there is a little haze in my wine

[B-well4200]

I sweetened my wine and bottled it in the same day. I have the bottles on their sides in a wine cooler. There looks like a bit of haze/settlement on the side of the bottle it is laying on. It has only been about a week since I bottled it. Is this normal? If not, can I do anything? Thanks.

 

[Wade E]

You have to be more specific as to what wine it is and what you sweetened it with. Did you use k-meta and srbate.

 

[B-well4200]

It was a 5 gallon batch of mucadine. I put 5 campden tablets in the day before. The next day I put sorbate in as the directions said to. I had made sugar syrup that was 2 cups sugar to 1 cup water. I got three clean and sanitized bottles and put 2 tsp in one, 2.5 tsp in one, 3 tsp in another and filled each with wine and let them sit with a t-cork in for roughly one hour. Then I sampled and got the one I liked the best and added the same amount to the rest of the bottles and then filled with wine and corked them. The one thing that concerned me the most was when I got a sample of wine to mix the sorbate with I mixed it vigously for a while and there were still little white specs floating in there. So I put the sample in sauce pan and heated it up a bit so it would clear up and after it cleared up I mixed it with the rest of the batch.

 

[bein_bein]

Hi bwell,
Don't know if there's anything you can do with the bottled stuff...but I'm no expert so one of the senior members can give you better direction on that. For what it's worth, here's how my brother and I backsweetened his apple wine.
Once his wine was cleared he racked it into a clean carboy. We added pot sorbate that we had dissolved in water to the wine to stabilize it. The we mixed up 3 cups of water w/6 cups sugar by warming slightly and stirring until the mixture was clear and all sugar fully dissolved. Then we added this to the carboy in 1/2 cup increments, stirred and tasted until it was where he wanted it. Then he let the wine sit and clear for another week under airlock before he bottled it. When we added the sweetener we noticed a veeerry slight haze to the wine, which solidified his plan to let it rest in the carboy another week.
By doing it this way we assured there was no renewed fermentation and we gave the wine time to clear in the carboy just to be safe.
Like I said, this probably doesn't help much in your situation, but hopefully will be of use in the future....

 

[Luc]

Now before you start bottling it, was the wine totally clear.
And did you rack off the sediment before bottling.
Or was there no sediment any more.....

Could it be as simple that some sediment entered
the bottles and is now settling.

Luc

 

[B-well4200]

Bein Bein - The way you and your brother did it is the way I would prefer to do it but I wanted to bottle some bottles that I did not sweeten. I was not sure if I could leave 4 gallons of wine in a 5 gallons carboy and I did not have 4 spare 1 gallon jugs around the house to do it that way so I went ahead and bottled it. I drank a bottle a couple of days ago and it taste good. It will not go to waste.
Luc - This wine was 4 months old and had been racked three times. I did not see any settlement in the bottom before I started bottling. But there is a great possiblity that there was some settlement in the batch before I bottled. Next time I will rack even if I can't see anything in there. This was my first batch and all and all I think it turned out ok - I have alot of learning to do!

 

[B-well4200]

I think what is in my bottles is crystalized sugar from when I sweetened it. Is this common? Also, when I mix my pot. sorbate with my wine before I sweeten it, it will not dissolve completly so I have been heating the small portion in a sauce pan just long enough to get it to dissolve. Has anyone else ran into these problems?

 

[bruno]

I had the same thing happen to my peach wine. It has been in the carboy about 5 month, and had cleared nicely. I did a final racking, added 3 campden tabs and 3/8 cup of wine conditioner. (it's a 3 gallon batch). Immediately after stirring, the wine clouded up again. It's now been sitting for a week, and doesn't seem to be getting any clearer.

I think I have read that others have experienced the same thing using the wine conditioner. Anyone else experienced this?

 

[Wade E]

This is why I always sweeten my wine annd then let it clear. This doesnt happen to often with simple syrup but it does happen, not sure why but it must have some kind of reaction to certain wines or something.

 

[B-well4200]

I am getting ready to bottle a new batch of raspberry. I sweetened it and this time I am going to let it sit about 3 weeks before I bottle it. Do I need to put 5 more campden tablets in it even though I did when I sweetened it?

 

[non-grapenut]

This is why I always sweeten my wine annd then let it clear. This doesnt happen to often with simple syrup but it does happen, not sure why but it must have some kind of reaction to certain wines or something.

Wade...I think you hit it right on the head. It's always good to wait 10 days prior to bottling after you sweeten and campden a wine to siphon off the final sediment!

 

[Wade E]

I wait a lot longer then that as when I weeten my wine it is still cloudy as it just got done fermenting so it can be months or even up to 1 year before my wine is bottled after I sweeten.