# Can I ferment without the chemicals?



## MangoMead (Sep 14, 2013)

Hey folks new guy to the game, and I have what I hope can be a quick question.

Can I ferment and make stuff that is drinkable without the chemical additives like potassium metabisulfite, potassium sorbate, pectin enzyme and sparkolloid? 

By drinkable I am first, of course, concerned with safety, secondly with flavor. Pretty not too concerned.

Generally I'd prefer not to use unnecessary chemicals, but if they were easily available I'd probably just go ahead and go for it, at least while I was learning. However, where I am located (Thailand) getting this stuff may turn into a serious hassle.

So can I do without or sub in something else that might be more easily obtainable, preferably maybe a little more natural?


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## cpfan (Sep 14, 2013)

Yes, you can do it without the mentioned additives. However, K-meta and sorbate provide shelf life for the finished product and allow the wine to be sweetened. Pectin Enzyme and sparkolloid (and isinglass, chitosan, kieselsol) are part of the clearing process. Translation, you may not get the best results.

More natural substitutions? Believe me, if they were available, we would be recommending them.

Steve


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## MangoMead (Sep 14, 2013)

Thanks for the answers man.

Like I said I don't mind it not being crystal clear as long as it tastes good and is safe. 

Not sure I understand why it can't be sweetened without the chems though. It may be that my theory is still a little thin, but I thought that after you ran a ferment dry all the yeast was dead. At that point it seems like adding sugar would not kick fermentation back into play.

If there is still a little yeast surviving after it runs dry would something like pasteurization then sweetening and then right into sealed bottles work?


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## ShawnDTurner (Sep 14, 2013)

Not all yeast die when you go to dry, some will go dormant. Thus when you add sugar to back sweeten and bottle without Chems(You can sterile filter, if you have the equipment to do this).You will wake up the yeast and they will begin re-fermenting the sugar you added. You will have created bottle bombs! Cheers


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## MangoMead (Sep 14, 2013)

Safe to drink or safe to be around, yeah those are both important. 

Sterile filter huh? Would a UV device like for a salt water aquarium work for that? I have more confidence in being able to find and put together a device like that than i do in being able to find a steady supply of chemicals.

If I killed the yeasties with the UV right before a final bottling, assuming all was clean, as it ought to be anyway, should I be safe from exploding bottles?


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## jamesngalveston (Sep 14, 2013)

if you start your wine at say 1.110 and let it go to .990, and then rack and let it clear completely, there would be a very slim chance that it would ferment again when adding sugar.
i guit using sulfites and sorbate but i dont plan to let my wine sit for a couple of years
before i drink it....


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## MangoMead (Sep 14, 2013)

jamesngalveston said:


> if you start your wine at say 1.110 and let it go to .990, and then rack and let it clear completely, there would be a very slim chance that it would ferment again when adding sugar.
> i guit using sulfites and sorbate but i dont plan to let my wine sit for a couple of years
> before i drink it....



HAHA yeah as I'm thinking of going the Skeeter Pee / Dragon Blood style and sharing it with my buddies I don't see it sitting on the shelf too long.

I found out today there is one brew shop in the country, up in Bangkok, luckily it's only an hour or so away and I may be able to convince them to stock some of this stuff and make my life a bit easier perhaps.

I'm still curious if the UV thing might work. At first I was thinking of an aquarium model but they make them for drinking water systems too so I know those would be food safe.


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## jamesngalveston (Sep 14, 2013)

I read a white paper on uv and yeast, very hard to understand...according to them a 15 second burst was ideal..but i have no clue how much yeast they were bombarding...
you may want to do some real good research on that.


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## MangoMead (Sep 14, 2013)

Well unlike the chem supplies, home water filters are pretty common. Tap water here is not fit to drink unless treated, so these units are easily obtainable.

Seems like it would be pretty easy to set up an experiment to figure out what LPS flow rate kills yeasts off.


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## ShawnDTurner (Sep 14, 2013)

Sterile filtering is what is used by the Wine Industry. I doubt you would have the setup for this as it is quite expensive. Maintaining a sterile environment to do this would be quite costly. I am not sure about UV.. Try it......send samples to a lab for analysis. Cheer


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## GreginND (Sep 14, 2013)

MangoMead said:


> I'm still curious if the UV thing might work. At first I was thinking of an aquarium model but they make them for drinking water systems too so I know those would be food safe.



NO NO NO NO NO . . . UV light will degrade the wine, especially red wines. There are lots of chemical reactions that are induced by light activation. I would never recommend using UV to sterilize wine. Bad idea.


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## MangoMead (Sep 14, 2013)

GreginND said:


> NO NO NO NO NO . . . UV light will degrade the wine, especially red wines. There are lots of chemical reactions that are induced by light activation. I would never recommend using UV to sterilize wine. Bad idea.



Yeah I have read up on the topic a bit already and it seems that evidence suggests it would be a bad idea. I'm going to keep that idea percolating in my mind though and later, when I have some more experience under my belt, I may come back and do a little experimentation. 

