Acid Adjustment Calculator

The direction of adjustment needed depends entirely on whether your Current TA is below or above your Target TA -- when it's below target, the wine needs added acid, so the calculator doses tartaric acid (with citric and malic shown as alternatives). When Current TA is already above target, adding more acid would make the problem worse, so the calculator switches to potassium bicarbonate, a deacidifying agent that neutralizes some of the existing acid instead.

Yes, but not at the same gram-for-gram dose -- citric acid is somewhat more potent than tartaric acid (about 0.85 grams of citric produces the same TA rise as 1 gram of tartaric), while malic acid needs a dose close to, but slightly less than, tartaric acid for the same effect. Also consider that citric acid can be metabolized by lactic acid bacteria into off-flavors, and malic acid gets consumed during malolactic fermentation, so the right choice depends on your fermentation plan, not just the math.

Tartaric Acid Needed is the TA gap (grams per liter) multiplied by the total volume of wine in liters, so a larger batch simply needs proportionally more grams of acid to shift the whole volume's concentration by the same amount. Doubling your wine volume while keeping the same TA gap doubles the total grams of acid needed, even though the concentration change per liter stays identical.

Not universally -- higher TA does generally read as more perceived freshness and tartness, which is desirable up to a point, but too high a TA can make a wine taste sharp, sour, or unbalanced against its sugar and tannin. Typical style targets are roughly 6-8 g/L for white wines and 5.5-7 g/L for reds, though the right target ultimately depends on the grape variety, style, and the winemaker's palate.

Both acid additions and deacidification with potassium bicarbonate can trigger potassium bitartrate (tartrate crystal, sometimes called "wine diamonds") precipitation, so a cold-stabilization rest of several weeks is often recommended afterward to let those crystals settle out before racking. This calculator estimates the dose needed to hit your target TA but does not model that settling process or any further TA drift it might cause.