cold stabilization redux

[BernardSmith]

Wine makers talk about cold stabilization in the context of removing tartrates from grape wines. On a different discussion board someone is arguing that cold stabilization is an effective method for removing active yeast from mead and allowing for sooner chemical stabilization of the wine because the dormant yeast drops towards the bottom of the carboy and after a couple of weeks you can rack the wine off the dormant yeast and so add stabilizers.
Now, it strikes me that wine makers typically use the amount of sugar in the fruit to determine the ABV while mead makers tend to use the alcohol level to kill the yeast and so determine the ABV that way. That means that they may feel compelled to stop the fermentation before the yeast is ready to give up the ghost.. In short : Wine makers use cold stabilization to remove tartrates from wine but mead makers use cold stabilization to remove yeast. My question - assuming that there is no residual sugar left in a wine does it make any sense to cold stabilize fruit wine to help clear it of yeast and other particulate matter? Thoughts.

 

[chrisjw]

I don't think it makes sense to use CS for those purposes. If you want to remove as many particles as possible then filter the wine.

CS does makes sense when the desire is to reduce acidity of a wine or, in white wines, to remove the tartrates (as you indicated) so that the chance of forming (harmless) wine diamonds in the future is reduced.

 

[GreginND]

What you are describing is called cold crashing to stop an active fermentation and leave residual sugar. The cold is not necessarily to clear the wine but to halt the yeast activity. It is not always easy to do successfully. If the wine is dry and done fermenting there is no reason to cold crash.

 

[Elmer]

I am currently experimenting with CS 32 OZ of a crab/apple.

I had a gallon and 1/4 of crab/apple in secondary.
The 32 oz (in a snapple bottle) is done fermenting, the gallon is not. I had intended to use the 32 oz to top up after I rack the gallon off the sediment.

Since I will not even begin to try to figure out what fraction of the campden tab goes into a 32 jar, I have held off on clearing, sorbate, k-meta, etc....

I took the 32 oz and put in the garage to see 20 degrees would halt the aging but cause it to clear quickly.

1 week in and not so much.
but since the gallon is still releasing some bubbles I will give it another week, especially with the BIG CHILL headed this way.

 

[x_diver]

I want to reduce the acid in my cranberry / blueberry / pomegranate wine that I made from frozen concentrate. I was going to add potassium bicarbonate and then cold stabilize. Never done this before. Is there a specific way to add the potassium bicarbonate or should I just scoop it in and then begin cold stabilization immediately?

 

[x_diver]

Ah, found what I was looking for:

http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f6/adjusting-acid-ta-35863/

"Try a little of potassium bicarbonate. It foams up violently though. Put your dose into am empty carboy and rack the wine slowly onto it. You'll understand why when you do it."