Well, another story of corks popping out..!!

[saramc]

I'm sorry I gotta disagree. The one time I did sorbate/sulfite/sugar all in the same day I kicked off a secondary ferment. And the stuff was brand new. And it's worked great every other time ive used it, after giving it 12-24 hours to do its thing.

Dessertmaker...Similar one time situation here, just got side tracked in my process one day. Wine was aged well past a year, no lees had dropped in 5 months, was time to get it stabilized for bottling. Added k-meta, then sugar to backsweeten and realized had forgotten sorbate. Head smack & promptly added it. Had to wait a few months for referment to finish and reclear the wine.
My products were good because I had decanted a few gallons of same wine just earlier for blending, and I stabilized it in my normal process: kms + sorbate, wait at least 12 hrs before backsweetening....and it did not referment. It has been the only accidental refermentation I have experienced to date.

 

[Runningwolf]

I stand by my statement of being able to add all three at same time. Believe me I do this at home and I do it at work whether it is a 5 gallon or two thousand gallon batch I am making. A few notes though as I have always suggested. Always mix your chemicals with warm water first and stir well until dissolved then stir well into wine. Add each chemical independently. Do not add meta and sobate into a cup and add water to mix together. Do the separately. If you got a new fermentation and you said you had new chemicals then my guess is your LHBS sold you old chemicals or it wasn't blended into the wine well enough. This is just my opinion and I could be wrong, just saying...

 

[Julie]

so you two are saying that you added your sulfite then added the sugar and what 15 to 20 minutes later you added the sorbate and that was enough time for the yeast that has been laying dorment and has just been stunned with sulfite to become so active and had multiplied so much that the sorbate could not do anything?

 

[jamesngalveston]

I surely am a beginner, but I find it hard to belive that the dormant yeast cells good propagate that fast, that would not allow the sorbate to work.
heck you could sprinkle yeast on it, and it would not work that fast....

 

[Runningwolf]

James, Just think of those little yeasties as little spermies. It only takes one to get by an unprotected area. LOL

 

[jamesngalveston]

lol runningwolf...that is funny.

 

[Deezil]

I stand by my statement of being able to add all three at same time. Believe me I do this at home and I do it at work whether it is a 5 gallon or two thousand gallon batch I am making. A few notes though as I have always suggested. Always mix your chemicals with warm water first and stir well until dissolved then stir well into wine. Add each chemical independently. Do not add meta and sobate into a cup and add water to mix together. Do the separately. If you got a new fermentation and you said you had new chemicals then my guess is your LHBS sold you old chemicals or it wasn't blended into the wine well enough. This is just my opinion and I could be wrong, just saying...

It's because of the "unknown", that I dont recommend this. How long has the sorbate been sitting on their shelf at home? We never know.. How long did it sit on the shelf at LHBS? No telling.... So what I do, may be different than what I recommend, but its because I can better-answer those unknowns.

You CAN add them all in succession, on the same day.
But I wouldnt recommend it to anyone with less knowledge than me.
Better safe than sorry.

But yes, you can do it.

I havent seen anyone wait a few days, and still freak out..

My 2 cents..

 

[Julie]

Deezil, with all do respect, what do you mean by the "unknown"? I don't think there is much in the unknown about adding sulfite, sorbate and sugar all at the same time. And I don't see where you need to be a seasoned winemaker to do this. The chemicals do their thing no matter what experience you have in winemaking.

And as far as sorbate having a shelf, roflmao, you missed the other thread on that. Manufacturers say there is no shelf life!

 

[jamesngalveston]

what julie says ...most chemicals do not have a shelf live. which is a dup anyhow.
when I was caught up in hurricane rita...i was in a fish cabin on a lake.
when we cleaned the freezer and frig..there were cokes, beet, etc that was outdated by 3 years...guess what...they tasted great..
this expiration date, etc. is a lark.

 

[Julie]

what julie says ...most chemicals do not have a shelf live. which is a dup anyhow.
when I was caught up in hurricane rita...i was in a fish cabin on a lake.
when we cleaned the freezer and frig..there were cokes, beet, etc that was outdated by 3 years...guess what...they tasted great..
this expiration date, etc. is a lark.

Sorry James, I was being sarcastic. I believe sorbate has a shelf life.

 

[jamesngalveston]

u being sarcastic..i would never had thought..lol

 

[cimbaliw]

Geek-meister, I feel your pain. I'm convinced that, at least to some extent, my referment was based on temperature. I started the DB in the cold of a prolonged Michigan Winter, first month of drinking was fine but when the basement temp slowly rose from ~55f to ~65f referment occurred.

Now I simply wait the primary out; beyond dry readings on the hydrometer, I just look at the batch and see if it has stopped fizzing. Then I proceed to rack and degas. On the other hand the minor 1-2% boost in ABV is a minor benefit.

 

[Deezil]

Deezil, with all do respect, what do you mean by the "unknown"?

It's because of the "unknown", that I dont recommend this. How long has the sorbate been sitting on their shelf at home? We never know.. How long did it sit on the shelf at LHBS? No telling.... So what I do, may be different than what I recommend, but its because I can better-answer those unknowns.

The chemicals do their thing no matter what experience you have in winemaking.

And as far as sorbate having a shelf, roflmao, you missed the other thread on that. Manufacturers say there is no shelf life!

The chemicals may "do their thing".... But chemicals that have been in the south, sitting on a shelf for six months, or anywhere in the country seeing partial sunlight.... Those are gonna do a whole lot less than some that anyone just pulled out of a fridge... It's only partially about the experience that the winemaker has - what it boils down to, is are they seasoned enough to properly store their chemicals? Because thats the bigger half, how were they stored?

I dont know that for certain, every time, without question.
So I dont recommend it.

It's only a couple pennies...

 

[upsidedown]

I don't know I may be off base on this as I am fairly new. But wouldn't it be prudent to take a sg reading at bottling time and compare with the sg reading after back sweetening? If it was still around the 1.006 mark after a month or three sitting in the carboy I would think it was done. But without knowing what the sg was just prior to bottling there is no real way to be certain what part of the process sparked fermentation up again. P.S. sorry to hear about your corks popping I dread the same thing

 

[dessertmaker]

so you two are saying that you added your sulfite then added the sugar and what 15 to 20 minutes later you added the sorbate and that was enough time for the yeast that has been laying dorment and has just been stunned with sulfite to become so active and had multiplied so much that the sorbate could not do anything?

Added all 3 at once. Bad mistake. Only accidental referment I've experienced while winemaking.

 

[Julie]

Added all 3 at once. Bad mistake. Only accidental referment I've experienced while winemaking.

Sorry, but 6+ years of adding everything together never had a re-ferment and I am not the only one who does way and like I said I know of several wineries who also do it this way tells me that you had some other issue going on.

Are you sure that the sorbate was new?

 

[dessertmaker]

No but it worked every time I've used it since. Its gone now.