Wild yeast

[cuz]

I picked up a couple of red juice buckets Saturday but my yeast and Goferm are not coming until Friday. I haven't tried killing wild yeast yet.

Is Potassium metabisulfite the right stuff? How much do I use for a 6 gallon pail of juice?

I also have some Goferm from last year kept refrigerated. Do you think its still good.

 

[stickman]

If you need to wait until Friday then hopefully you have a way to keep the pails refrigerated. What temperature are the pails at now? If the pails are already fermenting, then it's too late to add potassium metabisulfite, it will just cause the existing yeast to generate acetaldehyde which will bind up the sulfite rendering it useless. If the pails aren't already fermenting then adding sulfite in the range of 35 to 45ppm is usually enough, that's about 1.2 to 1.5g per 5gal pail, around 1/4 teaspoon per 5gal pail if you don't have a scale.

 

[cuz]

I don't have them refrigerated but I have ice in an empty pail and put the juice pail into that. I'll check the ice from day to day but hope that will keep it cold enough. But even when I take the juice pails home from the distributor there is always some fermentation activity. Acetaldehyde doesn't sound too appetizing so maybe I'll just add the yeast when I get it and let it do it's job. Do you think the juice will stay for a week. I have EC1118 but wanted to wait for the yeast I ordered.

 

[sour_grapes]

I like to swap around yeast strains, but they do not make a big difference, IMHO. Your wine is at great risk if you let it sit around for a week. The relative risk to your wine from spoiling vs from using a slightly-different-strain-than-you-wanted seems staggering to me. I would say that if you have EC1118, use it!

 

[cuz]

Oh man I am going to pitch it today. Do you think my goferm from last year is still good. I kept it refrigerated