Operator’s manual · The lab tech
The person who runs the bench and copies more figures than anyone else in the winery, where a wrong unit can go unnoticed for years.
Every number here is stored in one unit and shown in yours, and every conversion shows its working. The bench doesn't store anything itself. What you record on the lot is the record, and the bench's arithmetic reads from it.
Signs in as Cellar hand.
A lab panel: record whatever you ran
Open it →Who can: Owner, Winemaker, Cellar hand
- On the lot, record a panel: pH, TA, free SO₂, malic, VA, residual sugar, alcohol. Every field is optional and blanks stay blank, but a panel needs at least one number.
- Or photograph the bench sheet and press Read it. The boxes fill in from the sheet's own lines. The app does any unit conversion itself, never the AI model, and shows its working beside the figure.
- Check that the lot on the sheet matches the panel's lot. If they don't match, the app warns you but still offers the reading. It's your decision.
RecordsA lot reading dated to the day. If there are two panels on the same day, the one entered last counts as the latest.
NoticeEach measure comes from the newest reading that includes it, so a later reading without a pH doesn't hide the last pH you recorded.
ExerciseRecord a panel on the Demo Traminette lot with a pH and a free SO₂, then read what the sulfur item under the lot shows now.
Free SO₂ at the wine's own pH
Open it →Who can: Owner, Winemaker, Cellar hand, Accountant
- Read the molecular SO₂ math on the bench: the free SO₂ a target needs at this pH, and how many milliliters of your own sulfite solution make the addition.
- Know what the solution's percentage means. It's grams of metabisulfite per 100 mL, and the calculator, the protocol and the logged dose all read it the same way.
RecordsNothing on the bench. The addition you log afterward is the record.
NoticeIf a reading is low, the item under the lot asks you to add sulfite, not to run another panel.
The methods page: how each figure is worked out
Open it →Who can: Owner, Winemaker, Cellar hand, Accountant
- Read how each titration works. The factor is calculated from the equivalent weight and the sample volume, not given as a fixed number.
- If your reagent kit comes with its own procedure, follow the kit.
RecordsNothing.
NoticeBoth free SO₂ methods are documented because they give different results. Ripper reads high on a red wine, always in the same direction but never by a fixed amount.
Malic: a figure, or a plate's result
Open it →Who can: Owner, Winemaker, Cellar hand
- Record malic as a figure from a strip, an enzymatic kit or a lab, or as a paper chromatography result (clear or present), with the method.
- If a plate and a figure disagree, the more recent one wins, and the malolactic status shows which one it used and which it set aside.
RecordsA malic figure or a plate result on the reading, with its method.
NoticeA partial malolactic can't be forecast. The curve marks where the malic crossed the target, but never predicts when it will.
Stability trials: a test, not a treatment
Open it →Who can: Owner, Winemaker, Cellar hand
- Record a cold or heat trial: the day the sample went in, how it was held, the turbidity before and after, and the result with its date once you read it.
- Enter the result and its date together. A sample still being tested shows as waiting, and a lot that's never been tested shows as untested.
RecordsA stability trial you can edit until the result is in, since the result comes days later.
NoticeThe finishing plan only shows that a cold stabilization was planned, not that it was done. Only this record shows the wine was tested.
The calculators
Open it →Who can: Owner, Winemaker, Cellar hand, Accountant
- Use the bench calculators for sugar adjustment, sulfite and acid, with the working shown. Nothing here is saved. Log what you actually do on the lot.
- Fill from a lot to take its volume, its latest pH and its latest free SO₂, each with the day it was measured. A figure the lot has never had is left empty for you to enter.
- Choose how each weight is shown with the kg / g and lb / oz switch at the top of the SO₂, acid and sugar calculators. Each one has its own switch, so you can weigh metabisulfite in grams and carbonate in pounds. Each switch stays where you left it on that computer, tablet or phone. The iPhone and iPad app has the same switch, above the answer.
- On an iPhone or iPad, every calculator is under Calculator on the Cellar tab, with no lot needed. Work out an SO₂ addition beside a lot's forms opens the SO₂ calculator with that lot's figures filled in.
RecordsNothing.
NoticeAn alcohol figure worked out from a starting and finishing gravity covers only one ferment. If sugar was added afterward, the app won't give a figure and explains why, rather than showing one that leaves out the whole second ferment.