Robie,
That is a BIG help! Things are beginning to make sense and fall into place. I'm curious about the sorbate. I certainly don't want "sweet" but all my Wine Expert kits have sorbate (along with sulfite) to add at stabilization. Why?
The kit manufacturers have to guaranty the kits to make good wine or your money back. They are going to take every step possible to insure the wine turns out OK, even for novice wine makers.
Re-fermentation, as well as oxidation are big contributors to failed kit wine. As a result, they want you to use sorbate to insure that the yeast can no longer multiply, hopefully eliminating fermentation in the bottle.
(Sorbate renders the yeast incapable of multiplying, so what yeast are still alive at the end of fermentation will soon die. Making sure the wine is dry, proper stabilizing with sulfites and bulk aging will eliminate further fermentation in the bottle.)
They also have you bottle way too early because they are more concerned about the wine becoming oxidized than they are about the sediment that usually forms in the bottles of early bottled wines.
Once one has made wine for awhile, adding sorbate can be seen as an unnecessary step for wines left dry, especially if one does not like the taste of sorbate (bubblegum taste).
Not all but most experienced kit wine makers do not add the sorbate if the wine is to be left dry. Similarly, we don't bottle so quickly. Some of us don't bottle for at least a year, although in some cases that might be a little extreme. ( Other than for sweet summer wines, which I do sorbate, I seldom bottle before 18 months.)
I would say if you have any doubts, go ahead and use the sorbate, just not where you will do an MLF. Lots of people can't even taste it. As you get more experienced, try leaving it out and see if it improves the taste of your wine.
