Can I ferment without the chemicals?

[MangoMead]

Hey folks new guy to the game, and I have what I hope can be a quick question.

Can I ferment and make stuff that is drinkable without the chemical additives like potassium metabisulfite, potassium sorbate, pectin enzyme and sparkolloid?

By drinkable I am first, of course, concerned with safety, secondly with flavor. Pretty not too concerned.

Generally I'd prefer not to use unnecessary chemicals, but if they were easily available I'd probably just go ahead and go for it, at least while I was learning. However, where I am located (Thailand) getting this stuff may turn into a serious hassle.

So can I do without or sub in something else that might be more easily obtainable, preferably maybe a little more natural?

 

[cpfan]

Yes, you can do it without the mentioned additives. However, K-meta and sorbate provide shelf life for the finished product and allow the wine to be sweetened. Pectin Enzyme and sparkolloid (and isinglass, chitosan, kieselsol) are part of the clearing process. Translation, you may not get the best results.

More natural substitutions? Believe me, if they were available, we would be recommending them.

Steve

 

[MangoMead]

Thanks for the answers man.

Like I said I don't mind it not being crystal clear as long as it tastes good and is safe.

Not sure I understand why it can't be sweetened without the chems though. It may be that my theory is still a little thin, but I thought that after you ran a ferment dry all the yeast was dead. At that point it seems like adding sugar would not kick fermentation back into play.

If there is still a little yeast surviving after it runs dry would something like pasteurization then sweetening and then right into sealed bottles work?

 

[ShawnDTurner]

Not all yeast die when you go to dry, some will go dormant. Thus when you add sugar to back sweeten and bottle without Chems(You can sterile filter, if you have the equipment to do this).You will wake up the yeast and they will begin re-fermenting the sugar you added. You will have created bottle bombs! Cheers

 

[MangoMead]

Safe to drink or safe to be around, yeah those are both important.

Sterile filter huh? Would a UV device like for a salt water aquarium work for that? I have more confidence in being able to find and put together a device like that than i do in being able to find a steady supply of chemicals.

If I killed the yeasties with the UV right before a final bottling, assuming all was clean, as it ought to be anyway, should I be safe from exploding bottles?

 

[jamesngalveston]

if you start your wine at say 1.110 and let it go to .990, and then rack and let it clear completely, there would be a very slim chance that it would ferment again when adding sugar.
i guit using sulfites and sorbate but i dont plan to let my wine sit for a couple of years
before i drink it....

 

[MangoMead]

if you start your wine at say 1.110 and let it go to .990, and then rack and let it clear completely, there would be a very slim chance that it would ferment again when adding sugar.
i guit using sulfites and sorbate but i dont plan to let my wine sit for a couple of years
before i drink it....

HAHA yeah as I'm thinking of going the Skeeter Pee / Dragon Blood style and sharing it with my buddies I don't see it sitting on the shelf too long.

I found out today there is one brew shop in the country, up in Bangkok, luckily it's only an hour or so away and I may be able to convince them to stock some of this stuff and make my life a bit easier perhaps.

I'm still curious if the UV thing might work. At first I was thinking of an aquarium model but they make them for drinking water systems too so I know those would be food safe.

 

[jamesngalveston]

I read a white paper on uv and yeast, very hard to understand...according to them a 15 second burst was ideal..but i have no clue how much yeast they were bombarding...
you may want to do some real good research on that.

 

[MangoMead]

Well unlike the chem supplies, home water filters are pretty common. Tap water here is not fit to drink unless treated, so these units are easily obtainable.

Seems like it would be pretty easy to set up an experiment to figure out what LPS flow rate kills yeasts off.

 

[ShawnDTurner]

Sterile filtering is what is used by the Wine Industry. I doubt you would have the setup for this as it is quite expensive. Maintaining a sterile environment to do this would be quite costly. I am not sure about UV.. Try it......send samples to a lab for analysis. Cheer

 

[GreginND]

I'm still curious if the UV thing might work. At first I was thinking of an aquarium model but they make them for drinking water systems too so I know those would be food safe.

NO NO NO NO NO . . . UV light will degrade the wine, especially red wines. There are lots of chemical reactions that are induced by light activation. I would never recommend using UV to sterilize wine. Bad idea.

 

[MangoMead]

NO NO NO NO NO . . . UV light will degrade the wine, especially red wines. There are lots of chemical reactions that are induced by light activation. I would never recommend using UV to sterilize wine. Bad idea.

Yeah I have read up on the topic a bit already and it seems that evidence suggests it would be a bad idea. I'm going to keep that idea percolating in my mind though and later, when I have some more experience under my belt, I may come back and do a little experimentation.

I was amazed to read how much effect just sitting on the top shelf of a supermarket shelf exposed to the UV light from fluorescents could have on wine.

