New Bottle Sanitizing

[wineview]

The nice thing about sanitizing with KMETA is you get a few ppm bump in SO2 levels which never hurts.

True but lungs and eyes suffer sanitizing that many bottles. IMHO.

 

[ibglowin]

Then your not properly mitigating the hazards if that is happening......

True but lungs and eyes suffer sanitizing that many bottles. IMHO.

 

[wineview]

Then your not properly mitigating the hazards if that is happening......

How would you avoid it?

 

[ibglowin]

How would you avoid it?

Proper ventilation for one. Move outdoors if need be.

 

[wood1954]

Unless you want a lot of bubbles don’t use starsan. Make a so2 solution instead. I’ve done hundreds of new bottles without rinsing and never lost a bottle.

 

[winemaker81]

True but lungs and eyes suffer sanitizing that many bottles. IMHO.

I run a fan while working with K-meta -- it's a floor fan, about 20 feet away from my area, which is a cubby. Weather permitting, I open 2 small windows, but even without that, the fan makes a huge difference. The only thing the fan didn't fix was H2S -- I suspect a hurricane isn't enough for that.

 

[CDrew]

Wineries for sure, do not sanitize first. The one I am most familiar with runs the wine through a filter, fills and then bottles with a brief argon blast before the cork is driven home by the bottling line automatically.

The fumes of proper sulfite solutions are a real issue which I mitigate with a fan operating continuously and the main garage door open. I still get an occasional whiff that makes me cough. And, I do sanitize all of the bottles that I use, but for most of them they have been filled many times and may not be as sterile as a new bottle. Plus, I'm never doing more than 10 cases at a time so it isn't that big a deal.

StarSan, though, is great for everything but bottling. I just don't trust it when bottling, because it's slippery and I want the cork to stay put. Not that I know this to be an issue, but it does concern me enough to use a sulfite solution.

 

[luis costa]

I bottle wine 5 gallons at the time about 30 bottles they are washed withe PBW rinsed with hot water and sanitized with one step then left upright in a milk crate up right for two days then put flat on the shelf for about 3to 6 months to rest oh i forgot they age in a 15 gallons ss barrel for about a year plus
and I split the barrel into 3 carboys for easy/lazy bottling
So here my question why some bottles have a different flavor than other still drinkable but not the same
could anyone explain the why that's happening
thank you in advance for your response

 

[Ohio Bob]

I’ve heard that wine can stratify, meaning the wine at the bottom of the barrel may taste different than at the top. Since you rack your barrel to carboys maybe your setting up a difference. Next time try racking just a gallon at a time, moving from carboy 1, to #2, #3, then back to #1, repeating until it’s all transferred.

 

[winemaker81]

@Ohio Bob is correct. A few years back I racked a neutral barrel containing oak cubes, and poured the loose sludge into a bottle and refrigerated. What looked like garbage separated and I recovered almost a full bottle of wine.

I tasted it, and it was undrinkable. Oaky beyond belief. Wine has no convection currents and the wine closest to the cubes absorbed the flavoring the most.

What did I do with that bottle? I topped the barrel. There was no point in wasting the oaky essence, and 1 bottle in 54 liters diluted it. It worked out well.

 

[Jim Welch]

I’ve only used starsan for sanitizing including at bottling. I “don’t fear the foam” as the saying goes and at about 1000 bottles corked so far have never had a cork slip. Not knocking those who use kmeta solution at all just sharing my experience with it to assuage others concerns.
The residual foam does not appear to have a detectable deleterious affect either. My untrained palate wouldn’t know but FWIW I’ve medaled with 4 wines out of 11 entered in large competitions so far using it so folks with more trained palates don’t appear to detect it either.

 

[Steve Wargo]

I’ve heard that wine can stratify, meaning the wine at the bottom of the barrel may taste different than at the top. Since you rack your barrel to carboys maybe your setting up a difference. Next time try racking just a gallon at a time, moving from carboy 1, to #2, #3, then back to #1, repeating until it’s all transferred.

A difference in taste can be detected in commercial wines from bottle to bottle. Tasting the same brand, vintage, and grape variety. I've detected it in my own wine when bottling from a large carboy that was cleared and corked for over a year. I now transfer the wine to a bottling carboy, add Kmeta, and stir a little before bottling. This doesn't eliminate the taste difference between large same-same wine carboys. Plus, only so much time in a day. It's wine, drink it. IMO

 

[Raptor99]

I now transfer the wine to a bottling carboy, add Kmeta, and stir a little before bottling.

This seems like a good idea, especially for barrel aged or oaked wines.

 

[winemaker81]

A difference in taste can be detected in commercial wines from bottle to bottle. Tasting the same brand, vintage, and grape variety.

In commercial wines it should be expected, as the have multiple huge tanks, and there's no container large enough to homogenize.

I now transfer the wine to a bottling carboy, add Kmeta, and stir a little before bottling.

This seems like a good idea, especially for barrel aged or oaked wines.

Since my barrel incident, I homogenize each wine before bottling, then add K-meta (and backsweeten, for the few that I do).

I'm also become a fan of longer bulk aging, as it allows the wine to go through the normal chemical changes as a whole. Note that "longer" depends on the wine, anything from 4 months to 12+ months.

 

[luis costa]

are you people saying that I should stir the wine before bottling

 

[Ohio Bob]

If you rack it from one container to another that is probably sufficient. You should be adding Kmeta at bottling, and some do sorbate too but it’s not required if not back sweetening, just extra insurance against an incomplete fermentation. If you add anything else like glycerin, it’s a good idea to stir periodically. Stir not whip.

 

[cmason1957]

are you people saying that I should stir the wine before bottling

Yes you should stir before bottling. If you don't want to stir due to lees on the bottom, then rack and wait a few months.

 

[winemaker81]

If you add anything else like glycerin, it’s a good idea to stir periodically.

I agree! Especially with glycerin, as it doesn't mix easily. I start the siphon from the carboy or barrel, dilute the glycerin with wine, and stir periodically with a drill-mounted stirring rod to ensure it mixes and stays mixed.

 

[Dom Lausic]

Great thread here on bottle sanitizing! I've often struggled with the same question....... to wash & sanitize, or just go with it! I used to wash (with PWB, Oxy Clean, sodium bicarbonate, etc) and then sanitize before any bottling. I found this to be a bit overwhelming! And I put bottling off...... You should see my cellar......

Because I reuse my bottles, I wash & rinse them before putting them back into the case. This when, when I'm ready to bottle, its a quick splash with some k-meta solution, and then I'm off to the races!!

I agree with everyone else, sanitzing isn't as daunting as it seems. Few pumps with a manual bottle washer should do it.

Washing is another story, because each bottle then requires a good rinse. Easily 3x more work than sanitizing.

Just remember, you've spent way more time caring for you wine, than it'll take to sanitize. And even if you decided to not sanitize, the couple of bottles that "may" be at risk are just considered angel's share!

 

[Raptor99]

I wash and rinse my reused wine bottles immediately after they are emptied. I store them clean, then sanitize them before bottling. A bottle rinser like this makes spraying Star San solution into the bottles quick work: https://www.amazon.com/FastRack-Bottle-Sulphiter-B013S1RZLY-Multicolor/dp/B013S1RZLY/