Topping up/adding sweetener

[brewcrew5]

Hi, I am making my first 3 batches of 1 gallon wines. My first batch is pineapple. After 2 months I racked and then topped up the gallon jug with pineapple juice. A day before I topped up, I added sorbate. I am about ready to bottle. If I need/want to add sugar to sweeten, is there any risk of re-fermentation? Since I added sorbate once, am I ok? Would it be better to just add some more juice instead of sugar water? Thanks.

 

[djrockinsteve]

No need to add sorbate twice. 1/2 teaspoon per gallon. You an add juice but it will need to clear again.

 

[salcoco]

you need to add Kmeta to kill off remaining yeast. sorbate stop the yeast from multiplying, any small amount left will start fermentation again. as insurance do not bottle until a few weeks have passed after adding juice or sugar to insure fomentation has not started again.

 

[djrockinsteve]

you need to add Kmeta to kill off remaining yeast.

K-Meta does NOT kill yeast. It merely stuns the wild yeast so the commercial yeast, which is more tolerable to K-Meta, gain a foot hold in the must.

It is difficult but not impossible for more than one full fermentation from multiple yeast strains.

If K-Meta killed the yeast there would be no need for sorbate.

 

[GeoS]

K-Meta is a potassium metabisulfite. What it does is bind with the oxygen molecules in the wine resulting in SO2 gas and potassium. The SO2 gas will come out when you let the wine breath and then potassium is simply add to the potassium found naturally in grapes. K-Meta does not kill yeast but is rather a preservative that prevents the wine from oxidizing over time.

Do not try to stop a fermentation, unless you have the equipment to cold crash it, or you will get off flavors and stinky smells in your wine. Fermentation will stop naturally when there is no sugar left for the yeast to consume. As long as you add the sorbate before or at the same time as you add additional sugars you should not get renewed fermentation.

The potassium sorbate does not kill the yeast either it prevents it from reproducing so when the old yeast die off there are no new ones to continue fermentation.

 

[GeoS]

This is why you let the must sit for 24 to 48 hours before you pitch the yeast. The initial dose of metabisulfite needs time to drive the oxygen out which causes the bad bacteria in the must to die off and prevent them from fermenting.