I was amazed to read how much effect just sitting on the top shelf of a supermarket shelf exposed to the UV light from fluorescents could have on wine.

Also in my studies I found another way to be sure the yeast is dead and allow for sweetening is to add a little neutral spirit to bring the alcohol % up a just above where the yeast can live. I'm gonna guess though that fortifying wine is probably frowned on here for the most part.


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## jamesngalveston (Sep 14, 2013)

i fortify just about all of mine...i dont like sorbate are campden.


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## MangoMead (Sep 15, 2013)

OK good to know someone is doing it. I was gonna give it a try regardless  

Looks like my biggest hurdle now may be ambient temps.

A chilly night here might get down to 23c (73f) and a typical afternoon is about 33c to 36 (91f to 97f)


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## jamesngalveston (Sep 15, 2013)

i have read a lot on wine stabilizing, some say if the abv is 10 percent it will not ferment again, others say it has to be above 12.5 percent. I try to start my wine at 1.100 are 1.110
are close and i like to finish at .990....and i use Pasteur red are Premier Curvee yeast.
that just about guarantees me of 14 percent are better.

This time of the year hear its about 79 at night and 90 to 95 during the day.
Where i make wine it stays about 77 to 79 degrees.


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## seth8530 (Sep 15, 2013)

UV light, ie irradiating the yeast to try and kill them. Honestly, I am not sure how well it would work, but I could be wrong.

Also, I highly recommend adding sorbate and sulfite if available while back sweetining. Even if you ferment down to .990 at 13% ABV. Yeastie beasties are tough critters and tend to surprise you when you least want to be surprised.


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## MangoMead (Sep 15, 2013)

jamesngalveston said:


> i have read a lot on wine stabilizing, some say if the abv is 10 percent it will not ferment again, others say it has to be above 12.5 percent. I try to start my wine at 1.100 are 1.110
> are close and i like to finish at .990....and i use Pasteur red are Premier Curvee yeast.
> that just about guarantees me of 14 percent are better.
> 
> ...



From what I am reading stabilizing by fortification has a lot to do with the alcohol tolerance of the yeasts in there, so as long as you don't have some super high % tolerant strain the numbers you are talking about should be good.

As I understand fermentation will stop generaly when the yeast runs out of sugar to convert *or* when the alcohol % gets too high. I am theorizing that if while fermenting I was to keep feeding a little sugar regularly eventually the main yeast colony will kill it's self off by hitting it's % limit, then I would just need to bring the % up a few points to be sure it was high enough to kill that mutants or wild yeasts that might be present.

As I'm thinking of sort of relatively fast finishing, quick drinking stuff, this seems like it might be a good. Plus I have a good inexpensive source of quality 93% neutral spirits close by. I think that would be perfect for fortification.

Only thing is working out the math to know how much to add to get to the target %, not even sure where to start there. back to the books on that one.

It does not always drop under 80 at night here, it's rare to get into the mid or low 70s. I was living a few hundred Kilometers north of here last January and it dropped below 70 at night for a week or two and people were breaking out puffy jackets and wooly hats. I even dug out a pair of socks from storage because my feet were cold.

You can see my current whether conditions here if you are curious


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## MangoMead (Sep 15, 2013)

seth8530 said:


> UV light, ie irradiating the yeast to try and kill them. Honestly, I am not sure how well it would work, but I could be wrong.
> 
> Also, I highly recommend adding sorbate and sulfite if available while back sweetining. Even if you ferment down to .990 at 13% ABV. Yeastie beasties are tough critters and tend to surprise you when you least want to be surprised.



Theory seems to say that the UV will energize certain molecules that will break down into stinky stuff when they release the energy they captured. 

I guess I could push it to 20% just to be sure LOL


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## jamesngalveston (Sep 15, 2013)

After training my palate, I did just that, I can tell the difference in wine with are without sorbate and campden..I never thought that I could but I can now. The wine without has a cleaner/crispier taste to me...

Alternative to yeast nutrient/energizer.
Mix 1 cup grape nuts with 1 1/2 cup water...nuke for 1 minute and let cool.
Add in thirds to your wine. It will be racked off at 1st racking.
It does not impart the taste and if very effective....


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## MangoMead (Sep 15, 2013)

jamesngalveston said:


> After training my palate, I did just that, I can tell the difference in wine with are without sorbate and campden..I never thought that I could but I can now. The wine without has a cleaner/crispier taste to me...
> 
> Alternative to yeast nutrient/energizer.
> Mix 1 cup *grape nuts* with 1 1/2 cup water...nuke for 1 minute and let cool.
> ...



Grape nuts? Seriously? There is something sort of awesome about that. I love that stuff with some yogurt too. I have no idea if I can find it. There are some dry cereals here in the _falang_ grocery stores but I don't know if I have ever seen grape nuts. If I can't find them I bet I can get a decent idea of the ingredients and find a cereal or a blend of them that might have similar stuff. Maybe some granola... 

