I estimated that there was three gallons of juice in the must.  So, based on the formula from the previous day, I needed three gallons of water, right?

The juice was left in the primary fermentation pale (with fermentation lock) in the basement overnight.  The fermentation lock was already bubbling by the next day, so there must be some sort of natural yeast in the grapes.  One thing is for sure:  the time I opened the pale a "cloud" of fruit flies came out.  That concerns me a bit, but not too much yet.  Every time I've processed the grapes there have been fruit flies about.

I did not measure the acidity before starting.  I think that was a mistake.  I was planning on adjusting the acidity, then adding the rest of the chemicals to get the wine started.  Given that there was an estimated 3 gallons of juice, I added 2 gallons of distilled water right at the start.  After sanitizing my equipment, I stirred the must and took a sample for titration.  Oh no!  The acidity had dropped to ~0.3% !  I tested again, same result.  How could that happen?  I never was very patience with chemistry.  

I took a thinking break from this, and tested the specific gravity.  It had dropped to 1.040! Wha? Nothing I had read even suggested that the sugar would need to be adjusted.  No matter.  After researching online, I learned that adding sugar back to the juice can be done by brining 1/3 cup water and 1 cup sugar to a boil, letting it cool, and then adding it a few tablespoons at a time.  Right.  First off, I don't have time to let it cool.  Second off, is  tablespoon of sugar really going to drastically alter the sugar content of 6-7 gallons of must?  I poured it all in.  The specific gravity moved up to 1.045.  I added two more cups of sugar, and the s.g. when up to 1.055.  Another cup brought it up to 1.060, and I was out of sugar.

Back to the acidity.  A titration test revealed the acidity had not changed.  I had tartaric, not acid blend, but the recommendation of 1 oz. to 6 gallons to bring the acidity up 0.15% should be pretty sound.  I added 1 oz of tartaric.  Bad idea.  The acidity went up to 0.9%!

I was running out of space in the primary fermenter, so I added the recommended chemicals, except yeast: campden, pectic acid, yeast nutrient.  I realized too late that I should have added amounts for 3 gallons of must, not 5 (since 2 gallons was just distilled water), so I removed about 1.5 teaspoons of pectic acid.

The pectic acid is such a fine powder, it really clumped up once it touched the grape juice.  It was hard to stir in.

Enough for the night.  I sealed up the primary fermenter and brought it downstairs.