Do You Have To Use Campden At Bottling?

[critterhunter]

I'm making a pear based "wine" which I guess is really called a Perry when making it with pears. Anyway, at the last racking about 3 weeks ago we had added a few campden tablets (5 gallons), which I hear is less than what we should have used (1 per gallon). We are planning to bottle tomorrow as it's very clear and Perry is said to be able to bottle in a few weeks, with us already over two months into it.

My question is should we put in 1 per gallon before bottling it on the same day tomorrow, and if we do then that means it's got to sit a few weeks in the bottle before drinking it, right?

The information I dug up on Perry doesn't even mention using Campden tablets at all in either the primary or the secondary, but other Pear recipes do call for it at least in the primary at 1 per gallon.

If we don't use any campden then does that mean the wine won't shelf well and last say a year or so? If we don't use any then can we drink it that day or should we still wait a few weeks to get rid of bottle shock?

 

[critterhunter]

Also, at the last racking about 3 weeks ago we had put in Sorbate along with the 2 or 3 Campden tablets to insure no further fermation as we added sugar that same day because the wine was very dry having converted the 10 pounds of sugar all into alchohol. Should we find that the wine is still not sweet enough tomorrow can we add more sugar and just bottle or should we just sweeten it to taste when we open a bottle? I don't want to risk any further fermation or explosions, although I doubt that would happen because of the Sorbate and the fact that I think the champain yeast can no longer live in this high of alchohol content having already converted 10 pounds to it. Also, we did put in 6 pounds of white rasins in the primary if that matters with the above questions.