I had read some where else that some chopped up raisins and bananas (skin on the banana) was a good nutrient substitute.


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## Runningwolf (Sep 15, 2013)

jamesngalveston said:


> if you start your wine at say 1.110 and let it go to .990, and then rack and let it clear completely, there would be a very slim chance that it would ferment again when adding sugar.
> i guit using sulfites and sorbate but i dont plan to let my wine sit for a couple of years
> before i drink it....



 This is not correct and you're playing with fire. I can tell you plenty of times when I'm doing trial blends and I add sugar to them within a day or two the t-corks are blown off of them. I don't sorbate them because it's just a small 375ml sample I am doing for a 500-1000 gallon batch. Unless you have an absolute sterile filter (which I do) you should always add meta and sorbate if adding sugar. Even with the right filters I still do.


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## MangoMead (Sep 15, 2013)

Runningwolf said:


> This is not correct and you're playing with fire. I can tell you plenty of times when I'm doing trial blends and I add sugar to them within a day or two the t-corks are blown off of them. I don't sorbate them because it's just a small 375ml sample I am doing for a 500-1000 gallon batch. Unless you have an absolute sterile filter (which I do) you should always add meta and sorbate if adding sugar. Even with the right filters I still do.



First I have to say, Is that your dog in your avatar? He is cute as hell.

I tend to agree about wanting to make sure that there is no bottle fermentation going on. I'm not looking to make fizzy wine, nor am I looking to send glass shards flying around my apartment. 

But didn't folks make sweet wines before there were meta and sorbate to be had? 

As I understand things, and PLEASE correct me if I am wrong, when you add sugar the SG goes up and as our little yeastie friends munch on the sugar the SG goes back down. So it seems that if I take a sample and measure the SG and get XXXX reading, then add sugar I should get a reading of YYYY which is >XXXX. 

Then a week(?) later i take a reading and the SG is back to ~XXXX I know fermentation is still going on. I add sugar again, taking SG back to YYYY and wait another week(?). If this time the SG has stayed at YYYY then I know I have topped out the yeasts ABV tolerance and no more fermentation should occur even if I add more sugar? Do I have this right?

Continuing on at this point I think I'd go one of 2 ways, Option one would be to sugar to taste note the SG and let it hang in the carboy another week(?) and check SG again. If the SG had not changed, bottle it.

Option 2 would be to add enough neutral spirit to bring the ABV% up a point or two for insurance, sugar to taste and bottle it. 

Again please let me know where I am wrong. You guys are awesome, really.


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## seth8530 (Sep 15, 2013)

One of the pitfalls of that method is that the yeast will go to sleep when it decides it has had enough. The yeast does not truly die out, it is more of a dormancy kind of thing. However, their is nothing stopping the yeast from waking back up if more favorable conditions arise such as warmer or cooler temperatures or perhaps some chemical reactions during aging in the wine have changed the acid profile making the conditions more favorable for fermentation. Thus, a wine that had at one point stopped can once again start back up.

Take one of my family members for instance, he made a batch of blackberry wine by taking his blackberry juice adding sugar until he hit the " max tolerance" of the yeast and let if ferment. He later ( after a very long time) bottled the wine and was later greeted with exploding bottles. Not all of them exploded, in fact their was no real rhyme or reason to why some exploded while others did not. Some were still others were carbonated.

Also, I have not done a ton of research into it yet, but I tend to try not to max of the yeast ABV tolerance because I do not want to stress out my yeast.. angry yeast make angry flavors...

Granted, step feeding until the yeast decides to surrender is better than what my family member did, but we have improved more reliable methods nowadays. I personally have never been able to taste sulfite or sorbate in a wine, I do follow the directions but I have never been able to tell.

Why spend so much time and money on these projects just to do things halfway at the end and risk it all?


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## MangoMead (Sep 15, 2013)

seth8530 said:


> Why spend so much time and money on these projects just to do things halfway at the end and risk it all?



A good question that I'll give a two part answer to.

First, I'm a Californian child of the 60's and 70's though I don't eat vegan or even organic religiously like some do, I still do my best to eat the more natural or organic products when I can. If I have a choice to use chemicals or use an alternative route, so long as the alternative works comparably well, I will choose the non chemical option. 

Second, I'm pretty sure that at some point the chemicals were the alternative and not the norm, and the techniques to do these things without the chemicals are out there. I'm not looking to do it halfway, I'm just looking to do it differently, do it old school if you will. If it takes a little more work, a little more time, I'm OK with that. 

But in the end I'm not gonna compromise on safety, that is a given.


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## MangoMead (Sep 15, 2013)

seth8530 said:


> One of the pitfalls of that method is that the yeast will go to sleep when it decides it has had enough. The yeast does not truly die out, it is more of a dormancy kind of thing. However, their is nothing stopping the yeast from waking back up if more favorable conditions arise such as warmer or cooler temperatures or perhaps some chemical reactions during aging in the wine have changed the acid profile making the conditions more favorable for fermentation. Thus, a wine that had at one point stopped can once again start back up.



