Winter Flood 2008

By clyde | Published: February 20, 2008

The ground was saturated with the nice rains and snows this winter, including a recent 2 inches of sleet that was like walking in a bunch of beads. Then we got an inch and half of rain with a couple hours on the night of Feb. 16/17 according to Wudack.

Posted in Meaningless | Leave a comment

The End is Near! 11:11 12-21-12

By clyde | Published: February 20, 2008

Recently, I got in trouble on a discussion forum for starting a thread with this title. Actually, the way that others ended up interpreting the situation, it was Sean who got in trouble. I would have rather it be. Not because I’m some kind of martyr, but because after thinking about this long and hard, I think he was probably more correct than me. But my first intentions were good ones, and I did think I was staying within the rules. However, by definition, someone misconstrued my intentions and therefore, by definition (DO NOT discuss anything that can be even remotely construed as political or religious talk. ) I broke the rules. I can only think that my side was sided with because of the good, no great, joke that was included!

So anyway, here’s why I didn’t feel that my subject was religious, but simply philosophical: The event that correlates with the time posted in the subject line is an astronomical event. There’s some serious celestial alignment about to happen in less than five years, and it was first known to be noticed by the Maya people quite some time ago. That some modern Zealots have taken this under their wing to be Armageddon is their own business. Some of those same people would be just as ready to claim that any particular rainstorm is a deliberate Godsend, especially if it does damage to their home. But does that make a rainstorm into a religious subject. Not in my book. Consequently those same people tend to “thank the Lord” for saving them, instead of bitching at him for tearing their house down in the first place. Mind you I do neither of those actions.

I’ve invited the participants and viewers of the forum to this thread on my site* , as I am not in fear of a discussion of a very interesting event that might be considered to be religious by some.

You, of course, are invited to comment or ignore, but I thought my explanation was more appropriately place in my own space.

*which by the way, involves a whole other mixed bag of emotions… I’ve never invited anyone here except winemakers or perl writers; the winemakers most likely did not recognize this as the default template of wordpress, an I’m pretty sure the perl geeks don’t care! But I did build a template for our main site, and have always been a bit more focused on content then glitz. But perhaps I should be more embarrassed about my scant content! But hey, I’ve had wine to make!

Posted in existentialism | Leave a comment

Back to Working with Cellar Control

By clyde | Published: December 19, 2007

Zipped Mr. Cellar Files Updated February 13, 2008

After spend the past couple of weeks attempting to get an instance of mc working on a Linux (Ubuntu) box, time has run out for the time being and it’s become important to get mc running, so I’ve switched back to setting up a winXP box to host mc. Once again, this blog will become a station for documenting the process and related, hopeful, progress. I’ll also jot a few notes down about what I learned working with Linux and the VR portion of mc.

Here’s a list of tasks (completed as of this writing) required for setup:

Update XP with special interest in having sp2 installed before snooping around the net much.

7 zip (recommended for unzipping jpgraph)

perl activestate

pm needed**:

db_file (for mh version 2.103)

gd-graph will also load gd

DBI:

Xampp (can now use php5 with latest version of jpgraph)

note that latest version of xampp (dec. 2007) has a slight bug in it and requires this to be downloaded also: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=32bc1bee-a3f9-4c13-9c99-220b62a191ee&displaylang=en

run xampp_setup

digitemp*

jpgraph* (new version just released earlier this month works with php5)

misterhouse:

create folder c:\misterhouse

create folder c:\misterhouse\mycode

open \mh\bin\mh.ini and save it as \mh\bin\mh.private.ini

edit mh.private.ini :

code_dir = $Pgm_Root/code/test, c:/misterhouse/mycode

voice_cmd = MSV4

cm11_port= com2

ibutton_cycle_minutes=10

lat 37deg 58 min

lon 91 25

latitude = 37.9833
longitude = -91.4176

remove test_x10.pl and mytest.pl from ./code/test AND

remove all items via web interface misterhouse home>setup mr house>Edit Items (must be same time as removing the above modules before restarting or it’ll crash)

ini editor>web>web_refresh (remove: meta http-equiv=”Refresh” content=”600;url=/misc/photos.shtml” /) [stops pictures]

dbi:mysql settings???

