Kmeta in spray bottle

[timber]

I don't remember which one of our fine members made the suggestion but putting some Kmeta solution in a spray bottle worked very well during my first batch primary stage.

Put the remainder of the gallon of Kmeta solution in the primary bucket to sterilize equipment but it's very handy to have the spray bottle to sterilize anything going into the must or after it comes out of the must.

I like it, thanks to whoever mentioned it!

 

[Wade E]

Ive doing this for a long time and we also keep a bucket full of corks with a bottle of kmeta open to keep our corks sanitized. The bucket has to be sealed good.

 

[Runningwolf]

Dave I couldn't agree more. I started out using a wallpaper tray for sanitizing long spoons and stuff until Wild Wade told me about the spray bottle.

 

[milbrosa]

Wade, I have an All-Juice bucket that I use as a cork safe. I pour a half inch of Sodium Metabisulfite solution in the bottom, and put my corks in a plastic collander that drops into the bucket just far enough for me to close the tight-sealing lid. The bottom of the collander is a good foot above the liquid.

I left some corks in the safe for an entire year. They were #9x1.75 inch agglomerated corks. When I finally bottled with them a year later, they had become saturated and puffy. The bucket was so well sealed that the Na-meta had not evaporated. It still had plenty of stink.

The soft puffy corks slid into the bottles like they were made of butter, or at least like El Salvadoran corn masa. Unfortunately, they slid right back out on their own from the pressure of the air compressed below them. I could not get them to stay put in the bottle. A half hour after bottling, I had to pull them all out (an easy job, as I could just pull them by hand) and replace them with fresh sanitized corks.

Since then, I put my corks in the fumigating cork safe just a day before I bottle.

 

[Rocky]

An inexpnsive and handy tool for sanitizing corks is a common kitchen salad spinner. I have an old one where I put the corks into the basket and the solution in the bottom of the bowl of the spinner and put the top on. Works great.

 

[Wade E]

Milbrosa, That method that you were using is for quick sanitizing like you are doing now. You need to keep the corks below the liquid. Either that or they were poor quality corks. Ive buy corks in bulk and keep a gallon wine jug in the middle open 1/2 filled with the solution and have had corks in there for around 1 year no problem.

 

[djrockinsteve]

I tend to spray everything before and after cleaning, even my hands.

Let's not forget to keep your sink and the spigots clean. Anything you touch whether you think about it or not should be clean.

 

[milbrosa]

Milbrosa, That method that you were using is for quick sanitizing like you are doing now. You need to keep the corks below the liquid. Either that or they were poor quality corks. Ive buy corks in bulk and keep a gallon wine jug in the middle open 1/2 filled with the solution and have had corks in there for around 1 year no problem.

The way I was doing it, the corks are in a colander above the liquid, but not in the liquid. They are suspended over the liquid, not touching it.

If I understand you correctly, it sounds you put the corks in the bottom of the bucket and put an open bottle of k-meta in the bucket with them.

It sounds pretty much the same, except that I probably have a larger surface area of sanitizing solution exposed to air inside the bucket. I kept the lid on the bucket sealed, as I'm sure you do. In either case, there will be sulfur in the air around the corks to sanitize them.

These are the corks - the say "molded" not "agglomerated" so I was wrong about that.
http://www.finevinewines.com/XPListDet1.asp?MM_PartNumber=2322B

 

[Wade E]

Link is wrong. There is a problem with doing links a certain way from that site and everything ends up as a bucket of all juice Merlot. You are using the perfect agglomerate molded corks in #9 x 1.5" size. Those are good corks although I much prefer the 1.75"s or the size you use. These are the exact corks I use and dont have a problem using this method with the corks under the gas. Not sure if thats the reason you had this problem but I just havent run into this problem yet.

 

[milbrosa]

Weird. Is there a way to link to stuff on FVW so it works properly?

No matter. What I'm using are the corks that have FIne Vine Wines logo on them. I think they are molded rather than agglomerated, but I am by no means certain.

They look like they have a finer texture than agglomerated. It is analogous to the difference between MDF (medium density fiberboard, the molded cork) vs OSF (oriented strand board, the agglomerated cork).

They are #9x1.75" corks.

 

[Runningwolf]

Weird. Is there a way to link to stuff on FVW so it works properly?

There is. When you bring up the page with multiple items on it, right click on the part number you want to link to and then click on copy short cut. Do not go to the single item page and save the web address.

 

[milbrosa]

Thanks Dan. Then just to be clear, the corks that got mushy on me were these 2320B #9x1.75.

The other ones I normally use are 2310B #9x1.75. I didn't leave any of those in my cork safe for a year, so I don't know if they would suffer the same fate.