I got all caught up in the last question and missed the answer to my actual question. LOL

Ok so maybe you are saying option 2 is the best? Step feed until fermentation stops, then sugar and fortify with spirits for anti-fermentation 'insurance'.


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## seth8530 (Sep 15, 2013)

Honestly, if you are anti chemical ( which I do not recommend) I would ferment only dry and fortified wines. You dont need sorbate for dry wines and you can fortify wines well past the ABV tolerance of most yeast (20%) and make it as sweet as you want. The only risk then would be spoilage and oxidation which sulfite is meant to prevent... so you are still risking that.... ( please note that yeast produces SO2 during fermentation... might make you feel better about adding it to your wine)..


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## berrycrush (Sep 15, 2013)

I am making a small batch of concord without K-meta. I use lallzyme to get more color, other than that I let it go natural. Again I am making a desert wine, so I started from 33Brx and should end with enough ABV to stop fermentation. So far so good going into 10th day from start, the fermentation has slowed down to one bubble/20secs in a 2 liter bottle.


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## MangoMead (Sep 15, 2013)

seth8530 said:


> Honestly, if you are anti chemical ( which I do not recommend) I would ferment only dry and fortified wines. You dont need sorbate for dry wines and you can fortify wines well past the ABV tolerance of most yeast (20%) and make it as sweet as you want. The only risk then would be spoilage and oxidation which sulfite is meant to prevent... so you are still risking that.... ( please note that yeast produces SO2 during fermentation... might make you feel better about adding it to your wine)..



Well like I said, I am not flatly against it, and I will probably try it at first if I can get it. 

But definitely my preference is to do without, so long as I can do without safely. My crystal ball is telling me I'll most likely be going the fortified route in the long run, as I have a plentiful source of very nice ABV 93% neutral spirit. 

Any help on were to figure out how to do the math to know how much to add?


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## seth8530 (Sep 15, 2013)

MangoMead said:


> Well like I said, I am not flatly against it, and I will probably try it at first if I can get it.
> 
> But definitely my preference is to do without, so long as I can do without safely. My crystal ball is telling me I'll most likely be going the fortified route in the long run, as I have a plentiful source of very nice ABV 93% neutral spirit.
> 
> Any help on were to figure out how to do the math to know how much to add?



Wine making takes time, be ready for that... A lot of time.... are you comfortable using mathematical equations?

Also, you need to know for a fact that the ABV is what you think it is.. VERY important or you will not add the correct amount of spirit. Also be ready for a year(s) to age a wine that has been fortified.


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## Runningwolf (Sep 15, 2013)

I stand by what I said. Think of yeasties like little spermies. You can take precautions but it only takes one tiny one to get by to get you in trouble!


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## Downwards (Sep 15, 2013)

It's your choice, but I think if you look at the amount of sulfites you're talking about it's far less than your likely get in your diet if you don't eat organic and such. I'm sort of on the opposite spectrum, I do eat organic, but I do stabilize my wines. To me that's a specialty so to speak, not my main diet. I would liken that to saying I'm on a diet so I'll have my big mac and fries with a diet coke, hehe! I would say eat the healthy meal and treat yourself to a reasonable sized soda with the real sugar.. Everyone will see this different I'm sure. 

Totally up to you though, and I say go for it if you want to. Here's another thing you might think of if you want to do things the old way. Bottles and corks are relatively new in wine making themselves and before chems, they very often experienced popped corks and unwanted fermentation. So to say that they must have been able to prevent this somehow in the old days, is actually not correct. What they were able to do in the old days was minimize this by keeping them at cool and steady temps (caves and cellars) and really just hoping for the best. But prior to bottles and corks, wine was kept in things that were not so airtight- like amphorrae and barrels and such.. You might simply aim for that model with gallon jugs and airlocks on them. That way any new gas can escape through the airlock and pressure will be minimal. Unlike the old stuff though, this will also keep oxygen out at least until you drink some down, but then you could bottle only what was leftover with the aim of drinking it soon.


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## Downwards (Sep 15, 2013)

Also you could go with gallon jugs (or half gallon, like growlers) and a bung. At least then if you had a ferment restart, you'll just hear the bungs sailing across the room but the glass will be intact. You'll need to check these often though because if you do lose a bung, the wine will oxidize quickly without the K-meta to protect it.


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## MangoMead (Sep 15, 2013)

seth8530 said:


> Wine making takes time, be ready for that... A lot of time.... are you comfortable using mathematical equations?
> 
> Also, you need to know for a fact that the ABV is what you think it is.. VERY important or you will not add the correct amount of spirit. Also be ready for a year(s) to age a wine that has been fortified.



Yeah I can use a formula if I have a calculator to do the heavy lifting, no problem. 

