The MLF Wars Ensue Slaying more Myths
The MLF wars continue unabated. Winemakers are easily found on Winemaking Forums lamenting the thought of the impending battles of Malo Lactic Fermentation. The cries of despair, fear and frustration are not new. Every year forums are visited by winemakers faced with the recurring battle of MLF. So in the interest of providing support to these winemakers I see this as an opportunity to at least set the record straight.
First it does matter what bacteria culture you buy. For the Cheapskates you get what you pay for. If you buy Viniflora® malolactic bacteria because it is cheaper you can expect a tripling of fermentation time. But VP41, VP31, Alpha or Beta expensive yes but it works. By the way does anyone ever complete an MLF with White Labs Bacteria?
Second if you buy stale ML bacteria from your local home brew store you are wasting your time and adding to your frustration. LHBS’s seem to have a problem selling fresh product. Probably because most don’t know what it is for and more don’t keep it frozen. And if they do carry some it is usually some liquid variety which usually sucks. But it is cheap, I know.
Third What don’t you know about temperature? 72 degrees in your wine will get you done at triple the time frame than 68. So turn on the heat and stop moaning.
Forth For the Chemists in the Crowd. Shut up already! Your ph is usually never a problem and neither is your alcohol level. You geniuses should just follow 1, 2 and 3 above.
Fifth In a hurry? Make a culture for 3-4 days prior to inoculation. It isn’t that hard and it really makes a difference than those Winemakers who sprinkle the fairy dust on the Must as some directions say you can. It is interesting Scott Labs implies for exactly that sprinkling for the direct addition Alpha YET the package calls for rehydration. Follow the Package.
Sixth. For the Stylistic ones. Well get over it. Inoculate at 2 brix or sooner. What better environment can you achieve than an 80 degree medium for bacteria to grow? Especially with all those nutrients floating around.
And this brings me to a myth that needs slaying. One of the fears that have dictated procedure for a very long time and sometimes for the worse is not racking off the lees when you have introduced ML in the Must prior to pressing. For logistic reasons, the introduced ML bacteria is already in the Must prior to pressing, then wine is placed in carboys to go to respective winemakers homes to complete MLF. Following the rules the Myth dictates this would not allow a winemaker to rack off the lees 24 hours later for fear of losing all the drowned bugs. Instead the Wine would have to complete MLF and sit on the lees until it was completed then and only then could the first racking could occur.
In order to accomplish this and not have a great deal of gross lees to worry about we adopted a method of multiple screenings during pressing to minimize gross lees in the first place going in the carboys. This system has worked well and gross lees have been kept to a minimum. Even with the elaborate screening we never experienced poor MLF action. But one could argue the bugs were still in suspension. However on the rare occasion of an H2S problem or fear of one, racking quickly was considered an issue as to not upset the MLF.
All of this worry comes from the idea that the ML bacteria can’t swim and fall to the bottom of the vessel and so if you rack you lose the bacteria and ruin the MLF. If you stir then you can’t rack off the lees either. Some have gone to lengths and we have too on a few occasions where H2s was feared to rack off the gross lees first and inoculate the carboys with a syringe. But this method does not allow you to take advantage of starting the MLF in the Must where conditions are supreme.
While this conventional wisdom of non swimming bacteria issue is spread in winemaking circles as a big deal I think it is terribly over blown. In fact I think it is mostly nonsense that has no bearing on the ability of the bacteria to get around. I think enough C02 in the wine gives bacteria all the movement they need in spite of their lack of swim fins.
In any case for me reality trumps pontification. This year using the new equipment we have talked about here in other posts, we pressed into tanks and distributed the wine to the carboys as usual on pressing day. Except mine that is. Mine remained in the tank until the next day. With tanks equipped with racking arms I took advantage of leaving the wine in the tank 24 hours before pumping it into my MLF room. (boiler room 75 degrees) In the process I left the gross lees behind. With wine in tanks in the boiler room the question was would MLF continue and be ok. Don’t think I didn’t have more ML bacteria and Nutrients at the ready. After all at this point I am still believer in the myth. Can you blame me? One added problem is you can’t see what’s going on in a tank but the action in the air lock was impressive. Was it the final AF finishing? Or was it MLF? Probably both. The only way to tell was to wait for air lock action to subside and break out the Accuvin test kit. All action has stopped. We wait with baited breath for the results.
