left in the on position. With no way to turn the laptop on from a complete shutdown, a trip to the Shier is the only option. After 4 hours I realized that I needed to make the trip to check the wine and rest
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A few pictures of the winemaking process.... Above is a picture of the Fall Bright vineyard in Dundee, New York from which our Riesling grapes were picked. The Riesling grapes were harvested, crushed and delivered through a hose on the panel shown above. The Riesling now in juice form loaded into carboys before loading into Winepod. Pouring the juice into the Winepod. Adding the yeast to the juice. Using the wine thief and hydrometer to measure the specific gravity of the juice.

Brix Meter Correction

After exchanging emails with Greg Snell, CEO of Provina, I was able to correct the problem with the brix meter on the Winepod. I removed my shirt, and washed my hands and arms thoroughly with dish soap and water. Then after a rinsing, I sprayed a bit of sulfite solution on my arms and waved them to dry. Next I opened the Winepod and noticed that the juice was fizzing. A good sign. I plunged my arm to the bottom of the juice to find the brix meter. It was at the 10 o'oclock position. I confirmed that the magnet was face down and then turned the pomace basket so that the meter and basket locked at a 2 o'clock position. I then pulled the meter to the surface and performed a calibration set point at 37. Then I placed the meter back at the bottom of the juice. I took a SG measurement using the hydrometer, which read 1081. Fermentation is underway. No need to add the Go-ferm or additional yeast. At 7:20pm the brix meter reads 20.07, temperature 63.4.

Fermentation

Alicia and I made a trip to the Finger Lakes on Friday to pick up the Riesling juice. We spent the night at a B&B called the Trimmer House in Penn Yan, New York. http://www.trimmerhouse.com/ Our room was comfortable, decorated with faux-antique items and little bowls of chocolates. We were welcomed by our host, Yang, who was courteous and provided us with a list of local restaurants. We choose a place named Sarrasins on Keuka Lake. The food was decent and the drink menu featured local Finger Lakes wine. We had the Riesling, of course. On Saturday we drove to Fall Bright. The staff at Fall Bright were friendly and helpful. They walked us through the supplies and loaded 16 gallons of Riesling juice into three 5 gallon botter bottle carboys and a gallon jug. After loading the juice into the car and configuring the GPS, we made our way back to the Shier in about 5 hours. The temperature of the juice rose to 46-48 degrees by the time we arrived at our destination. We sanitized

Riesling

The Winepod unit arrived on July 15, 2008. It weighs more than 200 pounds, but I managed to get it down to the basement. I cut up the cardboard packing materials. I then rolled the Winepod over the cardboard panels across the lawn, moving a piece of cardboard forward as I progressed towards the bilco doors. I slid it down the stairs over the cardboard panels and rolled it into position in the basement. My computer terminal is located upstairs in the office. I tested the USB wireless dongle. Even though the Winepod was only 15 feet away, the intervening floor caused intermittent signal failure. So I moved the Winepod closer to the office and ran the 15 foot USB cable through a hole next to the radiator and up to my computer. I might have trusted the wireless dongle if I was going to be on site more often to trouble check, but since part of my goal is to monitor the wine fermentation using remote access over the internet, I needed a reliable connection. After a straw vote of myself,

Wine Plan

The wine itself will be made inside of Provina, Inc.'s WinePod. This part of the setup is the most expensive. The WinePod runs $3500 plus $400 in shipping costs. In addition, I will need to buy storage barrels for aging, bottles, and a bottling device. Although Provina is really pushing their frozen Napa grapes, I am planning to get fresh grapes this September from New York's Finger Lakes region. I will probably also buy the yeasts and additives from the vineyard that sells the grapes. While the WinePod offers electronic sensors and temperature control for fermentation, I will still need to closely monitor the wine at the beginning of the fermentation process. I will probably need to take PTO or work from the house for the first week of fermentation. Since I will be making the wine 85 miles away from the city, it is important to have a remote control mechanism to monitor the wine. I decided to purchase Symantec PC Anywhere Version 12.1. The control center will be my old
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This blog will follow my efforts to start a winery in our home in New York. My [now ex-wife] Alicia named the house "the Shier", as it reminded her of the little town that the Hobbits carved out of the countryside in Middle-earth. (The spelling of Shier is changed to prevent actual Hobbits from confusing the Shier for their hometown.) Here is the Shier in March 2007.