I'm not planning on letting anything I make age much at all. I plan on making stuff that I'll be enjoying ice cold while I sit out in the heat watching my drum smoker do it's thing. Low brow Skeeter Pee inspired tropical fruit brews. I know some here say it barely counts as wine  That's cool, I'm making what I know I'll like to drink.



Runningwolf said:


> I stand by what I said. Think of yeasties like little spermies. You can take precautions but it only takes one tiny one to get by to get you in trouble!



HAHA I Like that. But what I really want to know is, who is the cute doggie!


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## chrisjw (Sep 15, 2013)

How about using heat to pasteurize the wine to kill the yeast?


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## MangoMead (Sep 15, 2013)

chrisjw said:


> How about using heat to pasteurize the wine to kill the yeast?



I asked about that earlier but you are the only other one to bring it up as an option.

I have not really seen any info on doing that in a home setting, but I'd be into exploring the idea as long as it did not evaporate out too much of the ethanol.

Off the top of my head I'm imagining running the wine through a stainless tube coiled through a hot water bath and then into a second coil in a cold water bath to quickly heat and then cool the wine. 

I'm looking forward to learning why this probably will not work 

Seriously, I'm learning a lot here.


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## MangoMead (Sep 15, 2013)

I love serendipity. Found this fortifying calculator while searching for pasteurization info.


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## jamesngalveston (Sep 15, 2013)

I have read all day about sorbate and most people say that sorbate is not needed if your wine is dry, are over 12 percent abv....
some say use it regardless the abv
some say use it only if you add sugar
most say its not needed in a fortified wine
confusing...to me.


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## Downwards (Sep 15, 2013)

jamesngalveston said:


> I have read all day about sorbate and most people say that sorbate is not needed if your wine is dry, are over 12 percent abv....
> some say use it regardless the abv
> some say use it only if you add sugar
> most say its not needed in a fortified wine
> confusing...to me.



In regards to this, I would feel comfortable leaving out sorbate in a dry wine, for sure. Yeast can't eat sugar that isn't there. I can't imagine why the over 12% ABV though if the wine is sweet. 
As far as added sugar, I think they are talking again about a dry wine. If the wine has residual sugars it's the same thing to the yeast.
With my fortified wines I still sorbate and k-meta. I know it's probably pretty unlikely that they will restart, but I just like to be sure.


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## MangoMead (Sep 15, 2013)

OK found this chart over on the homebrewtalk forum and it seems to originally come from milk pasteurization but I'm gonna say that I see no reason these temps and times cannot be at least used as a rule of thumb for wine. 


Temperature Time Pasteurization Type
63ºC (145ºF) 30 minutes Vat Pasteurization
72ºC (161ºF) 15 seconds High temperature short time Pasteurization (HTST)
89ºC (191ºF) 1.0 second Higher-Heat Shorter Time (HHST)
90ºC (194ºF) 0.5 seconds Higher-Heat Shorter Time (HHST)
94ºC (201ºF) 0.1 seconds Higher-Heat Shorter Time (HHST)
96ºC (204ºF) 0.05 seconds Higher-Heat Shorter Time (HHST)
100ºC (212ºF) 0.01 seconds Higher-Heat Shorter Time (HHST)
138ºC (280ºF) 2.0 seconds Ultra Pasteurization (UP)

It seems to me the sweet spot for the flash Pasteurization device I am proposing would be somewhere just short of the boiling point of ethanol (to avoid bubbles in the line and weird back pressure volcano type scenarios) so lets say 77c. I guess you would have to experiment a bit but it looks like about 5-10 seconds at 77 would be enough. I bet you could tweak the flow of some sort of gravity feed system to make sure the wine was in the hot tube for that long before getting quickly chilled again in the cold bath.

Since the wine is never exposed to the air while it is hot it seems like oxidization would be avoided. 

The trickiest part might be getting the hot bath stabilized at 77 while heat is being sucked out of it.

Another option would be to push the temp higher to say 90c and put in some kind of check valve to keep volcano events from occurring. Then pressure spikes would just get pushed out the back end unless somehow the pressure blew the whole thing up, which really seems unlikely so long as the temps stayed well away from 100c and you are not making water steam. Ethanol vapor has a way smaller expansion ratio than water (~400 vs ~1700)

What do you folks think?

Edit: If this thing worked I guess you could use it to Pasteurize a must before fermenting as well.


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## BeeWine (Sep 15, 2013)

You can ferment the wine using the stepped additions of sugar and end up with a sweet wine. There is an older [85 years i think} fellow living a few miles from me that makes wine this way!!!! It will work. Would I recommend making wine this way? No This will make a hot wine that takes a long time to age and mature. I would also not make wine without Camden.

John


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## jamesngalveston (Sep 15, 2013)

I am going to do some in depth research on this..
wonder what they did in the 20s and 30s and 40s..
may be a fun thing to read about....


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## GreginND (Sep 15, 2013)

Well, the fact is that wine has been made for eons without the addition of additives that we have today. They were simply not available. And the wine spoiled easily, was generally oxidized and probably the wine of yesteryear would not be palatable to us today. I am firmly convinced that if my great grandparents had the knowledge and preservatives we have today they would not make wine the way they did.


