Potassium metabisulfite didnt work!

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outdoort

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Hi guys. New here from Greensburg pa. My girlfriend and i did a wine kit a few months ago and it turned out great! Only wish we werent going though the bottles so quickly. Wine expert pino nior the premium kit.

Anyway to my question. We bought two pales of chilean juice and brought them home friday afternoon (2 days ago). That evening we came home (after going to a winery lol) to a slight mess of a boil over of active fermentation with both of them. Juice was on the floor too. I really didnt want to add any sulfute before fermentation so it took me until sat morn to decide to add a exact 1/4 teaspoon sulfite.
Saturday evening 12hrs later: still fermenting real good, so i added a heaping 1/4 teaspoon sulfite.

Sunday morning still bubbling away real good!

So at that point i was like well idk the metabisulfite didnt work or i didnt add enough at one time. But the bag of metabisulfite and our instruction sheet all say 1/4 teaspoon fir 6 gallons kill wild yeast. Is that just the dose before they take over?


What shall we do? Let it ride and hope it comes out? We still havent pitched our yeast becasuse with the wild yeast in there that have taken over full fermentation probably wont allow our yeast to even do anything. (Plus we have added metabisulfite, and 12-24hr should go by before pitching yeast after doing that right?


Please help! Thanks guys. Been brewing beer for a long time and so im not green on the whole fermentation process, just wondering what the deal with the sulfite is???

We really only wanted to add a slight amount of sulfite when we go to secondary so im thinking at this point just pitch the yeast and hope it ferments along side the wild yeast.

Also no the juice bucket didnt have yeast already added to it.
 
Wine yeast are quite tolerant of sulfite. It is overwhelmingly likely that your juice pail had wine yeast in it, either intentionally (quite common with juice pails) or just from the buildup of wine-yeast strains in the vineyard.

I think you can safely do either of two things: let it ride, or go ahead and pitch the yeast you were planning to use. If the first strains were, indeed, a decent strain of yeast, then your second dose will probably not get established, but neither will it hurt anything. If the first strain was a non-decent strain, the second dose is your insurance to try to take the fermentation to completion. I would NOT add any more k-meta at this point.
 
Hi guys. New here from Greensburg pa. My girlfriend and i did a wine kit a few months ago and it turned out great! Only wish we werent going though the bottles so quickly. Wine expert pino nior the premium kit.

Anyway to my question. We bought two pales of chilean juice and brought them home friday afternoon (2 days ago). That evening we came home (after going to a winery lol) to a slight mess of a boil over of active fermentation with both of them. Juice was on the floor too. I really didnt want to add any sulfute before fermentation so it took me until sat morn to decide to add a exact 1/4 teaspoon sulfite.
Saturday evening 12hrs later: still fermenting real good, so i added a heaping 1/4 teaspoon sulfite.

Sunday morning still bubbling away real good!

So at that point i was like well idk the metabisulfite didnt work or i didnt add enough at one time. But the bag of metabisulfite and our instruction sheet all say 1/4 teaspoon fir 6 gallons kill wild yeast. Is that just the dose before they take over?


What shall we do? Let it ride and hope it comes out? We still havent pitched our yeast becasuse with the wild yeast in there that have taken over full fermentation probably wont allow our yeast to even do anything. (Plus we have added metabisulfite, and 12-24hr should go by before pitching yeast after doing that right?


Please help! Thanks guys. Been brewing beer for a long time and so im not green on the whole fermentation process, just wondering what the deal with the sulfite is???

We really only wanted to add a slight amount of sulfite when we go to secondary so im thinking at this point just pitch the yeast and hope it ferments along side the wild yeast.

Also no the juice bucket didnt have yeast already added to it.

Sulfite doesn’t kill yeast or stop an active fermentation, at least not the doses you gave 24 hours apart, it blows off quickly with all that bubbling activity. Your 1/4 tsp dose is correct to stun the native yeast. I suspect that your pails were already innoculated with commercial yeast, which are more sulfite tolerant. Go ahead and add your yeast, but no more sulfite and let it roll. The only thing you’ve really missed is the initial gravity reading and perhaps acid adjustments, which you can do later.
 
Wine yeast are quite tolerant of sulfite. It is overwhelmingly likely that your juice pail had wine yeast in it, either intentionally (quite common with juice pails) or just from the buildup of wine-yeast strains in the vineyard.

I think you can safely do either of two things: let it ride, or go ahead and pitch the yeast you were planning to use. If the first strains were, indeed, a decent strain of yeast, then your second dose will probably not get established, but neither will it hurt anything. If the first strain was a non-decent strain, the second dose is your insurance to try to take the fermentation to completion. I would NOT add any more k-meta at this point.

Looks like you posted while I was typing, at least the advice is consistent.........
 
Add the yeast and no more sulfur as insurance in case the yeastcurrenly working run out of steam. Yeast do better if they are slowly acclimated to the changing environment, so better to add the yeast now vs. later. I too suspect the buckets were already inoculated with something like 1118; the people selling the buckets don’t want to get calls about incomplete fermentation’s.
 
Also no the juice bucket didnt have yeast already added to it.

That’s what they say. But those suckers sure do take off quickly don’t they? Even if no clue what to do- you could buy a pail and make wine by accident with these things!
This is pretty common. Especially when picked up towards the end of juice/grape season they tend to take off before you even get home.
If it’s a red it’s safe to assume it was about ~1.090 sg to start. Was is the Toro Negro bucket?
 
Go with it now. Don't add any more potassium metabisulfite. As suggested above - either allow it to ferment using the wild yeast or add your yeast to see whether it takes over. If the wild yeast population is high( which it probably is by now) it will likely be dominant and anything you add will just be overwhelmed or remain dormant. You may end up with a very nice natural wine.
 

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