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Broge5

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I have an EP super Tuscan and a celler craft showcase Yakima Syrah that have been bulk aging for about 90 days. I was about to bottle but decided to go ahead and take advantage of the cold weather and stick them in the garage for a little while to see if I could get some of the wine diamonds to drop. I can tell by the increased headspace that the wine is shrinking in the cold temperature but what makes me curious is where the KMeta solution in the airlock is going. It has only been out there for about a week but I have had to top up the airlock two times now. It can't be going into the carboy can it?? Could it be evaporating in the cold?
 
Uh oh. So it's going in the wine?

How does it get paste the 3 piece airlock? (I'm not using the lid, so it's only a 2 piece)
 
Three piece? That does seam odd.

possible hint - he mentioned adding KMeta solution in the air locks -
I believe it froze and has a hairline crack and dripped out of there.

I know I use vodka in the S- style airlocks and I have no issues and I had the wine down to 15 degrees F
 
Freezing would make sense but it seems to have leveled off now. I figured that there would be a point where as the wine equalizes to the ambient temperature, the pressure is then constant and no longer increasing and thus causing additional "suck back."

While that may have happened, the ambient temp in my garage has also risen and lessened the pressure.

The airlocks are holding now leading me to assume if it was a crack, it is so slight that it only leaks under pressure.

If not a crack, I just can't imagine how a 3 piece airlock can have suck back over the center post.

Airlocks aside, I was going to add KMeta anyway at bottling. I figure the amount that leaked in totals about 3/4 of a full airlock, and even though the sanitizing solution is pretty concentrated, I doubt I'm at much risk. I hope!
 
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