Still bubbling after racked

[Alien77721]

I added campden and sparkloid when racked. It's still bubbling a tiny bit. Should I add more campden?

 

[bkisel]

I wouldn't. I think you might be confusing Potassium Metabisulfite with Potassium Sorbate. Potassium Sorbate acts to stabilize your wine.

You've apparently still have some active yeast and some sugar left in the wine so your fermentation is not yet complete.

What are you making? What was the starting SG and what is it now?

 

[Alien77721]

Making peach. It's been at 0.990 for days now

 

[bkisel]

Making peach. It's been at 0.990 for days now

Have you degassed your wine? Maybe your fermentation is done and you're seeing CO2 bubbles?

Do you have any Potassium Sorbate? If you do then add 3 tsp. to your wine and with the campden tablets you've already added it should stabilize - make sure you've also degassed your wine. Otherwise, if you're seeing some sediment, maybe rack your wine again? Do not attempt any back sweetening until you're certain that your wine has stabilized.

 

[Alien77721]

Yeah, I added 3 tsp when I racked it. I'm probably just freaking out!

 

[Scooter68]

Making peach. It's been at 0.990 for days now

How many gallons is the batch?

 

[Alien77721]

6 gallons of wine

 

[Scooter68]

Have to ask again - Why the rush to add sorbate?

If you are going to age the wine at all leave the sorbate to the end.

Excerpt from Wine Makers Academy site:

Limitations of Potassium Sorbate

While this additive does stabilize wines it does have three distinct limitations. First, it is ineffective against bacteria.
If stray bacteria or lactic acid bacteria were to get in your wine while using only potassium sorbate it would not prevent spoilage or malolactic fermentation (as caused by lactic acid bacteria). The combination of sulfites and sorbate help reduce your risks of this as mentioned before.
The second limitation of potassium sorbate is the length of time it is effective. Once added to wine it stays in the desireable form of sorbic acid only for a short time. Over time it breaks down into ethyl sorbate which can add notes of pineapple or celery to your wine.
The change into ethyl sorbate is not preventable. By using potassium sorbate winemakers are putting a definite shelf life on their wines before they pick up these off flavors.
The third limitation is that it reacts poorly with lactic acid bacteria. According to my research it can produce strong geranium odors which most wine drinkers consider a flaw.
Because of these limitations many wineries do not use potassium sorbate. They opt to stabilize with sulfites only an rely on their ability to properly sanitize everything to prevent spoilage. Interestingly, wines with potassium sorbate may not be classified as organic.


The point is jumping into adding things to the wine must runs the risk of preventing natural aging. Less is sometimes more. The gassing out means that something is happening and unless you know that's a bad activity, why stop it. If the wine is going to be allowed to age properly, it's already fermented down to .990, then why the need to stabilize immediately?

 

[NorCal]

Its CO2. Let it age for 6-9 months before bottling, or vacuum transfer a few times.

 

[Floandgary]

Indeed!! @.990 any bubbles you may see would likely be CO2 coming out. I typically ferment everything dry and leave it to it's own conditioning but have stabilized (K-Sorbate and K-meta) if intending to add say dried cherries, dried currants, raisins, or anything else to improve mouthfeel and sweeten a touch Have yet to experience any off tastes from stabilization..

 

[Scooter68]

Indeed!! @.990 any bubbles you may see would likely be CO2 coming out. I typically ferment everything dry and leave it to it's own conditioning but have stabilized (K-Sorbate and K-meta) if intending to add say dried cherries, dried currants, raisins, or anything else to improve mouthfeel and sweeten a touch Have yet to experience any off tastes from stabilization..

Could that be because the 'products' were consumed.... rather quickly?

 

[Alien77721]

I guess I should mention that I was following the dragon blood recipe. That's why I pitched the sorbate so quickly

 

[Alien77721]

Yes. I make wine to drink......within weeks. Big family

 

[Floandgary]

Could that be because the 'products' were consumed.... rather quickly?

You know,,,,, it is truly amazing how all that wine disappears regardless of what type of cork you use, how well you hide it, or how many guard dogs you have on it. And most of the time I don't even remember where I put the corkscrew!

 

[Scooter68]

Well I haven't heard of anyone making wine to look at on a shelf.

So.

 

[PhilDarby]

As a rule I find it best to leave until there is no bubbles, some wines take longer to reach that stage, it all depends on what you are fermenting and how much/many slow acting sugars are present in the fruit, there are no hard and fast rules, generally I find about 8 weeks, by this time, most fruits have no sugar left, bear in mind that mild temperature fluctuations may cause false bubbling and/or back tracking on the airlock, also, when u disturb the fermenting vessel it does the same, that's disregarding gasses left, which in my experience is usually the least problem, after about 8 weeks if there is no taste of sugar and it only bubbles when u disturb the vessel its probably done.

Also, most gasses are released during racking etc.

disregarding maleo lactic, which can take some time.

PS I never add potassium metabisulph, as I can taste it with avengance Ive read most people cant but I definitely can, that's how I do mine.

PS A little tip 150-200mls of mango juice from a paper carton/gallon massively improves mouth feel in most ferments, I suspect in the dragons blood it will work wonders, give it a try when starting the next batch ;-) mango has very slow acting sugars, initially in the first 4 to 8 weeks it gives a schnapps kind of mouth feel (glycerine ?) after 8 to 10 weeks it disappears as a white wine kind of flavour.

The only down side is mango drops a fair bit of sediment but, that's ok if you rack.