Never mind Fellas, take my advice go the sleep on this Thanksgiving Eve. All is well and another paranoid winemaking myth has been slayed. Happy Thanksgiving to all our readers and contributors.
Maybe one of you has the balls to post this on your favorite forum. I would just love to hear the “experts” react. Especially when it seems sometimes they like making things more difficult then they need to be so it serves their Forum needs then actually serving winemakers and the procedures that need to be.
Gene we have done both added Mlc at 10 brixs sprinkled on like “fairy dust”into the must and also have waited till racking after Af was done or racking off gross lees.Then rehydrating vp41,alpha beta,and yes ch16.They all seem to work fine at temps around 70 or a bit above.Merlot gave me a problem once.NO just joking.Yes even the hard to Ml Merlot.Ok is it true,Merlot is hard to get thru Mlf?Have a great thanksgiving Thanks for all the great writing Gene.
Hi Gene,
Happy Thanksgiving.
Our Primitivo was done with MLF in just 4-5 weeks based on chromatography testing. It was kept at 72-74 degrees. Now racked and out in the garage for a few weeks of cold stabiliziation.
Question…while I understand the bacteria doesn’t have swim fins…can you explain the scuba gear I found while cleaning the gross lees out of the carboys during racking?
Nice try Mario but the assholes at Winemakingtalk.com removed your post Thanks anyway.
I have to make a little tented room in my 63 degree basement, in order to heat the wine up to 70, or 75, and use a little electric heater. I have wired up a wall mount thermostat, and have placed the temperature sensor/transmitter from one of those indoor/outdoor thermometer units in the tent, so I can monitor the temp from upstairs. What I have found is that if I shoot for 72 -75 degrees, the heat cycles between 65 and 79 in that tent, several times per day. That just doesn’t sound like a good thing for my wine, to be warming and cooling (although I realize it’s not cycling to that extreme, but it is changing to some degree).
I found that if I shoot for 68, the ambient temp in the little tent only cycles from 66 to 69. A little cooler than I’d like, but I’m going to settle for that, and a more steady temp. All of the wine did get warmed up at some point, post-inoculation, to 72-75.
It will be interesting to see how this works out, because I have some wine that had very favorable numbers for MLF, and used Enoferm Alpha, and then there is the wine that the club made (Primitivo, Kock-Lanza Cab, P.Sirah, and P. Verdot), that the club inoculated, and then my
Beckstoffer Las Amigas came in a bit hot and spicy, and I’m using MBR 31 on that.
I’m not even going to start my chromatography testing until mid-December, I’m anticipating the Merlot will take some time.
I understand your concern for the temp swings but what are the temp swings in the carboy in a 24 hour period? I am betting on zero.
Just up from the cellar. All wines are at 50-75 ppm via Accuvin. One exception the Primitivo looks below 50. Will do a Chromatography in 2 weeks. No discernable action in tank air locks on any.
To answer a question in the post. No, no one has ever completed MLF using White Labs “cloudy bottled water”. The stuff is terrible and only served to waste my time
I think they just mix mud in some water and sell it in a vial.
Doing chormatography on my Beckstoffer Merlot today (4 weeks since innoculation( and 2 weeks ago, it only had a little Malic left in it). It’s at 71 in my heated chamber.
All our wines are sizzling away we used vp-41 and also ch16 fairy dust which I like alot and never had a problem with I did use white labs twice the first time it worked second not so good we keep are storage room at 70 to 72 degrees and the wines are going strong haven’t ckecked chromo yet not for at least another 2 weeks
I don’t have much to add.
buy fresh mlb , morewine is good for fresh supplies , or I buy it right from scottlabs
culture it , use optimalo , keep the temps right
and add it when the timeing works for you .
everything else I have to say was covered in this previous thread .
