Accidentally mixed diluted StarSan into must...

[crushday]

I just accidentally mixed 1/5 gallon of diluted StarSan (1oz/5gal) into my wine must thinking it was spring water. The kit was the Eclipse WE Zin/Cab with bourbon chips.

Anyone want to break the bad news or give me good news about how this might affect the final bottled wine?

 

[dralarms]

I don’t use star San so I can’t help.

 

[Trevor7]

There's a couple of posts regarding this from earlier this year:
https://www.winemakingtalk.com/threads/starsan-into-wine.64754/
Doing the math, you dumped ~1.2 ml into your ~6 gals of wine. As StarSan says, "Don't fear the foam".

 

[Trevor7]

...and then I read the warnings on the StarSan bottle

 

[crushday]

Update: The foam from the fermentation caused an eruption that left splatters of must on the ceiling, wall and floor in my fermentation room. I've been having to clean out the air lock every couple of hours. I've made well over 60 wine kits and never have I had one foam over to this degree. I might just scrap this one and try again...

 

[Thig]

Update: The foam from the fermentation caused an eruption that left splatters of must on the ceiling, wall and floor in my fermentation room. I've been having to clean out the air lock every couple of hours. I've made well over 60 wine kits and never have I had one foam over to this degree. I might just scrap this one and try again...

Sounds like you have made a lot of wine but I am curious why you have an airlock on so early in the fermentation. I never put on an airlock until the SG is down close to 1.000.

 

[crushday]

Sounds like you have made a lot of wine but I am curious why you have an airlock on so early in the fermentation. I never put on an airlock until the SG is down close to 1.000.

Thig, the short answer is fruit flies. I don't want those little critters in my must. I know that most sources say to leave the lid off during primary so that more O2 can be introduced during the early stages of fermentation but my experience doing it this way has led to successful fermentations that end at or below .990. I have employed 5 FastFerment conical fermentors and they work great. I also use 5 Tilt digital hydrometers so I can monitor progress while at home or traveling for my day job.

 

[Ajmassa]

. I might just scrap this one and try again...

Why scrap it? It’s probably perfectly fine. About a bottles worth of starsan clearly not ideal, but not debilitating. Kmeta sanitizer would have been.
But starsan is actually like food for the yeast they say. Extra foamy might be the only negative.
1oz per 5gal mixing ratio. .20 oz per gal. So only about .04oz of starsan was added. Thats 1.14mL added to 23,000mL! (about 6gal). And who knows, maybe this will be your best wine yet and you found the secret ingredient!

 

[crushday]

Why scrap it? It’s probably perfectly fine. About a bottles worth of starsan clearly not ideal, but not debilitating. Kmeta sanitizer would have been.
But starsan is actually like food for the yeast they say. Extra foamy might be the only negative.
1oz per 5gal mixing ratio. .20 oz per gal. So only about .04oz of starsan was added. Thats 1.14mL added to 23,000mL! (about 6gal). And who knows, maybe this will be your best wine yet and you found the secret ingredient!

Good enough - I’ll see what happens and report the findings.

 

[crushday]

Update: I bottled the Eclipse WE Zin/Cab last night. I bulk aged it in a carboy for six months and barrel aged it for six months. After corking 27 bottles, Mrs. Burgin and I enjoyed the 1/2 bottle left over. It tastes great and I would never suspect I accidentally mixed a small portion of diluted StarSans (1/5th of a gallon) into the must.

I will say that fermentation was a challenge as I was cleaning foam off the floor for 10 days as the yeast did it's thing.

 

[opus345]

I like a story thats starts with intrigue, but then has a happy ending.