Also in my studies I found another way to be sure the yeast is dead and allow for sweetening is to add a little neutral spirit to bring the alcohol % up a just above where the yeast can live. I'm gonna guess though that fortifying wine is probably frowned on here for the most part.

 

[jamesngalveston]

i fortify just about all of mine...i dont like sorbate are campden.

 

[MangoMead]

OK good to know someone is doing it. I was gonna give it a try regardless

Looks like my biggest hurdle now may be ambient temps.

A chilly night here might get down to 23c (73f) and a typical afternoon is about 33c to 36 (91f to 97f)

 

[jamesngalveston]

i have read a lot on wine stabilizing, some say if the abv is 10 percent it will not ferment again, others say it has to be above 12.5 percent. I try to start my wine at 1.100 are 1.110
are close and i like to finish at .990....and i use Pasteur red are Premier Curvee yeast.
that just about guarantees me of 14 percent are better.

This time of the year hear its about 79 at night and 90 to 95 during the day.
Where i make wine it stays about 77 to 79 degrees.

 

[seth8530]

UV light, ie irradiating the yeast to try and kill them. Honestly, I am not sure how well it would work, but I could be wrong.

Also, I highly recommend adding sorbate and sulfite if available while back sweetining. Even if you ferment down to .990 at 13% ABV. Yeastie beasties are tough critters and tend to surprise you when you least want to be surprised.

 

[MangoMead]

i have read a lot on wine stabilizing, some say if the abv is 10 percent it will not ferment again, others say it has to be above 12.5 percent. I try to start my wine at 1.100 are 1.110
are close and i like to finish at .990....and i use Pasteur red are Premier Curvee yeast.
that just about guarantees me of 14 percent are better.

This time of the year hear its about 79 at night and 90 to 95 during the day.
Where i make wine it stays about 77 to 79 degrees.

From what I am reading stabilizing by fortification has a lot to do with the alcohol tolerance of the yeasts in there, so as long as you don't have some super high % tolerant strain the numbers you are talking about should be good.

As I understand fermentation will stop generaly when the yeast runs out of sugar to convert or when the alcohol % gets too high. I am theorizing that if while fermenting I was to keep feeding a little sugar regularly eventually the main yeast colony will kill it's self off by hitting it's % limit, then I would just need to bring the % up a few points to be sure it was high enough to kill that mutants or wild yeasts that might be present.

As I'm thinking of sort of relatively fast finishing, quick drinking stuff, this seems like it might be a good. Plus I have a good inexpensive source of quality 93% neutral spirits close by. I think that would be perfect for fortification.

Only thing is working out the math to know how much to add to get to the target %, not even sure where to start there. back to the books on that one.

It does not always drop under 80 at night here, it's rare to get into the mid or low 70s. I was living a few hundred Kilometers north of here last January and it dropped below 70 at night for a week or two and people were breaking out puffy jackets and wooly hats. I even dug out a pair of socks from storage because my feet were cold.

You can see my current whether conditions here if you are curious

 

[MangoMead]

UV light, ie irradiating the yeast to try and kill them. Honestly, I am not sure how well it would work, but I could be wrong.

Also, I highly recommend adding sorbate and sulfite if available while back sweetining. Even if you ferment down to .990 at 13% ABV. Yeastie beasties are tough critters and tend to surprise you when you least want to be surprised.

Theory seems to say that the UV will energize certain molecules that will break down into stinky stuff when they release the energy they captured.

I guess I could push it to 20% just to be sure LOL

 

[jamesngalveston]

After training my palate, I did just that, I can tell the difference in wine with are without sorbate and campden..I never thought that I could but I can now. The wine without has a cleaner/crispier taste to me...

Alternative to yeast nutrient/energizer.
Mix 1 cup grape nuts with 1 1/2 cup water...nuke for 1 minute and let cool.
Add in thirds to your wine. It will be racked off at 1st racking.
It does not impart the taste and if very effective....

 

[MangoMead]

After training my palate, I did just that, I can tell the difference in wine with are without sorbate and campden..I never thought that I could but I can now. The wine without has a cleaner/crispier taste to me...

Alternative to yeast nutrient/energizer.
Mix 1 cup grape nuts with 1 1/2 cup water...nuke for 1 minute and let cool.
Add in thirds to your wine. It will be racked off at 1st racking.
It does not impart the taste and if very effective....

Grape nuts? Seriously? There is something sort of awesome about that. I love that stuff with some yogurt too. I have no idea if I can find it. There are some dry cereals here in the falang grocery stores but I don't know if I have ever seen grape nuts. If I can't find them I bet I can get a decent idea of the ingredients and find a cereal or a blend of them that might have similar stuff. Maybe some granola...

I had read some where else that some chopped up raisins and bananas (skin on the banana) was a good nutrient substitute.