Help - Added wrong additive

[Winer-me]

I'm one week into a dessert wine kit from Apres and just mistakenly added the Chitosan to the must instead of the Chaptalization sugar!! And my wine store doesn't open again for 4 more days. Can I add the Chaptalization now or have I ruined this batch?

 

[sour_grapes]

Obviously, what you did is not "best practice," but I really doubt you have ruined the wine. Go ahead and proceed. Worst-case scenario is that you have stripped out some of the color/flavor of the wine.

And welcome to WMT!

 

[Winer-me]

Thanks, Sour Grapes - you just lowered my heart rate and I'll go ahead and proceed. That's a better solution than flushing $110 down the drain, too. Thanks for the welcome, and I'll come back around at some point to let the forum know how it turned out.

 

[faxdoctor]

I notice on some of the posts here a few of the wine makers refer to K-Meta. I know what it is and what it's for but I have been using NA-Meta for my sanitizing. Are these two interchangeable? I read on my container of NA-Meta that a 1/2 tsp can be added to 6 gal of must to kill wild yeast. I haven't added any yet and have just racked into carboy. Advice please!

 

[dmw_chef]

They're functionally the same. Some people claim that Na-Meta can add a salty taste to your wine compared to k-meta, but I'm not sure how much I buy that since the #1 ingredient in sodium free salt alternatives is potassium.

 

[Rice_Guy]

Potassium and sodium metabisulphite will both produce SO2 which functions to sanitize and reduce competitive growth. Potassium is the preferred ingredient in wine since it will form tartrate complexes in grape wine which can remove them. Note though that country wines as a class do not contain substantial tartaric so precipitation of potassium won’t happen in that case.

As DMW has just said sodium can produce a salty taste. on a comparison basis a handy can of soda which is formulated with 30 mg sodium would scale up to 0.32 gram sodium per gallon. If i add 0.8 gram of Na meta per gallon in several rankings that only contained 0.097 gram added sodium, ,,,, not as much as we are used to in US beverages, ,,,yes I have used Na meta in wine on occasion.