Did I completely ruin my wine? Too much K-Meta

[Krakatoa]

Hello,

I am new to wine making and on my 3rd kit. It is an expensive Master Vintner Chilean Carmenere. I joined this forum about 3 weeks ago and started to understand the importance to add K-Meta before bottling. However, in my eagerness to bottle last night, I made a complete idiot newbie mistake. I added 6, yes 6 separate 1/4 tsp dosings of K-Meta to my 6 gallon carboy before bottling last night. Today, I realized I should have added only one 1/4 tsp for the entire 6 gallons (so I have 6x the recommended amount). All 30 bottles are corked and sitting up. Did I completely kill my entire batch? Anything to do to recover the wine? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! (I love the forum and really am enjoying this hobby and the learning process!)

Thank you!

 

[cmason1957]

Oh my! 6X to much and then bottled. It will dissapate, eventually. Profanity 5 or 6 years from now, since bottled. I think I would uncork, pour into a bucket, slosh a few times between two buckets and then rebottle.

 

[BigDaveK]

Might help...

Cures To An Oversulfited Wine - WineMakerMag.com

When you accidentally add too much sulfite to your wine, here are some ways to alleviate the problem by bringing the levels down.

winemakermag.com

 

[Rice_Guy]

Legal limit is 200mg per liter, but you aren’t commercial so you can go over this.
Could you taste it, the reality is that there are sulphites in lots of foods and ones as dried fruit are above 200ppm. If you can’t taste it does it matter? Next is your partner in wine a super taster, they might detect it.
Sulphites react with oxidizers, the industry answer would be add hydrogen peroxide. BUT time will bring about oxidation too.,,, as @cmason1957 said wait it out?

welcome to WMT

 

[winemaker81]

Give the wine 2 months, then open a bottle. IF you don't smell burnt match, don't worry about it. Yeah, you over-did the K-meta, but this has taught you a valuable lesson.

If the wine smells like burnt match, then unbottle, stir for 2 minutes (change direction every 30 seconds), and rebottle.

 

[Johnd]

Hydrogen peroxide will completely remove sulfite from your wine. Do a little research to see what dosage is required, dump all your wine back into the carboy, apply the proper dosage of hydrogen peroxide, add 1/4 tsp sulfite to the 6 gallon carboy, go right back into the same bottles. All that will be lost are the corks and a little time. Waiting for that amount to dissipate in a corked bottle will take a very long time.

 

[Krakatoa]

Thank you all for your responses. This forum is awesome.

 

[Joe B.]

I over sulfated my whole 2021 vintage and with help from advice on this forum it is turning out just fine. I did about 3 1/2 times the recommended dosage. I would go with Winemaker 81 advice and see how it goes from there. I boxed mine between 5 gallon buckets to give it air. Then had no choice but to have a little patience.

 

[winemaker81]

According to the following site, the USA allows up to 350 mg/l, and wines typically have ~80 mg/liter. Assuming this is correct, wine can be dosed over 4 times normal and still be safe for consumption.

Sulfites

Sulfites or sulfur dioxide is a fruit preservative widely used in dried fruits as well as wine. It is also produced by the human body at the level of about 1000 mg (milligrams) per day. Consumption of food preserved with sulfites is generally not a problem except for a few people who are...

waterhouse.ucdavis.edu

The low effort solution is to pop a cork in a couple of months, sniff, and taste. If you don't smell burnt match and the wine tastes fine, it's probably ok.

If you do smell burnt match? @Johnd's advice is better than mine as peroxide will remove the excess sulfite. The Australian Wine Research Institute has an H2O2 calculator.

Hydrogen peroxide addition - The Australian Wine Research Institute

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www.awri.com.au