Steve CRR had some good comments on his timing too.
http://www.westchesterwinemakers.com/2012/08/07/the-best-wine-i-have-ever-made-the-story-of-the-2010-vintage/
FYI , I’m back in Canada this January , already lining up my 2013 grapes .
got a line on some pinot noir from one of my favorite areas. the columbia gorge in washing ton.
I have also never had a completed mlf with white labs , I had to innoculate with something else.
I’ve always heard merlot is hard to mlf .
I’ve never ever found it to be any harder than anything else .
I have a friend who makes about 3000 cases a year of BC Merlot commericaly and he thinks its BS too.
I think its another myth that should be busted.
Well as far as Merlot goes I have not had any problems either. But I will say this. This year the Beckstoffer Las Amigas Merlot had an MLF that could beat the band. I never saw so much action during a MLF. Others in the Club reported the same thing going on. At first I thought it might be AF but it went on for weeks. I had to extend a one piece airlock with a 18 inch plastic pipe so the wine would stay in the air lock and not bubble out all over the tank cover. Pretty Amazing!
Agree, the Las Amigas did have a tart malic profile, even though the TA was not high at all. Big difference in tartness noticed and at about half way done I would say. really rounded out more than usual. My temps are in mid to lower 60′s and I don’t have much control over that, but they all finish out by the end of December (VP41) without problem, verified by Accuvin strips.
I can almost always judge completion by taste and activity anyhow, but I reserve some strips for the Beckstoffer batches as it would not be a happy day having that re-activate in the bottle!
Koch is really blowing off alot in MLF as well this year.
Yea my Koch is kicking like some one has it on simmer.Hope it drys out some more was at 0 brix for 2 days when it was pressed.Tasted very sweet to me.Some new oak is in order.
The zero brix when I pressed the Koch was also slightly sweet. Used BDX and it slowly went toward dry, and is not going to have any residual when done. Had Koch do this to me a couple of times before, but it never halted till dry. Crawled along for the last two or three weeks, but it gave me no worries. Stir it a few times and it won’t be a problem. Tastes bone dry when MLF is done usually.
Come on Dan E O Take the Challenge….What are the temp swings in the carboy LOL !
Question for Gene and Zac. For those of us who made the mistake of using White Labs this year with zero results. Can we re-innoculate with VP41? I’m not sure if using two MLB cultures are OK.
I made a WLP 675 culture using Zac’s recipe and after 5 weeks nothing. Temps at 72, PH and alchohol all within proper ranges. The wine is a sangiovese (Lanza/Musto) six 5 gallon carboys. One of the five took off.
Great article, thanks for your help.
Gene, I don’t have a probe in the carboy(s)..but I’m glad to hear that the Las Amigas Merlot is rounding out so nicely in MLF…I certainly felt mine was a bit tart before MLF.
Probably not more than 2 deg either side of a median temp with 6 gal thermal mass like that. Takes a good 5 or 6 hours to get 1 or 2 degree change, even if ambient is like 5 degrees different than carboy temp. With the cycling 65 to 79 and 72 to 73 median, the temp may go 74-75 down to 70-71 in extreme case. Probably a bit less.
Slow steady swings would give the most fluctuation, rapid cycles would be as Gene said close to zilch in temp change for the carboy, they would all get buffered out.
ML Bacteria do not discriminate. Whoever can eat Malic first is the winner. And it is those that are at the ready eat Malic. All others are ignored. Don’t worry it is not like competitive yeasts at all.
Paul ,
yes you can reinnoculate with vp 41 , no problems there.
mlb don’t have the conflict issues using two yeasts in the same must does.
One post Two Myths Slayed. Nice!
Puppy, I noticed the exact same thing with my Las Amigas, at just about half-way I started to notice it get tart.
I’ll bump the heat a bit .
Dan, you mean less tart half way through MLF, no? My impression was that even though the pH and TA were not indicating high acid, there was a high proportion of Malic in the acid composition. This made it seem more harsh or tart than expected, until it changes to lactic acid.
If you are getting increase in the acid profile, it may be from CO2 and carbonic acid.
