Originally Posted by
PB from MN
Another hobby of mine is wine making. If the wine is too acidic it can form tartaric acid (what cream of tartar is made of). The first time it happened, I simply strained the wine to remove them when pouring from the bottle. I now know that I need to cold crash the wine and the crystals will form and drop out before bottling. Cold crashing is taking the wine carboy (mine was 5 gallons) after it is done fermenting and placing it in a cold environment for a few days. It is then filtered out when bottling. I am not sure how they do it commercially in large vineyards.
Wine making is one big science experiment with its own language and I enjoy making wine and now I have added beer making.
When I was on a wine tour in France spring 2018, we saw the "Wine Diamonds" in the huge vats at Hermitage. Some of the vats are temperature controlled, these ones were not and the Tartanic Acid naturally forms on the sides and bottom of the tanks.