First wine ready to bottle had some questions

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shopkins1994

Junior
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Hi Everyone,

I have (8) 6 gallon carboys filled with fruit wines (crabapple, peach, mixed fruit, blackberry/raspberry). They have all be fermented dry. I put a ballon on the top for a few days and no CO2 is being produced. This is the first wine I have made. I was going to resweeten them with sugar before bottling. I had a few questions:

1. I planned on adding potassium sorbbate and potassium bisulfite to them to stabilize. Can I add the sugar at the same time?

2. How long after I add all of these can I bottle?

3. Can I wait to bottle for a few days to make sure fermentation doesn't restart? I planned on using the ballon method to check.

4. This is a lot of wine. I plan on storing/aging it for a while (1-3 years, I have a big wine cellar and this is a lot of wine). I've read that Potassium Sorbate gets stronger if you store wine and might ruin it. Is that true?

Thank you for helping out.
 
Hi Everyone,

I have (8) 6 gallon carboys filled with fruit wines (crabapple, peach, mixed fruit, blackberry/raspberry). They have all be fermented dry. I put a ballon on the top for a few days and no CO2 is being produced. This is the first wine I have made. I was going to resweeten them with sugar before bottling. I had a few questions:

1. I planned on adding potassium sorbbate and potassium bisulfite to them to stabilize. Can I add the sugar at the same time?

2. How long after I add all of these can I bottle?

3. Can I wait to bottle for a few days to make sure fermentation doesn't restart? I planned on using the ballon method to check.

4. This is a lot of wine. I plan on storing/aging it for a while (1-3 years, I have a big wine cellar and this is a lot of wine). I've read that Potassium Sorbate gets stronger if you store wine and might ruin it. Is that true?

Thank you for helping out.

1. I wait 3 days before back-sweetening. Some people wait 5 days. Some people do it all at once. I prefer to wait so I can be sure the chemicals have inhibited/killed the yeast before I prep and bottle. I'm low-tech so I degas by stirring. No exploding bottles that way, for sure.

2. I bottle immediately after adding back-sweetening once sure the yeast have been stabilized. If you ever want to add flavor packs, it then becomes a question of your source juice. Some juices will require a few days after addition to settle out, so that your wine in the bottles will not have residue in it. Of course, if you get to where you filter your wines, this is not necessary. I don't filter.

3. I wait 3 days before I bottle. I simply refit the airlock. It'll tell me what's up. But you won't get referment if you add the proper amounts of k meta and sorbate.

4. I don't know the answer to this one. My wines are stored for a year max. I have had no worries at that length of time.
 
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