Having made Las Amigas in 2011 certainly a “tart” year considering the weather it is tart. But so is the 2010 Orchard Ave Merlot a cold year and mine now just bottled is just mellowing out. I have to say I admire winemakers who can make solid judgements during the early phases of wine development. It is one thing I feel is a weakness for me but furthermore I think it is a place to be fooled quite easily.
you can tell a wine is tart while its going through MLF and full of carbonic acid?
you’ve a better pallet then mine.
all I’m tasteting for in a wine that young is warning signs of h2s or spoilage.
I wouldn’t even worry about tasteing for anything else untill mlf is done and the wine has had a chance to settle for a while.
I will never feel inferior anymore. Thanks Zac!
Not worrying, so much as getting a feel for profiles at all stages. Yes I am sure that you can tell the tingle of carbonic acid from the tartness of mallic and even the harshness of mallic from the sourness of tartaric as well Zac and Gene.
Tasting at all stages helps you differentiate the wines better I think, and it is interesting.
I will have to admit I taste at pressing and then not until after MLF. One of the reasons is not having to worry unnecessarily LOL Call me a Chicken but Ignorance can be Bliss.
I don’t taste my wines during MLF. What I meant was that as the Merlot was fermenting, and I was monitoring the alcohol fermentation and taking a little taste every day, as the “sweet juice” taste disappeared, about 1/2 way, maybe 2/3 way through it, I noticed the tartness.
I had watered it back from 26.5 brix to 25, and added about 1/2 the acid I calculated, and when I tasted the tartness I thought maybe I’d over adjusted. Went back and checked my numbers and they were ok, I hadn’t overdone it. It’s a bit of a relief to me to hear that mine wasn’t the only one that tasted that way.
Yon know what’s funny? I never had an MLF that would go through or even start well until I started using the white labs liquid MLB. Of course, that was also when Zac made me understand the importance of the nutrients. I have no problem getting a wine completely though MLF with white labs MLB, using Opti-malo and keeping the temp at 72 degrees with an electric blanket wrapped around the carboys and controlled by a thermostat. My complaint with VP41 is you can’t find it in small packets good for a small batch. The 2.5 g packets are good for 60 gallons and cost $32. So putting $32 worth of MLB into 12 gallons is a lot of waste. Why are there no 1 g packets of VP41???
Baccus is the same as vp31.
But 16 bucks for 6 gallons ?
Hey Zac, thanks for pointing that out! So Baccus is good stuff? Here’s the thing–if 2.5 grams is good for 66 gallons, than by purely by math, a 1 gram packet is good for 26 gallons. So why do the 1 gram packets all say they are good for 6 gallons and the 2.5 gram packets say they are good for 66 gallons? Something is fishy here! I’m thinking that a Baccus 1 gram packet when properly hydrated is good for 12 gallons no problemo. Thoughts?
I think you are on to something! But one thing worth mentioning is the cost of shipping by 10:30 the next day from Scott Labs with Ice packs. The packets are 22.00 dollars take your pick but the shipping ain’t cheap. My ML Bill this year was over $ 400.00 dollars.
Baccus is used in that ratio because it is generally used by home winemakers who don’t know what they are doing and don’t use nutrients and generally don’t do things right temp wise.
So it’s bullet proof and a fairly high ratio.
My question is , unless your must has a weird ph or high so2, why use vp41 at all?
If you culture your MLB , use nutrient and keep your temps right you can use older MLB formulations whose developments costs were paid off years ago and by it for 16 bucks for 60 gallons.
You don’t need to use the posh stuff.
Viniflora is one of the cheaper strains.
Cultured and using optimalo , I’ve never had it fail to take a mlf through to completion.
Vp41 is a direct innoculator , mbr strain. It’s formulated that way so a commercial winery inoculating hundreds of barrels can avoid culturing and just dump it in a barrel and forget about it . A home winemaker looking after a coupe barrels and carboys doesn’t have that problem.
One thing I might note here on Genes forum that I couldn’t say on wine press is that with grape wine making the point at which things start to make sence is when you make 60 gallons a year . So much is calculated for that amount . That’s why if you don’t make that amount splitting a batch with other people or joining a club works.
Either make a barrels worth or suck it up that you will have higher costs per bottle .
I guess I should clarify , I was talking volume , it could be ten carboys rather than a barrel.