I also downloaded VNC Real to make working much more comfortable (from my laptop on the sofa!) Access Control set for +192.168.0.100/255.255.255.255

Failed to remember that CYGWIN is required to run digitemp. Also need to add CYGWIN to the user define PATH in xp. will elborate as time allows…. in a bit of hurry right now..

Note to self (you didn’t think all this was here just for you!) Serial driver for dual serial pci card is in G:\serialDRivers\ITD\IT887x

**perl modules are installed via a program call ppm, which is started from a command prompt (start/run/cmd) BE SURE TO CHANGE VIEW TO ****ALL**** PACKAGES. (yelling at self at 5:00 am after spending hours trying to download and install db_files.pm)

*unzipping these was a two step process: first one created a zip file from gz zip file

Posted in Cellar Control | 1 Comment

Crush Part 02

By clyde | Published: December 9, 2007

Enzymes are added directly to the press starting at about 1/3 full, metering in to mix as best as possible. Sulfites are added directly to the press pan at a rate or 20 to 40 ppm depending on condition of fruit. Free run is drained into mixing tank in the cellar where it is immediately treated with Gelrom (liquid gelatin) up to 1 ml per gallon for free run, and then after thorough stirring 1 ml of kiesesol per gallon is blended in. Lately I’ve been treating the pressed fraction of juice directly in the press pan with 4 ml per gallon of Gelrom and after thorough mixing, then blending in with the free run. The best practice is to keep the press fraction separate and only blend in after the wine is finished, allowing further fining as necessary.

100 ml of sample is taken and 4 tests are conducted:

  1. Brix
  2. pH
  3. TA

Sulfite is also checked and adjusted, then juice is allowed to settle overnight or up to 48 hours, depending on: grape condition, juice temperature, pH and the almighty cellar logistics. Clear juice is racked to fermentation tank. Lees are filtered and added to fermentation tank.

Yeast is hydrated per package directions. Water temperature can be estimated by running faucet water as hot as you can stand to hold your hand under, which should be in the 110F range. After hydration time (15 minutes) two cups of juice are mixed in and allowed to sit for another 10 minutes. Continue adding juice until vessel (5 gal bucket) is nearly full. Ideally, yeast is added to the tank as the juice is being pumped in, but shortly after the tank is filled is suffice.

Posted in Meaningless | Leave a comment

Copper Sulfate Additions

By clyde | Published: November 29, 2007

Legal limit in the USA of copper sulfate ADDITIONS to wine has been raised recently from 0.5 ppm to 6.0 ppm, but the residual limit is still 0.5 ppm.

Materials Authorized for Treatment of Wine or Juice

This ruling is a key clue in what happens with copper in wines with H2S or mercaptans: if the proper amount of copper is added (that amount that will bind all the reduced compound) AND it’s allowed to precipitate or is filtered out, then NO copper is left in the wine. This is why bench trials are needed as it is impossible for most winery labs to determine quantitatively how much reduced compound is in a wine. In my opinion, there should be NO limit to the addition rate in wine, but retain the residual limit to 0.5 as the copper will precipitate out with the compound that’s being removed.

Anyway, here is how I calculate the addition rates, after they have been determined via lab trials:

0.15 mls of 1% copper sulfate per gallon of wine equates to 0.1 ppm

Interesting quote from epa site:

Copper is typically present in
mineral rich foods like vegetables (potato, legumes (beans and peas),
nuts (peanuts and pecans), grains (wheat and rye), fruits (peach and
raisins), and chocolate in levels ranging from 0.3 to 3.9 ppm. A single
day’s diet may contain 10 mg or more of copper.

and:

The Agency
has set a maximum contaminant level for copper at 1.3 ppm because the
Agency believes that this level of protection would not cause any
potential health problems, i.e. stomach and intestinal distress, liver
and kidney damage, and anemia.

Posted in SOP, Winemaking | 1 Comment

Sulfite Additions

By clyde | Published: November 28, 2007

Just a quick note on sulfite additions post fermentation. If sulfite was added at crush, a double dose of sulfite is necessary post fermentation to achieve the desired free SO2 level. The formula I’ve always used for sulfite additions is: 0.0076 X gallons X desired increase in ppm = grams of addition pms.

