A Tale of woe and Campden Tablets

[MonsieurLeMeow]

Actually I lied. There are no campden tablets in this story. Only a possibly silly substitution.

My girlfriend and I decided to make a raspberry wine a couple nights ago. We had all the ingredients for a recipe we found on Jack Keller's site, so we got started. When we had the raspberries in the primary with the sugar and water, as well as acid blend, tannin, and pectic enzyme, the next thing on the list was a campden tablet. Drat! We didn't have any. It was too late to run to the store, so we looked up substitutions. The internet told us a campden tablet is a small dose of potassium metabisulphite, and it is possible to substitute equal amounts of the powder form. We didn't have that either, but further reading suggested that sodium metabisulphite can be used interchangeably with potassium metabisulphite. We had that, so we measured a 1/4 teaspoon for a 2 gallon batch of wine.
Fast forward to today, and there is zero activity in the must.

Did we use too much Na-meta, or is it a faux-pas to use it at all? Can I stir up the must and evaporate out the sulphite, or is it stuck in there forever? Will I ever be able to get yeast to thrive in our creation?

 

[Wade E]

1/4 tsp is for 5-6 gallons of wine so yes you almsot dubled your dosage. You need to splash rack from buclet to bucket harshly meaning to really let it splash good. You may need to add more yeast possibly after doing this for like 2 days a few times a day.

 

[UBB]

1/16th tsp per gallon of must or wine.

 

[cpfan]

As stated above, the amount of K-meta has probably stunned the yeast (no it hasn't killed it). BTW, campden is sometimes sodium metabisulfite and sometimes potassium metabisulfite (aka K-meta).

So that we can help you better, please tell us (if you can), the temperature and the specific gravity of your must. Preferably the starting temp/sg and current temp/sg. It is possible, even with the added K-meta, that the must is actually fermenting without any visible signs. If you don't have a hydrometer and hydrometer tube, it would be an excellent idea to get one.

Also, how long did you wait after adding the K-meta before adding the yeast. Normally recipes recommend 24-48 hours.

Steve

 

[Runningwolf]

In addition to what was said above, I hate campdon tablets anyways. They leave fillers floating in your wine and they're hard to dissolve. Next time use Pot.sulfite. Add 1/4 tsp to 6oz of water and stir till completely dissolved. Then add 1 ounce of this solution for each gallon of juice you're treating.

 

[Wade E]

1/16th tsp per gallon of must or wine.

Even thats a little too high IMO. Thats would keep the S02 level higher then most win e yeasts can tolerate for a few days and aftger fermentation would put your free S02 levels into the I can taste it in my wine for awhile area.

 

[MonsieurLeMeow]

As stated above, the amount of K-meta has probably stunned the yeast (no it hasn't killed it). BTW, campden is sometimes sodium metabisulfite and sometimes potassium metabisulfite (aka K-meta).

So that we can help you better, please tell us (if you can), the temperature and the specific gravity of your must. Preferably the starting temp/sg and current temp/sg. It is possible, even with the added K-meta, that the must is actually fermenting without any visible signs. If you don't have a hydrometer and hydrometer tube, it would be an excellent idea to get one.

Also, how long did you wait after adding the K-meta before adding the yeast. Normally recipes recommend 24-48 hours.

Steve

Well, we started the wine late into the evening, so we boiled the water and poured it over the rest of the ingredients, and covered it until morning. That gave it maybe 14 or 15 hours to rest after adding the sulphite. There was nothing in the recipe about waiting before pitching the yeast, except to let it cool. By morning it would have cooled to room temperature, which we keep between 68 and 72. I didn't take a S.G. at the time and I know I should have, but the current S.G. is 1.102. The current temperature is 65. I've been splashing it back and forth between two buckets every couple hours, as suggested above, and I will take S.G.'s daily.

 

[Wade E]

Get the temp up, its very low fior a yeast to get started good. I like to get it up to around 76 to get it goinggood and then let it drop some if its a white or fruit wine. Reds Ill keep up around mid 70's. If fruit or whte Ill let it warm up near the ed to make sure it has no problem going to dry.

