Blending sterile filtered wine with sorbated wine?

[crabjoe]

Let's say you have a wine that was filtered sterile and back sweetened and a wine that used stabilized (KMeta and sorbate) for back sweetening. If you blend the two together, what are the odds of fermentation restarting?

I'm thinking zero or close to zero since any yeast in the stabilized wine is has been neutered. Is my thought correct or wrong?

Thanks!

 

[NorCal]

I would agree with you.

 

[Rice_Guy]

* What you are asking is 1) if I dilute sorbate below recommended dosage level will it still be active? 2) are there live yeast in the treated wine?

If you blend the two together, what are the odds of fermentation restarting?

* the K sorbate will lose functionality if it is not at the appropriate treatment level. We know that it naturally decays with time so the active chemical is reduced. You are also diluting so the active chemical is again reduced. ie mixing creates a risk factor, if the yeast is still active it could restart and is not recommended
* yeast will naturally die with time and other stressors as sulphite and alcohol. If you have a significant time the yeast are dead! , ,
I like to age 9 plus months and not use sorbate. Normally it works. BUT sometimes not. If you have minimal time as a week the references suggest that yeast is still alive but not reproducing. From back sweetening dry wine I expect live yeast to still be lurking at 3 months. At 6 months I would give it a 50% probability, ie it referments enough that I don’t do it.
Your risk is a few gallons therefore low. As @NorCal says probably zero if the treated wine has been there a month.
In a food plant situation I would never do it since every extra gallons magnifies the risk.

 

[kuziwk]

Let's say you have a wine that was filtered sterile and back sweetened and a wine that used stabilized (KMeta and sorbate) for back sweetening. If you blend the two together, what are the odds of fermentation restarting?

I'm thinking zero or close to zero since any yeast in the stabilized wine is has been neutered. Is my thought correct or wrong?

Thanks!

Ive made whites from kits where I didn't use sorbate as they were fermented dry, I than used a bottle or two of wine that was back sweetened a bit and with sorbital to top up and nothing happend, no fermentation or anything. The back sweetened wine was well aged but the wine i was topping up just finished fermenting. It also could be because there wasn't enough sugar to really start a fermentation aswell.

 

[crabjoe]

I got these 0.35 micron sterile filters, which I plan on using.. My past wines have been sorbated to prevent fermentation. I'm thinking about trying to blend wines, without having to add more sorbate.

Based on what @Rice_Guy is saying, if it's a young wine that was sorbated, it's not going to work.

I had thought sorbate cocooned the yeast, so once cocooned, that was that. But if it's something that can wear off from dilution, blending it with a nor-sorbated wine isn't going to work, unless the wine is aged around a year or more..

 

[kuziwk]

I got these 0.35 micron sterile filters, which I plan on using.. My past wines have been sorbated to prevent fermentation. I'm thinking about trying to blend wines, without having to add more sorbate.

Based on what @Rice_Guy is saying, if it's a young wine that was sorbated, it's not going to work.

I had thought sorbate cocooned the yeast, so once cocooned, that was that. But if it's something that can wear off from dilution, blending it with a nor-sorbated wine isn't going to work, unless the wine is aged around a year or more..

Who knows, but the topping up with back sweetened and sorbated bottles that I used did not cause corks to burst in what was essentially a dry wine that was not sterile filtered. Yes the sorbate gets diluted but so does the yeast and sugar so I don't think it's enough to ferment again. One could draw out 50 ml perhaps and mix in some sorbated wine at the proper ratio and see what happens. Or worse case scenerio mix it and don't bottle it for a while.

 

[Johnd]

I did some digging to no avail, to see how the sorbate acts upon the yeast, ie: are they affected by it as soon as they are exposed? My thoughts were that any living yeast cells already exposed to the full strength sorbate have already been "neutered" and couldn't reproduce, and there are no new yeast in a wine that has been sterile filtered, therefore producing no risk. Couldn't find any science to back it up.....still don't think there's much to worry about.

 

[NorCal]

* What you are asking is 1) if I dilute sorbate below recommended dosage level will it still be active? 2) are there live yeast in the treated wine?

* the K sorbate will lose functionality if it is not at the appropriate treatment level. We know that it naturally decays with time so the active chemical is reduced. You are also diluting so the active chemical is again reduced. ie mixing creates a risk factor, if the yeast is still active it could restart and is not recommended
* yeast will naturally die with time and other stressors as sulphite and alcohol. If you have a significant time the yeast are dead! , ,
I like to age 9 plus months and not use sorbate. Normally it works. BUT sometimes not. If you have minimal time as a week the references suggest that yeast is still alive but not reproducing. From back sweetening dry wine I expect live yeast to still be lurking at 3 months. At 6 months I would give it a 50% probability, ie it referments enough that I don’t do it.
Your risk is a few gallons therefore low. As @NorCal says probably zero if the treated wine has been there a month.
In a food plant situation I would never do it since every extra gallons magnifies the risk.

Good points!

 

[Rice_Guy]

sorbate prevents reproduction, (birth control), , ie no babies but the adults are still there, waiting for good growth conditions. next, Adults will die with time, example E. coli in clean water will naturally die in about 2 weeks.

If I am dealing with a dry wine, it still has some residual, hard to ferment sugars at .990, yeast will hang on with starvation conditions for some time (haven’t seen a paper on this but dry yeast are good for years)

The bigger the stainless tank the greater the risk one yeast cell is still alive. We are home wine makers doing 6 gallons. 99 times out of 100 times mixing will work. , , , but, it only takes one cell (sperm) to make babies

Based on what @Rice_Guy is saying, if it's a young wine that was sorbated, it's not going to work.
I had thought sorbate cocooned the yeast, so once cocooned, that was that. But if it's something that can wear off from dilution, blending it with a nor-sorbated wine isn't going to work, unless the wine is aged around a year or more..