Runaway Chardonnay

[Jeich]

I just picked up 9 gallons of Chardonnay juice that started bubbling and continues to bubble even after adding campden tablets. Here is what I have done so far....Last Thursday I picked up the pasteurized juice, kept it refrigerated for 24+ hours, let it get to room temperature (66 deg) and added campden tablets. Juice started bubbling so I added more campden tablets. To be honest I didn't add as much as I should have initially to get to the proper concentration. The juice continues to bubble and I'm not sure what to do at this point. I thought the campden would stop all processes which would allow me to add the yeast of choice. Any comments and help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!

 

[tradowsk]

You can buy some time by cooling the juice which will slow the fermentation. But once it starts, you would need an egregious amount of kmeta to stop it.

I would pitch 2-3 packets of your chosen yeast asap. The wine yeast will hopefully out-compete the natural yeast and should take over the fermentation.

You said the juice was pasteurized, but what about the equipment it was put into? Seems like there's a sanitation issue somewhere.

 

[cmason1957]

Are you certain yeast wasn't added after the pasteurization? My guess is your kmeta just made the yeast laugh at you.

 

[Jeich]

Yeast was not added and everything was sanitized that I am aware of. I will add yeast asap to hopefully out compete whatever did get in the wine. The campden tablets did not seem to do anything.

 

[Jeich]

I will have to ask the guy that supplied me with the juice if he thinks some wild yeast could have made it. There seems to be a fair amount of pulp so maybe some settled product made it into these 9 gal that did not get fully pasteurized?

 

[1d10t]

I think the point @cmason1957 was making is that some people that supply juice buckets add yeast so all you have to do is ferment. The place I go to stopped that practice because most people wanted to add their own yeast. They now give out packets of ec1118 with the bucket.

 

[Jeich]

Oh, I didn't know that some juice suppliers would do that. I will definitely have to check. Thanks for the comments.

 

[cmason1957]

Oh, I didn't know that some juice suppliers would do that. I will definitely have to check. Thanks for the comments.

And you can't always believe what the person you bought it from says, unless they are the direct manufacturer of the buckets.