question on sorbate & campden

[bearcreekwine]

Hi, looking for some help. I have a 5 galloon batch of home made wine from home grown grapes, sg is .999. yesterday I did something probably questionable, I put in the noted dosage on the bottle of wine conditioner first, then added the proper dosage of Camden tablets in that order which I think must be wrong. It immediately fizzed up and bubbled over the top of the carboy for a while, finally stopped, I went out this morning and the wine is cloudy, was perfectly clear prior to these additions. I tasted it and it tastes alright. Was going to bottle, obviously not now, questions is should I wait till it clears on its on, or add something, next is how long should I wait before bottling after the addition of these chemicals, is to long bad. Thanks in advance.

 

[vernsgal]

sometimes if you add the chems straight in you get a gyser. It didn't spoil it but I would leave it to clear again before bottling.

 

[bearcreekwine]

Appreciate the advice, and that is exactly what happened, lesson learned.

 

[DoctorCAD]

Not a whole lot you can do about it except dissolve the chemicals in a cup of warm water (or wine) first. Seems to help a bit.

 

[bearcreekwine]

Once again thanks, any thing I hear on this site is great.

 

[sour_grapes]

But I think it must be the case that your wine is not sufficiently degassed. I reckon that geyser is from CO2 being released. (The addition of chemicals just helped it come out of solution, like throwing salt into a Coke.) I would make sure it is well degassed before trying to bottle.

 

[Turock]

When you're making fruit or grape wine, these wines need time in bulk aging--you can't bottle it right after the primary ferment is done. They should spend about 1 year in bulk aging. Bulk aging removes all the sediment and most of the yeast cells so that the wine becomes stabile for bottling.

Also, any type of sweetening demands use of sorbate. And you should never add sorbate to cloudy wine because it can't work with all the yeast cells present. Don't use wine conditioner. So many people report problems with it. Use simple syrup, instead. But no sweetening can be done until the wine is bulk aged and most of the yeast racked from it.