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## mmadmikes1 (Sep 15, 2013)

YES YOU CAN. I do it all the time.


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## ckvchestnut (Sep 15, 2013)

Pasteurization is non-selective in what it kills or inhibits. So like in milk once pasteurized, most I not all the beneficial vitamins and enzymes are also killed off. This is probably why pasteurized wine must take forever to age and mature - because there is very little of the beneficial enzymes left to do their job. 

This discussion has brought up a question in my mind though. Would there be a cold temperature range that would inhibit the yeast from fermenting after back sweetening but allow it to still age and mature? Could you conceivably keep the wine in a temperature controlled wine cooler? This would be feasible only with smaller batches of wine I guess that don't have to be kept for X number of years? 

Who knows what happened in the old days, if some of their brews spoiled and some not or if the temps they kept it was closer to what today's refrigeration is. After all today's room temp is not what it was way back when. So maybe the temps kept their wines from further fermentation and spoilage? Just a thought.


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## jamesngalveston (Sep 15, 2013)

I do ntt mean to be argumentative but you can buy wines that cost tons of money that are 30,50,100 years old, how did they do it then that the wine is still drinkable today...that is what i want to know.


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## seth8530 (Sep 15, 2013)

The problem with pasteurization is that the heating can damage the wine, however, if you must have it sweetened and you must not use sorbate ( I disagree) it would not be the worst option.. Just be careful not to burn yourself or have a bottle explode on you from the change in pressure caused by the heating.

Now, honestly, if you happend to have a few grams of cobalt-60 on hand... well then we would be talking business eh?


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## Downwards (Sep 15, 2013)

jamesngalveston said:


> I do ntt mean to be argumentative but you can buy wines that cost tons of money that are 30,50,100 years old, how did they do it then that the wine is still drinkable today...that is what i want to know.



Honestly, much of this was luck. There's a great book that covers the history of winemaking called "Inventing Wine". I highly recommend it. Not only does it cover the history of the advances in wine but also the many many many failures over the years, and the documentation from people in those times about how bad wines used to be. The wines you describe are very very rare.


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## jamesngalveston (Sep 16, 2013)

thanks for the tip on the read, would like to get that for sure.


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## mmadmikes1 (Sep 16, 2013)

If the yeast alcohol tolerance is 14% when you reach that level there is no need to worry about sweeten and re fermenting. The yeast is dead. No need to sorbate. At 14% the wine will preserve itself if you keep it CLEAN you will be fine. That brings us to Oxidation. I leave a small amount of CO2 in wine and decant when open. Oaking and adding tannins will also help. Like _I SAID I DO IT AND DONT MAKE BAD WINE OR MEAD_


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## MangoMead (Sep 17, 2013)

Some new thoughts and questions...

First a quick double check on fortification. Say I goof up and loose track of the numbers and am unsure of the actual ABV of my wine when fermentations stops after step feeding. According to the fortification calculator I am looking at, and my understanding of the theory, it actually may not matter. 

If I fortify as I bottle into .75 liter bottles, using 93% spirits, and I want to boost the ABV by 1% I would add .01 liters to each bottle, If I wanted to bring the ABV up by 4% I would add .04 liters regardless if the wine was 8% or 18% ABV before fortification. Right?

That begs the question of how many percentage points to boost it to be very confident to have no bottle fermentation? I'm gonna guess a 1%-2% ABV boost would be enough. Another question for the research list.

Another thought that struck me as I was working on this example. If you were doing this, would it not be a good idea to put the spirit in the bottle first and swirl it around as a last minute final sanitize, then fill the bottle with the wine to the desired level? The plan is for those bottles to be nice and clean already anyway, but a free final alcohol bath cant hurt right?

Next I would like to go back to the pectin enzymes a bit. This got brought up in my intro thread but it seemed appropriate to discuss more here in the additives thread. Methanol is bad, but it cannot be eliminated. Methanol comes from pectins being eaten by the yeast. Pectin enzymes make the pectin more easily digestible for the yeast so using them will increase the methanol level. These levels may all be pretty low, but it seems to me that lower methanol levels are better from a safety standpoint, hands down. Thoughts?


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## jamesngalveston (Sep 17, 2013)

Methanol is one of a host of alcohols normally produced during the fermentation of carbon-based compounds. An alcohol is basically a water atom (H20) with one of the hydrogen atoms replaced by a chain of carbons and their attached hydrogen atoms. Methanol (CH 3OH) is the simplest alcohol with a chain consisting of a carbon atom with three hydrogen atoms attached. Ethanol (CH3 CH2OH), the intoxicating ingredient in beer and other alcoholic beverages, has a chain that's twice as long.

