Measuring acidity of fruit wine

When's the best time to measure the acidity of the wine, I would have thought better after fermentation as adjustment would be easier but I saw an elderberry wine recipe which indicated that the acidity should be measured pre fermentation. Any assistance would be appreciated as always!

Good question. I've seen recipes that suggest testing/correcting acidity prior to pitching the yeast, which is what I did for my muscadine wine.

Prefermentation to know what you are starting with, you also want to make sure you have enough acid in there to keep the yeast happy and the bacteria etc unhappy, usually we dont test when its finished with a kit but with our tongues to see if it needs a boost. Also your must could have way to much acid at the start and you might want to tame it by dilution or planning for a MLF, you need to know this at the start.

One hint for using a TA kit on red fruit wine, you add a defined amount of juice according to the kit instructions and the indicator, you can then dilute it with distilled water and put the beaker, we use clear plastic disposable cups, on a white index card, dab a sample onto a white plate and start adding your NaOH.

WVMJ