Most home wine makers suppliers make packets of oak , additives , MLB based on that volume .
A word about Viniflora. That was the strain we always used in the past. We never cultured it and it was slow a shit but it worked we then learned about nutrients but it was still slow. The first time we used Alpha we flipped out at how soon it was done then a few years later we started the cultures too. So now I sleep at night knowing all these guys are getting their wine done and that is without going to each one of their cellars and measuring the temps and stirring for them. Which I know at least half of them don’t stir and don’t test with accuvin much less chromatography. They wait to hear when others that do test rack their wine. Russian Roulette is what I call it.
I wish it wasn’t so expensive but at least I sleep at night.
yes you do pay for ease of use and speed.
not culturing non mbr strains is a no brainer for a slow mlf. The only strains culturing is not requiered are mbr direct innoculant strains like our VP friends. these strong fast , difficult condition tollerant strains are a big step forward for speed and reliability but you do pay for that.
viniflora’s specific guidlines reccomend culturing and innoculating before alcoholic ferment hits the 40% dry mark.
so you get fast and robust .
or cheap slow and reliable.
kind of reminds me of a customer advice sign on the wall in our old motorbike restoration shop.
cheap , fast and good .
pick two .
This is an incredibly informative thread. Had a few questions. I have read that some people who co-inoculate yeast and mlb add the mlb near the beginning of AF rather than near the end as you are advocating. Gene is there a particular reason why you think this is the better way? Also, when co-inoculating, would it make sense to add a dose of opti-malo plus after racking off the gross lees to make sure the bacteria have adequate nutrients? Thanks. Linc
http://www.lallemandwine.com/IMG/pdf_Fiche-8IntALP.qxd.pdf
lallmand has some good info on this . there are pros and cons of each phase of innoculation detailed in this pdf
modern mlb strains lessen the risk of VA poduction durring coinnoculation making this process safe.
there is a good disscussion of innoculation timing in thread
http://www.westchesterwinemakers.com/2012/08/07/the-best-wine-i-have-ever-made-the-story-of-the-2010-vintage/
I chose to inoculate my Sangio (Lanza-Musto) and my Lanza Syrah immediately after racking off the gross lees. I made a super culture according to Zac’s recipe. I used Enoferm Alpha. A few weeks later, I did the same thing with my GIII and Las Amigas, but the Las Amigas was fairly high in alcohol, and low pH, so I used 41, also super cultured.
Everything went fine, except the Sangio, which I test the pH at 3.19. Due to container sizes, a portion of the original Sangio, at pressing, was blended with the higher pH Syrah, and it MLF’ed just fine, I assume because of the more favorable pH.
3 weeks ago I re-inoculated with ’41, again with Zac’s super culture method.
I have the Sangio in my MLF chamber, and have figured out a way to minimize the temp swings, so we’re at a steadier 70 -75. Just did a chromo, after only 3 weeks, and it isn’t done yet.
I am starting to get into an issue regarding when I want to put this into a barrel. I was planning on blending it with some of that higher pH Koch Cab, and some of that Syrah. March 1st is my drop dead date on the barreling. I am considering, that even if MLF is not done, blending it and putting it into the barrel and let it finish in there.
Any thoughts?
Zac use the same name and email address so you don’t need moderation to post. I just caught this today 3/11/13
A new thread on Winepress.us is surging regarding the co fermentation of yeast and Ml bacteria. It is a good thread. Here is how it boils down for me. Early addition of ML bacteria subjects the bacteria to heat spikes which could be a problem, I am not sure about this. Many Punch downs exposes the ML bacteria to O2, which could be a problem, I am not sure about this either. Inoculation at 5 Brix or lower the Punch downs are minimal reducing the O2 risk and the temps are in the high 70s/low 80s where ML bacteria seems to like to be. So I will continue to follow my past practice. Keep in mind I would like to co-ferment for a variety of reasons mostly getting a jump on the MLF and getting it over sooner. But until someone can definitively say acetic acid is not a problem from exposure to O2 and I won’t be killing ML bacteria during a 88-90 degree heat spike, I am staying pat.