Posted in SOP, Winemaking | Leave a comment

Challenges

By clyde | Published: November 28, 2007

I’m a person who likes to be challenged, both physically, spiritually and in conversation. The latter may sound like a contradiction giving my recent “Wore Down” note, but if looking at the whole picture, it is not. I took that challenge on, sometimes to a painful level, and feel that that project is pretty much completed. There are very few if any new subjects showing up in the winemaking group, and over the years, I’ve comment on them all. Perhaps, if my opinion changes, I’ll be back, but I doubt it.

One arena where I’ve been finding the most intellectual challenge lately is within this computer. During this slower season, I allow myself time to work a few sideline projects, namely controlling things with a pc via, mainly, a software collection referred to as Misterhouse mentioned in earlier posts. A large part of this challenge is picking back up on it after not working with it over the winemaking season. But that’s very consistent with winemaking, which is an annual process and constantly requires picking up where we left off at this time last year. My equipment does it, why shouldn’t I! Anyway, recently I started working with the voice recognition feature in mh, which I’m sure many of the users consider the core of the system. It was not required for my first project, cellar temperature monitor and control. But now I’ve got this hairbrain idea to control my winepump with voice activation. I’ve reached some pretty advanced level (given my background and skills, or lack of thereby) having been written a perl module that will control a relay board via voice commands. It’s fairly simple at this point, one command to turn the relay on; one to turn it off. Now the challenge, get it to turn the relay on AND then off again with the same voice command. Onward….

Posted in Meaningless | Leave a comment

Crush

By clyde | Published: November 28, 2007

The preferred method of loading the crusher is via harvest bins and the tractor. The tractor cannot tip the bins completely over, but just enough to allow the clusters to be raked into the hopper. This allows the operator to meter the volume of grapes to match the speed of the hopper (rate will be different on the grape varieties, mainly because of the rate of pumping from the crusher) and also a final chance to sort any MOG and rot from the sound grapes.

The pump on our currrent crusher has been removed, and instead we use the 2″ “blue” pump. There is a specific, short hose that has the Italian style (for lack of proper term) sanitary fitting to attach to the crusher, and a 2″ triclover fitting on the opposite in to attach to the pump. There is only one of these Italian clamps here at the winery (make note to get another!) but at least two gaskets. The hose has a makeshift fitting from some previous owners, but has worked just fine.

White wines or blush are pumped directly into the sanitized press, which is setup with with the plates completely apart (fully open) and the hatches facing in the most upward position. We’ve been using a piece of 12 gauge, insulated electrical wire to tie the hose onto the press, via one of the hatch latch holes. There should be enough of the hose extended into the press to prevent it from popping out in the event of surges from the pump. The drip pan needs to be sanitized and placed directly under the press. We’ve been using a spiral shaped piece of SS wire as a screen in the drain hole. A 90 degree 1.5″ triclover elbo is helpful on the drain, with a 1.5″ butterfly valve. A 1.5″ hose is used to carry the juice into the cellar, through the hatchway that’s been hacked into the wall beside the doorway. This leads into the air vent that is fished up from the cellar (fished by dropping a rope down with weight and then pulled up. This should be done before sanitizing so that any dirt that may fall in during the fishing process can be cleared.) For gravity feeding the juice to the cellar, the hose should be filled with fresh water and the valves closed at either end.

Posted in SOP, Winemaking | Leave a comment

Wore Down

By clyde | Published: November 28, 2007

After years of participating, at excessive if not obsessive levels, in online discussions, I’ve decided recently to cease. Instead, my efforts will be put towards this blog. If I put half the amount of time into putting my thoughts here, as I did in usernet (rec.craft.winemaking as well as misc.rural for awhile, and of course a couple technical groups for webwriting) then several volumes of printable material may end up organized, FWIW.

I’ve long thought that there were a couple of books in me. Perhaps the most useful will be an S.O.P. manual for my operations here at Peaceful Bend.

If you’ve stumbled upon this blog and have a question or comment, please feel free to email me or use the comment form. It would be somewhat comforting to know that someone is out there…… besides the search engine spiders!

I do still read (lurk) the yahoo groups, and might find it difficult to not comment on the conversations. In the short time that I’ve been silent, there has been some most ridiculous statements. In particular, there is a Ted from Iowa that showed up that had me first believing that he was a troll. But lately I’m convinced that he is indeed genuine. It was more comforting to believe he was a troll. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but criticizing other’s techniques coupled with namecalling (referring to German manufacturers as “Nazis” is completely uncalled for.

