bulk aging and measuring sulphites

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iridium

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Like many in this forum, I have just started the wine making journey. I am working with a one gallon kit right now. I know many have said go bigger, but for many reasons, I am quite happy, and excited to start with the 1 gallon kits.
I have just started primary fermentation on my kit and it looks to be doing a great job.

My questions are around bulk aging, adding K meta, and measuring sulphites. As I understand from many on this forum, (thank you for posting answers!) that once the kit says to go into the bottle, you put into a clean carboy. air locklet sit for three months. Also during this time you add more k meta to the wine. However, here it seems that there is a difference of opinion. Some say add a set amount (.25 tsp per 5 gal) others say to measure. Does it matter which route to take? If I bulk age in oak does that change things?

Anyway, thoughts and recommendations are appreciated. Thank you to all who take the time to respond.
 
Certainly you do not want to overdose your new wine with k-meta. To be precise you need to add 1/5 of that .25 tsp of K-Meta. Your best bet is to get a small digital scale then you will need to get the weight of that volume.

Someone on here can tell probably tell you what that weight will need to be in grams. OR if you have digital scale do that yourself. (The weight of 1/4 tsp (.25) and then divide that by 5 and then weigh that amount out.) That's a fine cut but not impossible. The alternative is to use 1 Campden tablet (K-Meta in a pre-measured tablet) That's less difficult than buying a digital scale and measuring the weight of the volume of 1/4 tsp and dividing by 5. Someone may pop up and tell you that's more K-Meta than you need but it's not going to spoil the wine if you don't dose the wine every time you rack.
 
I can only give you my experience in making wine for about 30 years. I to wished to measure sulphite in wine and add accordingly. over the years as new measurement tools became available I would purchase and continue to make measurements and additions accordingly. I eventually purchased the automated measuring tools from Hanna and thought this is ideal as the accuracy of my measurement was guaranteed. I promptly began taking measurement at three month interval found the SO2 addition diminishing quickly and requiring addition to the wine each time. I then proceeded to just add 1/4 tsp each of three months and found that my seat of the pants approach and measurement approach were almost identical. I have since moved into a retirement community and back to making one gallon wine, I got rid of all of my sulphite measuring tools and just ride with the tsp method. my point use your funds to purchase a good ph meter and a gram scale and a set of measuring spoons.
 
The kits are paint by numbers, so many of the variables have been taken out of the equation. For instance, you know that you are most likely dealing with a 3.4-3.6 wine, which is microbial stable without large doses of SO2. The rule of thumb of 1/4 tsp (1.5 grams) per 5 gallons every 3 months works well. It is when you have 3.9+ pH that these rules change quickly, since there is an exponential relationship between pH and the amount of SO2 required.
 
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Just as a small practical note on adding small amounts of k-meta, you could consider this approach: Dissolve 1/4 tsp of k-meta in, say, 100 mL of water. Then add 20 mL of that solution to your gallon.

If, by "bulk age in oak," you mean using a (small) barrel, then this does indeed affect the rate at which you will lose sulfites.
 

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