Methanol can be distilled from fermented wood, so you may know it as wood alcohol. It's an ingredient in commercial products like antifreeze, glass cleaner, and paint thinners, but many people regularly drink other, more innocuous products that contain methanol. Methanol is found naturally in fruit juice and distilled spirits such as whiskey, wine, and beer. A typical glass of wine contains a small amount of methanol, from 0.0041 to 0.02 percent by volume. In comparison, the same glass will have about 10-15 percent ethanol. Methanol is much sweeter than ethanol, and even a small amount adds flavor to these beverages. This sweetness is what makes methanol attractive to use in an artificial sweetener.

All alcohols are toxic to some degree, but the dark side of methanol lies in the metabolites produced during its breakdown in the body. The same set of enzymes digest both methanol and ethanol. This stepwise degradation eventually yields the final products of carbon dioxide and water. The process prevents ethanol from building up to toxic levels in the body. But the small difference in the structures of the ethanol and methanol molecules means that the intermediate steps of the same process turn methanol into compounds that are far more dangerous than methanol itself!

In the first enzymatic reaction, methanol is broken down into formaldehyde. If you've ever dissected a frog in biology class, you may have witnessed one of the many uses of this chemical. Formaldehyde reacts with the amino acids in proteins. Proteins are chains of amino acids that fold to form very unique structures. The way these chains fold gives proteins the proper shape and the flexibility to interact with other molecules. Formaldehyde diffuses into tissues and cells where it forms crosslinks between different amino acids. The protein is stuck rigidly in whatever conformation it was in and is no longer able to carry out any reactions! This property makes formaldehyde useful for a number of chemical processes that fix things in a particular state


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## seth8530 (Sep 17, 2013)

If you plan or fortifying I would fortify the whole batch and not the individual bottles.


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## Runningwolf (Sep 17, 2013)

I agree with Seth and after you do fortify let it set at least several weeks before bottling.


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## MangoMead (Sep 17, 2013)

jamesngalveston said:


> Methanol is one of a host of alcohols normally produced during the fermentation of carbon-based compounds. SNIP



Then there is this from wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol



> Methanol has a high toxicity in humans. If as little as 10 mL of pure methanol is ingested, for example, it can break down into formic acid, which can cause permanent blindness by destruction of the optic nerve, and 30 mL is potentially fatal,[18] although the median lethal dose is typically 100 mL (4 fl oz) (i.e. 1–2 mL/kg body weight of pure methanol[19]). Reference dose for methanol is 0.5 mg/kg/day.[20] Toxic effects take hours to start, and effective antidotes can often prevent permanent damage.[18] Because of its similarities in both appearance and odor to ethanol (the alcohol in beverages), it is difficult to differentiate between the two (such is also the case with denatured alcohol). However, there are cases of methanol resistance, such as that of Mike Malloy, who was the victim of a failed murder attempt by methanol in the early 1930s.[21]
> 
> Methanol is toxic by two mechanisms. First, methanol (whether it enters the body by ingestion, inhalation, or absorption through the skin) can be fatal due to its CNS depressant properties in the same manner as ethanol poisoning. Second, in a process of toxication, it is metabolized to formic acid (which is present as the formate ion) via formaldehyde in a process initiated by the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase in the liver.[22] Methanol is converted to formaldehyde via alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) and formaldehyde is converted to formic acid (formate) via aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH). The conversion to formate via ALDH proceeds completely, with no detectable formaldehyde remaining.[23] Formate is toxic because it inhibits mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase, causing the symptoms of hypoxia at the cellular level, and also causing metabolic acidosis, among a variety of other metabolic disturbances.[24]



Methanol = toxic = the less ingested the better. Seems quite straightforward to me.



seth8530 said:


> If you plan or fortifying I would fortify the whole batch and not the individual bottles.



Why? It seems that doing it per bottle allows for more exact control of the mixture. It would also allow for more easy experimenting with the fortification %. 

Do one bottle with no fort, 1 at 1% boost, 1 at 2% boost etc. Let them sit for a few weeks and then have a tasting party to compare them.


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## Downwards (Sep 17, 2013)

Fortifying the whole batch is the best way to get consistency for each bottle.


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## MangoMead (Sep 17, 2013)

Downwards said:


> Fortifying the whole batch is the best way to get consistency for each bottle.



That makes sense. And I guess if I think ahead and properly mark up containers ahead of time I will know how much is in the container within a fairly small fraction of a liter. 

Dealing with less than a liter at a time tiny variations in measurement of the spirits could make for a noticeable difference between batches.

You convinced me. At least for batches after I figure out how much I want to fortify.

Any thought about how many ABV% points to add? The yeast strains i'm looking at using are rated up to 16% to 18% So I think i'd be sort of surprised to see any wild yeasts that can keep up at that level so I'm just looking for a little insurance to keep the cast yeast from restarting.

I'm still thinking about the pasteurization thing too, but probably more of a bottle/vat style like the beer guys do it. Seems simple and effective.


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## seth8530 (Sep 17, 2013)

I would fortify so that your ABV is at least 3% higher than that of the yeast supposed max tolerance. You need to fortify based on your ABV at the end of fermentation.


