Bottle bombs...how long can it take?

Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum

Help Support Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

NorCal

Super Moderator
Super Moderator
Joined
Apr 18, 2014
Messages
3,980
Reaction score
6,030
Location
Sierra Foothills, Nor Cal
I'm making a 30 gallon barrel of Zin, fermented dry/mlf and 5 gallons of Zin port (7 brix, 20% abv via brandy). I wanted to bottle a case of Zin that is a little on the sweet side. I would like to add 5-10% of the port to the wine and bottling it. I'm a bit concerned about feeding viable yeast sugar and having them come alive and reproducing, causing a bad result in the bottle.

My thought was to blend a few gallons and keep it in a topped off carboy under airlock for 3 months, before bottling. Do you think this will sufficiently reduce the risk of bottle bombs?
 
Mixing a wine that has sugars in it with a wine that may still contain viable yeast will result in that yeast consuming the available sugar. The result will be a dry wine. If you want it to stay sweet, I'd suggest making sure your sulfite levels are on, and adding potassium sorbate. This will help you retain the sugar without the risk of bottle bombs. After that addition, blend your wines and let them sit a week or two (or more) to be sure fermentation doesn't start up.
 
You have hit upon the problem. The wine has been through mlf, so I want to avoid Sorbate. The best I can filter down to is .5 micron. Any other suggestions to post sweeten the Zin a tad?
 
Caveat: This response is an academic exercise without personal experience behind it.

Theoretically, the blend could have an ABV high enough that the yeast would not be able to reproduce. Run your numbers through a Pearson's Square to find the resulting ABV of the blend and compare that to the yeast's listed alcohol tolerance from the manufacturer.

http://winemakersacademy.com/blending-wine-pearsons-square/

GotMead had a great online calculator, but it has been down for a while and I didn't notice another.
 
My thought was to blend a few gallons and keep it in a topped off carboy under airlock for 3 months, before bottling. Do you think this will sufficiently reduce the risk of bottle bombs?

Yes, but ...

By 3 months, if it has not fermented, it should be ok.

However, taste it along the way. If it becomes too dry for your taste (continued to ferment), you will need to add more port. Only when it has stabilized for a few months, should you consider it safe. By then, it should be at least 18% ABV, or pretty close to your port.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top