A huge thank you to you all

[wildhair]

My thanks to all that take their time to contribute your knowledge and experience here. To make a short story long -

I had a 5 gal batch of black raspberry that smelled "off" - sulfur, rotten egg like when I racked it the 2nd time. Not good. Taste seemed OK, but - that smell was horrible. Thinking I may have my first large dumping on my hands and not knowing what else to do - I popped in here, did quick search of the old threads and whaada ya know. INFO! Answers! It appeared my wine had a case of "bad gas". (I always search first, ask Q's later)

Splash rack and whip it with copper wire, copper tube, etc was the most mentioned solution to de-gas and get rid of the sulfur smell. Not sure it would work, much less why it would work, but not having any alternatives - I took a leap of faith. I made a wire whisk out of 3 pieces of 2' long clean copper wire. And I made a paddle out of a 3" X 6" piece of copper plate and a 3 foot piece of 5/8" dowel rod. Soaked them in StarSan while I splash racked the hell out of it into a 8 gal fermenter. Then I put the whip in my drill andn whipped it until I had about 2 " of foam, stirred it down with my paddle and did it again. Did this several times, covered it up and left the paddle in it while I ate lunch and then did it again for good measure.

Lo and behold -the bad smell is gone! I can smell black raspberries again! I racked it back into the carboy and stuck an airlock in it. Thanks to the knowledge of the good folks here - I did not have to dump out 5 gallons of black raspberry wine. And I inched up the learning curve and added 2 new pieces of equipment to my little grotto.

 

[stickman]

I'm glad it worked out for you. You probably should read through this thread for future reference.

https://www.winemakingtalk.com/thre...minate-h2s-comments-please.70297/#post-738275

 

[wildhair]

I'm glad it worked out for you. You probably should read through this thread for future reference.

https://www.winemakingtalk.com/thre...minate-h2s-comments-please.70297/#post-738275

Thanks, I read the entire post - I'd do it again anyway, if the need ever arises again. Maybe if I drank my black raspberry wine that came into contact with copper all day, every day - maybe the teensy bit of copper might have a cumulative effect. More likely, my liver would give out first.

 

[BernardSmith]

My preferred method is to use copper scrubbing wool (the kind your supermarket sells as a pot scrubber). The amount of copper that will leach is tiny and the scrubber is food grade safe.

 

[wildhair]

I read that in a couple posts - I'll put that on the "next time I get to town list" - I may pick some up. I needed to degas it anyway, judging by the amount of foam that got whipped up.

 

[stickman]

I completely agree that it's your wine to make as you wish, I'm just providing some additional information for consideration.
If I was forced to use metal copper, I would use a method that helps to ensure the minimum amount is used. A copper rod used to stir a carboy for 2 to 3 seconds, wait an hour and sample to see the results, if more is needed go another 2 to 3 seconds, maybe wait a day, this way it is more like a titration allowing you to stop with less excess. Health concerns aside, there are a couple of wine quality issues to be aware of, excess copper catalyzes oxidation so the wine will be more sensitive to oxygen exposure, the other issue is with white wine, even a few ppm of excess copper in a white wine will cause a haze and precipitate after a few months in the bottle (cupric casse).

 

[wildhair]

Oh, it needed way more than 2 or 3 seconds. Good info to know on the quality side, especially on the whites. This is a dark deep red from black raspberries. Like I said - this is the first time I've ever had a wine smell like this. It was fix it or dump it, and I'm glad I was able to fix it.