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## Downwards (Sep 17, 2013)

Yes, I've seen yeasts that were rated to go to 18% actually go to 20%. Didn't know the 3% rule, but that does jive with my experience..


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## MangoMead (Sep 17, 2013)

3% sounds like a good jumping off point. Maybe I'll bottle half to pasteurize and fortify the rest and compare the results. Man I can't wait to get started. 

My bottle collection has begun already. Soon I'll have something to fill them with besides dreams.


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## jswordy (Sep 17, 2013)

MangoMead said:


> A good question that I'll give a two part answer to.
> 
> First, I'm a Californian child of the 60's and 70's though I don't eat vegan or even organic religiously like some do, I still do my best to eat the more natural or organic products when I can. If I have a choice to use chemicals or use an alternative route, so long as the alternative works comparably well, I will choose the non chemical option.
> 
> ...



I thought I was gonna get away without commenting on this thread, but NOOOOO!

Read this....

http://www.pesticideinfo.org/DS.jsp?sk=29143

Be sure to look at the CALIFORNIA stats at bottom.

And you are worried about chemicals? Then don't make or consume wine, period, is my advice. (Commercial wineries were actually filtering wines through ASBESTOS until the mid-80s.)

Oh yeah, let's not forget my other fav, the MSDS for the chemical we are creating!

http://www.sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=9923956


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## seth8530 (Sep 17, 2013)

Downwards said:


> Yes, I've seen yeasts that were rated to go to 18% actually go to 20%. Didn't know the 3% rule, but that does jive with my experience..




3% was just something I figured would be on the safe side.


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## jamesngalveston (Sep 17, 2013)

dang wordy, you scare me....
I have not eaten any fast food in 35 years..
Nothing from a box are a can.
I cook almost every night.
I think i can afford to enjoy my wine, I have saved from all those chemicals for years, might as well go out , drunk and happy.
I love it when you post answers..there always informative and fun...
Thanks.


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## MangoMead (Sep 18, 2013)

jswordy said:


> I thought I was gonna get away without commenting on this thread, but NOOOOO!
> 
> Read this....
> 
> ...



Brother you do not have to tell me about pesticide use. I worked for years at a non-profit place focused on educating people about nasty chemicals and and how to avoid them and use non toxic or at least less toxic alternatives.

I'll lay one on you that I bet you have never thought about, those wood telephone poles that are pretty much everywhere in the states, don't touch them, try not to even stand near them. If you can smell it you are way too close. Don't plant anything you plan to eat within at least 10 yards from them. Without getting too close, look at one to see if there are what look like little plastic plugs set into the base. Periodically they come around and drill a hole into the pole and pump it full of a recharge dose of nastiness to extend its service life. And the stuff they use for wood is WAY scarier than anything approved for food use. Stay away from that green preserved wood too. Bad bad news.

But in this modern world one cannot avoid any of this completely. You have to pick your battles and be sensible. I have not let commercial wine pass my lips in maybe a decade. I don't like much like grape wine anyway so not a loss. In the last 3 years or so I could count the commercial beers I have had on one hand maybe, 2 hands for sure. 

That is one of the reasons I want to get into this, I miss enjoying a cold adult beverage. All the beer here is pisswater commercial lagers (shudder). I won't drink a beer I can see through. My only option is to make my brew myself and if i'm doing that I'll be damned if I'm gonna add crap that is not absolutely necessary.


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## jswordy (Sep 18, 2013)

The words "absolutely necessary" will vary depending on what you are making and how it is turning out. You'll see as you go along what you'll need to do and what you don't.

My point is that alcohol's MSDS far outweighs those of the commonly used substances to preserve wine. So I guess to be "safe," as you originally posted, you need to remove the alcohol from your wine. It's the most damaging component.

In my view, it pays to be aware but there comes a point where people start to live their lives in fear. I know many living like that - they fear electromagnetic waves, they fear radiation, they fear nearly all foods, etc., etc. I am not going to that place. Instead, I try to be an informed realist. If I am drinking at any level beyond zero, I am introducing a harmful substance into my body. That's a fact.


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## MangoMead (Sep 18, 2013)

jswordy said:


> The words "absolutely necessary" will vary depending on what you are making and how it is turning out. You'll see as you go along what you'll need to do and what you don't.
> 
> My point is that alcohol's MSDS far outweighs those of the commonly used substances to preserve wine. So I guess to be "safe," as you originally posted, you need to remove the alcohol from your wine. It's the most damaging component.
> 
> *In my view, it pays to be aware but there comes a point where people start to live their lives in fear.* I know many living like that - they fear electromagnetic waves, they fear radiation, they fear nearly all foods, etc., etc. I am not going to that place. Instead, I try to be an informed realist. If I am drinking at any level beyond zero, I am introducing a harmful substance into my body. That's a fact.



Exactly, I'd rather have a little bit of chemicals than an infected brew, but if I can have a safe brew without the chemicals, that is even better.


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