I have learned a tremendous amount from online discussions, and not just from he subject matter. But probably just as important are the skills of communication, both the physical aspect of writing and the emotional aspect of relating to others. There is core group of people that I’ve met within these discussions that I will always cherish. In this, I had felt for years now a debt to repay, and thus my constant participation. But at this point I feel that my debt has been repaid, most everything that I can say has already been said at least once, and the ‘surface’ community has worn me down. So, I’ll keep my thoughts ‘private’, here on my own blog. I know it’s a ‘taking my ball and going home attitude, but enough is enough.

The real busy part of my season is done now. This harvest was the shortest one we’ve done in years. The now infamous Easter Freeze made less grapes available and reduced the amount of custom wine orders. Fortunately, we had a substantial inventory from the previous year, earmarked for distribution. We made the decision to sit on this wine, not distribute quite as much, and try to get a few more other tasks accomplished around here. So far, it’s been very productive, with the new roof on the winery being the most impactive. I’ve thought about that thing virtually every time I approached the winery. But now it’s done and we can actually start considering a remodel of the salesroom…. once we have the funds! Until then, I’ve started to pull the front vineyard out. After jumping on the bush hoggin just before Thanksgiving, my efforts turned to feeding kT’s family for several days and allowing her time to visit with same. They left on Saturday and I began the *fun* task of pulling the wire out. First day accomplished 10 rows with the second day yielding 6 (last two short and 4 long rows). Rain, well welcomed, kept me out of the vineyard for the past two days and then today, 50′s and sunny, had Jeff and I back at the first rows pulling the vines and remaining posts. We got thru 6 rows. Many of the vines were in sad condition. The Chelois seemed the healthiest, which makes me want to replant the variety all the more. The wines we made from these plants were among my favorite, and that was before I really new how to make wine!

Posted in Meaningless | Leave a comment

Filtered Photography

By clyde | Published: April 2, 2007

kT blogged our main site with some images of the filteration this week.

Here’s some comments:

The earlier picture on the March 29th post shows the exit end of the lees filter. Notice the two way valve on the discharge. A short recycle hose leads over to a small open top dosing tank (more easily seen on the image on March 31st). The other direction is going to the production receiving tank. There’s a butterfly valve on each end. It’s handy to have one on the recycle hose to prevent it from going wild on surges. Of course, one’s needed on the production hose for switching tanks, etc.

I start by passing relatively clean wine (from the racking valve) through the filter and into the recycle tank upwards of three quarters full. Then add about 10-15 liters of perlite and mix well. I use a racking wand on the dosing filter intake to both keep it in place and to mix the perlite in. Usually I use an 80 gallon open top tank for this and a paddle to mix with, but it was occupied with Catawba.

Notice should be taken of the sanitary fitted piping coming from the green pump to the intake of the filter. This type of pump can build considerable pressure and standard hose is not only not suffice, but quite dangerous. At the very minimum high pressure brewer hose should be used, or better yet, stainless mesh hose. The pipe works best of all, though I’d really rather have one a bit shorter for this funtion(this is racking wand doubling as a pump connector)… a foot and a half long would probably do nicely (but Momma, He’s only got a foot and a half!)

With the inlet to the filter from the production pump (green in picture) closed and after the perlite is mixed in well with the wine in the dosing tank, the dosing pump is recycled for 15 or 20 minutes to precoat the filter.

I like starting the production pump while the dosing pump is still running, and then gently raise the pressure to about half a bar, and then switch the filter discharge from recycle to production (fill the dosing tank up close to the top). From this point on, the dosing tank is only turned on periodically, depending on the rate of increase of the filter pressure. One full dosing tank (30 gallons) was enough to do 500 gallons. The long stretch of filtration listed in the previous post was done with a total of 2/3 a bag of perlite. The pressure raised to just above two bar, but most of the time ran between 1 and 1.75 bar. There will not be solid cookies like there are when doing lees, but the last wine was Catawba and it was forced out with water. The mix of water did not quite get to the end of the hose and into the drum, so a slight amount was wasted, but given that about 4k gallons were process, the volume loss was within reason.

Posted in Meaningless, Winemaking | Leave a comment