tastes good, but...

[Phador]

I have a batch of DB which is about a month old. I gave it a taste, and it's pretty good especially for one of the first things I've made, but it has a strong sulfur smell....so it smells bad, but tastes good...? any thoughts anyone? Any way to correct this?

 

[Rocky]

Phador, sounds like an H2S problem with the wine. This can be helped by splash racking once or twice. If the wine is in a carboy, splash it to another carboy or back into the fermenter, if you don't have an extra carboy. Then splash it back into the original carboy. You can also get some clean copper wire (like the ground wire out of a Romex 3 wire cable), fashion it into a whisk like tool and hang it in the wine. The Cu will attract the S and that should solve the problem. I sugget the splash racking first.

 

[Phador]

Thanks, I'll give it a shot!

 

[winemaker_3352]

Yeah i would also suggest splash racking 2-3 times if needed.

Usually 1-2 times will do the trick - it just needs aerated out..

 

[BernardSmith]

Rocky, What about the copper mesh used for scrubbing that you can find in supermarkets. Would that work in the same way as the wire you suggest? It already has a great deal of surface area and presumably could easily be pushed into a carboy.

 

[novalou]

Rocky, What about the copper mesh used for scrubbing that you can find in supermarkets. Would that work in the same way as the wire you suggest? It already has a great deal of surface area and presumably could easily be pushed into a carboy.

If it is copper. You could also use a copper tube to run your wine through.

 

[Phador]

How long should one let the copper sit in the wine?

 

[novalou]

How long should one let the copper sit in the wine?

No time at all, just contact time during stirring or racking through a copper tube.

 

[novalou]

How long should one let the copper sit in the wine?

It is probably more important to splash rack to give the H2S a chance to escape.

 

[Abrnth3]

I have a 3/8" copper tubing I use as a racking cane it takes care of H2S problems.

 

[JohnT]

I agree with the folks above.

H2S is amazingly potent. You smell that strong aroma and you are led to believe that it is a big problem. Actually just 3 parts-per-million of h2s can knock you off your feet.

As the others have said, try passing the wine through some sort of copper. Keep in mind that some copper products are coated so it may need to be scoured to get at the raw copper.

If this does not work, you could either use reduless (dead yeast that has been infused with copper) or quite simply add some copper sulfate.

If you opt for copper sulfate, be advised that you should perform bench trials to determine the propper amount to add. Take a measured sample of wine, take a measured amount of copper sulfate, add slowly several drops at a time smelling the wine each time. Once the wine improves, stop. Scale up the amount of copper sulfate you used to suit your entire batch.

hope this helps.

johnT.