Merry Christmas to me.... Not

[Medic8106]

As I was finishing shopping for some last minute gifts today, my wife calls. She asked what the $%&# I was doing in my wine room. She said there's wine all over the floor. Here a bottle of my BlackBerry dragon blood exploded (cork blew out). I decided to open another and it was like champagne. I opened the rest and back to the carboy they went. So, with those that had this problem before... What do I do from here? Just allow to stabilize and sorbate again? More kmeta? These were to be Christmas gifts, oh well. I hope my other full batch is not going to do this. My sorbate was new too!

 

[dralarms]

Probably not degassed enough.

 

[Jc5066]

Did you add sulfite when you added the sorbate?

 

[Medic8106]

I degas with a drill and whip, never had a problem with other batches. Yes I added sufite and sorbate.

 

[dralarms]

If the sg is the same as when you bottled it then it wasn't degassed completely. It happens. I had some do it to me.

 

[ibglowin]

Was this back sweetened? Or was it dry? Either it was not fully dry and the yeast started back up or if it was back sweetened then you didn't add enough Sorbate or the Sorbate was no longer any good. Hard to believe you could pop a cork with just residual CO2. You had some fermentation going on in the bottle IMHO.

 

[Medic8106]

Yes it was back sweetened. Got my sorbate from another store than what I usually do. Wonder how long they had it. So I guess I just wait until it's done fermenting again and sweeten again? More meta?

 

[dralarms]

Have you checked the sg?

 

[ibglowin]

There is your culprit...... It seems like Sorbate has a LE of about 6Mo. I bet your LHBS had that on the shelf for 12mo min.....

Yes it was back sweetened. Got my sorbate from another store than what I usually do. Wonder how long they had it. So I guess I just wait until it's done fermenting again and sweeten again? More meta?

 

[Medic8106]

I have not checked the SG yet. Busy day. I will check. Can anyone advise if I should use kmeta again before bottling again?

 

[Boatboy24]

You're on the East coast. It's been very warm the last 48 hours. What are temps in your storage area doing?

 

[grapeman]

The only sure way to tell if you should add more k-meta is to test for free S02. If you don't, then it is just a guess.

However, if you added the k-meta and used the drill to degas a lot, you nay have bound up all the S02 with air you introduced trying to degas it. If you added only a quarter teaspoon per 5-6 gallon batch total so far, then another 1/4 won't hurt.

 

[Medic8106]

It's been running warm in my basement but nothing that I haven't experienced before. I'll check the SO2. Thanks everyone.