# Calcium carbonate or Potassium bicarbonate



## geek (Jun 8, 2014)

I was looking through my inventory and found a 1lb bag of potassium bicarbonate and it is an acid reduction powder.

I see some folks on the forum using calcium carbonate to also lower the acid.

Since I will be making my first all-juice-no-water strawberry wine I may need to raise PH and want to make sure it is ok to use this Potassium bicarbonate so I don't need to buy the calcium carbonate.

I also found this bag of Acid Blend that I never used.


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## geek (Jun 8, 2014)

Here are the pics:






Sent from my iPhone using Wine Making


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## salcoco (Jun 9, 2014)

I have used the potassium prefermentation. do a bench trial first. I would use only citric acid in my strawberry wine. acid blend as a last resort. the malic and tartaric may make the wine to acidic to the taste although the numbers will be right. citric acid is the only addition allowed for commercial berry wines and seems to benefit the berry wines the best. why the concern for acid blend if the you plan to use potassium carbonate?


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## geek (Jun 9, 2014)

for the acid blend I was just showing that I found this in my arsenal.

Since I already have potassium bicarbonate I wanted to make sure I can use it for raising the PH (if needed to be raised) as I see others using the calcium carbonate.


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## olusteebus (Jun 9, 2014)

Here is some good information of Potassium Bicarbonate

http://www.fallbright.com/potassiumbicarbonate.htm


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## geek (Jun 9, 2014)

Good read, thanks.
I will try using what I have so I don't need to buy additional stuff....


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## LoveTheWine (Jun 9, 2014)

Potassium Bicarbonate should be OK as long as you only trying to make small adjustments. It is actually used to lower acid so it will be a guess as to how much the PH will actually go up based on additions.

As with other acid adjustments, make sure you add small amounts at a time and have a good tester (PH meter).


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## olusteebus (Jun 9, 2014)

That article says you need to cold stabilize and add cream of tartar.


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## geek (Jun 9, 2014)

After reading a bit it looks like the Calcium carbonate affects or may affect the flavor and mouthfeel of the wine; on the other hand the Potassium bicarbonate requires cold stabilization as you mentioned but that may be a hard one since cold weather is gone and I have no freezer with enough room....


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## SouthernChemist (Jun 9, 2014)

geek said:


> After reading a bit it looks like the Calcium carbonate affects or may affect the flavor and mouthfeel of the wine; on the other hand the Potassium bicarbonate requires cold stabilization as you mentioned but that may be a hard one since cold weather is gone and I have no freezer with enough room....



It all depends on the amount you need to add, but I would pick a potassium salt over a calcium salt. Increasing the levels of Ca2+ in your wine will affect your taste perception of the wine if you add too much. I would not worry about the cold stabilization too much. Bitartrate crystals are harmless, and you may not even see any precipitate depending on the exact state of your wine.


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## geek (Jun 9, 2014)

thanks chemist....


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## Turock (Jun 10, 2014)

I would suggest ordering calcium carb and using that instead of the potassium. The reason is that calcium carb does not need cold stabilization, but you MUST CS potassium carb to refrig temp or lower.


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