# Calcium citrate precipitation



## jgmillr1 (Aug 11, 2018)

Sorry to cross post, but the Homebrew forum doesn't have enough folks with experience in Skeeter pee.

Anyone else have large scale crystal formation after using calcium carbonate to deacidify a citric wine?

I made a moderately small batch of Skeeter pee and used the calium carbonate to lower the TA. Apparently I've hit some critical solubility constant and I've had massive formation of what I'm presuming to be calcium citrate. See attached picture.

I'm used to finding a coating of crystals along the walls of the tank and some sheets of crystals on the bottom .But this batch had a full 1/4" thick layer of crystal sedimentation across the entire bottom. Note that this isn't yeast either since I'd already racked it off the lees. I did not encounter this on a bench trial.

Guess we'll see how long it takes for the process to complete. Unfortunately it's too small a batch to put in a jacketed tank and cold stabilizate. Don't usually have to cold stabilizate wines without tartaric!


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## stickman (Aug 14, 2018)

I haven't worked with a citric wine so I can't speak with direct experience, but the solubility of calcium citrate is less than 1g/l in wine. The amount that drops out should be proportional to the acid neutralized, but some calcium precipitates can form in a "paste like" consistency and take up more volume than you might expect.


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