 

[WildBill]

I would find this to be a great reason to add more fruit and sugar and water to make 4 gallons!

 

[Wade E]

Thats another great idea! One thing though, if you poured boiling water over the fruit that eliminated the need to add any sulfite!

 

[JohnT]

once again, just to add my two cents...

IMHO, k-meta is preferred to NA-meta. NA-meta adds sodium to your wine wich some feel makes the wine more harsh.. K-meta adds potassium, which some feel make the wine more "well rounded".

I would toss the NA-meta and get yourself a 1lb bag of k-meta.

 

[FTC Wines]

looks like I too have been using too much K-meta. Instructions say 1/8 tsp per gal. for 100 ppm. so that's what I used, no fermentation problems though. What K-meta dosage do you all use for the 3 mo./racking addition? Roy

 

[Runningwolf]

I agree 100% with johnt. Also get rid of the capden tablets in my opinion. Without being able to measure s02 the general rule is 1/4 tap per 5-6 gallons every three months.

 

[BobF]

Well, we started the wine late into the evening, so we boiled the water and poured it over the rest of the ingredients, and covered it until morning. That gave it maybe 14 or 15 hours to rest after adding the sulphite. There was nothing in the recipe about waiting before pitching the yeast, except to let it cool. By morning it would have cooled to room temperature, which we keep between 68 and 72. I didn't take a S.G. at the time and I know I should have, but the current S.G. is 1.102. The current temperature is 65. I've been splashing it back and forth between two buckets every couple hours, as suggested above, and I will take S.G.'s daily.

For future reference, if you use boiling water for maceration you don't use sulfite. Boiling/Sulfite is an either/or.

Also, must should be cool before adding pectic enzyme as excessive heat will destroy the enzyme.

 

[cpfan]

Some people use Na-meta for sanitizing because it is cheaper, and K-meta for wine additions. I think most people just use K-meta for both.

Na-meta is not used in commercial wines because Na is sodium, and governments want to reduce the amount of sodium in people's diets.

I had not heard JohnT's taste difference comment before. Since I use K-meta, there is no way for me to test it with my own taste buds.

Steve

 

[Wade E]

Do not toss the NA Meta, it is fine for sanitizing! About 50 ppm is all you really want with wine at most but that also depends on PH I prefer to keep my S-02 levels right around 36-40 ppm myself. That 1/8tsp per gallon instruction is not telling you to add that much, ts just a reference as to how much ppm that amount will be. 100 ppm is pretty ,much more then dble what you want.

 

[MonsieurLeMeow]

Interesting that quite a few of you say that boiling water and adding sulphite is an either/or function. That's what I would have thought. Of course I always follow the recipe exactly the first time I try one, and it said to do this. I'm making notes along the way, so the next time I try this I will have these things under control. Also, I have the Na-meta not for an additive, but for sanitizing, so I will keep it only for that, and get myself some K-meta for adding to wine. The only reason I used it was that it was too late to run to the wine store.

 

[Wade E]

The boiling water will kill wild yeast, adding sulfite will stun the wild yeast long enough for your wine yeast which has a much higher sulfite tolerance to take hold and get started.

 

[North_Ga_Jug-Or-Not]

@Wade

So going along with what your opinion is on K-Meta, would you prefer to add the 1/8 Tbs to the primary and skip the addition at degas/rack? Or do you think it better to add half at primary and half that when you degas? My thinking was, in this line of thought that is, that adding the 1/8 at primary and skipping would allow for more time to be used up therefore less taste at the finish. Love to hear any and all opinions on this, couldnt hurt to try a new method.

 

[Wade E]

Fermentation will burn all or or almost all of it up if you use sulfite in primary instead of boiling water. You definitely need to add 1/4 tsp per 5-6 gallons right after fermentation is done unless you are going to do MLF on the batch.