OOPS! Way too much sulfite, any ideas?

[Zog]

I made a stupid mistake today. A 12 gallon batch of pear wine finished fermenting a few days ago. So, I added sulfite powder to bring it up to 50 ppm and let it settle until today. I cleaned two 6 gallon carboys in preparation of racking the wine from the fermenter. Then I added a couple inches of my K-meta sanitizing solution into each carboy and let them sit for an hour or so to sanitize. Here comes the stupid part: I racked the wine from the fermenter in the carboys without first emptying the sulfite solution out of them. I don't even have the excuse of having over sampled the wine before doing this! The result of the SO2 test from my Vinmetrica was 480 ppm.

Any ideas about to reduce this down to a reasonable level? I've read that splashing it from one bucket to another helps, but I don't know if it's possible to reduce it that much. It's 10+ times higher than I'd like. Thanks for any ideas.

 

[sour_grapes]

I don't know the protocol, but I understand that you can use hydrogen peroxide to more aggressivly oxidize sulfites into sulfates: Sulfites

 

[Ohio Bob]

Splash rack or dump into a bucket, anything to oxygenate the wine. Hope for the best, you probably never need to rack and re-sulfite ever again!

Might be a lesson to be learned. My neighbor had to throw away 5 gallons of wine because he failed to dump a gallon of sanitizer from the carboy before he racked it.

 

[RRRwine]

I made a stupid mistake today. A 12 gallon batch of pear wine finished fermenting a few days ago. So, I added sulfite powder to bring it up to 50 ppm and let it settle until today. I cleaned two 6 gallon carboys in preparation of racking the wine from the fermenter. Then I added a couple inches of my K-meta sanitizing solution into each carboy and let them sit for an hour or so to sanitize. Here comes the stupid part: I racked the wine from the fermenter in the carboys without first emptying the sulfite solution out of them. I don't even have the excuse of having over sampled the wine before doing this! The result of the SO2 test from my Vinmetrica was 480 ppm.

Any ideas about to reduce this down to a reasonable level? I've read that splashing it from one bucket to another helps, but I don't know if it's possible to reduce it that much. It's 10+ times higher than I'd like. Thanks for any ideas.

I've done the splash method in the past. I used my transfer pump to raise the wine to the ceiling, then through 16ft of freshly cleaned/rinsed copper tubing, then free splash down to the bucket. It did help. I forget why I added the copper.

 

[BarrelMonkey]

I posted a protocol in a separate thread a few months back. As @sour_grapes said, you can (carefully!) use H2O2 to remove excess SO2.

 

[mainshipfred]

Not doubting you but 480 ppm seems really high, you would have had to use 24 ml of titrant to record that level. If it's a red it would probably have also bleached you wine. FWIW when I sanitize carboys I only use a splash of solution since it's the fume that do the work. How much Kmeta do you use per gallon?

 

[winemaker81]

I've done the splash method in the past. I used my transfer pump to raise the wine to the ceiling, then through 16ft of freshly cleaned/rinsed copper tubing, then free splash down to the bucket. It did help. I forget why I added the copper.

Copper is used to treat H2S, and it was common to rack over new pennies (back when pennies were actually made of copper). However, it's far safer to use a commercial product such as Reduless, as this controls the amount of copper used. Copper is poisonous, and since racking over copper can introduce dangerous levels, it's strongly recommended to NOT do it.

 

[Zog]

Not doubting you but 480 ppm seems really high, you would have had to use 24 ml of titrant to record that level. If it's a red it would probably have also bleached you wine. FWIW when I sanitize carboys I only use a splash of solution since it's the fume that do the work. How much Kmeta do you use per gallon?

It was actually even higher! North of 600 ppm actually. My math was faulty. My sanitizing solution is 3 tbsps/gallon.

 

[mainshipfred]

It was actually even higher! North of 600 ppm. My sanitizing solution is 3 tbsps/gallon,

WOW, was it a red or white?

 

[Zog]

Thanks for your help.

After spending an hour splashing the wine from one bucket to another and only reducing SO2 from 640 to 580, I was tired and cranky. When I returned upstairs my wife was doing some work on her aquarium, which gave me an idea for a possible easier solution. I bought an aquarium air pump and two air stones used to oxygenate aquariums and set them up to pump air through my two buckets of over sulfited wine. I'll let it run for 24 hours and retest, then report back to you. (If Necessity is the Mother of Invention, then Laziness must be the Father.)

 

[Zog]

WOW, was it a red or white?

Whitish... it's pear wine.

 

[mainshipfred]

Whitish... it's pear wine.

I believe someone did recommend peroxide, it does work and the results are immediate. You just want to use as little as possible because it does strip something.

 

[montanarick]

i've used peroxide in the past and it does the job. google exact amount to use

 

[Zog]

Thanks for your help.

After spending an hour splashing the wine from one bucket to another and only reducing SO2 from 640 to 580, I was tired and cranky. When I returned upstairs my wife was doing some work on her aquarium, which gave me an idea for a possible easier solution. I bought an aquarium air pump and two air stones used to oxygenate aquariums and set them up to pump air through my two buckets of over sulfited wine. I'll let it run for 24 hours and retest, then report back to you. (If Necessity is the Mother of Invention, then Laziness must be the Father.)

The aquarium pump is working, although it not as quick as I'd like. After 3 days, free SO2 is down to 380, so about 66 ppm per day.

I ordered an additional reagent from Vinmetrica that will let me test for total SO2. That should tell if and when I reach what is considered a safe level. I was surprised to read that in the US up to 350 ppm is considered safe.