Question Sodium Metabisulfate

[Pmac332010]

Ok I just recently made a batch of the Dragons Blood Variation of Lon D Skeeter Pee. It called for Real Lemon lemon juice. It seems to have fermented just fine. I started at 1.100 DG and am at 1.000 now after 3 weeks.
I just notice the real lemon has Sodium Metabisulfate. Isn't that used to inhibit yeast ? How in the world would it ferment ? The wine does have a funky taste. Of course it hasn't aged at all nor have I let it clear up. I just tasted a little I had left over after my first racking.

 

[dralarms]

Actually it’s a preservative. It should ferment out fine and the “funky smell or taste may just be the yeasty taste.

 

[Pmac332010]

It's more than just a yeasty taste. I've been making wine several years and have never had one taste like this. It's a pretty funky taste. It smells fine. I've never had one have an issue with bad bacteria but I was wondering if maybe that might be my problem. It smells like it should but the taste. I wondered if maybe it just needed sugar since it is basically dry now and the acid content is fairly high or if it was bacteria. Only way to find out is to finish it and see what happens I guess.

 

[dralarms]

What is it? Some wines taste off while young

 

[Pmac332010]

What is it? Some wines taste off while young

Its Lon D's skeeter pee with Strawberries, blueberry raspberry and strawberry added.
It's not supposed to need much aging at all. Basically fermented berry lemonade. Most of my wines are pretty decent all through the fermenting and aging process. I sample all of them at each racking. This one was a little better when I added sugar to the ounce of 2 I pulled off. But it still had an off flavor unlike any of the other wines I've made.

 

[dralarms]

Never made skeeter pee so I can’t help on that but most off smells and tastes can be attributed to stressed yeast. How hot was the room it was fermented in?

 

[Pmac332010]

Room temp stays between 70 and 74. Used Lavlin EC-1118. It should be ok.
The mango-peach wine sitting right beside it is fine. Same yeast.
I've never made skeeter pee before either. Maybe that's just how it tastes when its young. Just didn't want to waste a bunch of time on it if it was a bacterial issue or something. I only have so many carboys and there are other wines I want to start. I'm skeptical of the skeeter pee to begin with but so many people kept saying it was good and I decided to go ahead and try it out though. I love anything citrus. I'm hoping it tastes like an adult version of berry lemonade

 

[dralarms]

Not sure what is causing the problem. Wished I could help

 

[jburtner]

I did a couple dragon blood batches. One with much less backsweetening than the other. Both had much less post sugar added than the recipe called for. I don’t appreciate extremely sweet drinks.

Anyway the one with much less sugar was not really good at all in my opinion and the one with slightly more was only slightly better. Just not my thing and I never made any more.

Think about what lemonade without sugar (or very little sugar) might taste like plus alcohol.

I’d recommend backsweetening to a level you are comfortable with then let it sit and meld for a couple weeks or a month.

I’ll bet that helps if you haven’t sweetened it yet.

Cheeds!
-johann

 

[Pmac332010]

That is kind of what I was hoping to hear. I myself dont drink a lot of my wine. I enjoy making it far more than I like drinking it. The ladies at the hospital like a fairly sweet wine like a dessert wine and they are the ones finding my experiments so I cater to them. At the moment it has been fermenting for 4 weeks so it's basically out of sugar. I'll back sweeten later before I bottle it. They seem to like it best at about 3 to 5 percent potential. I forget what the brix or specific gravity for that is. I just look at the potential alcohol