SO2 / odor question

[osborngj]

Strawberry wine from hell.
3 gallon batch

Ok, I had low SO2 so I added 2 campden tablets in room temp water. Now 3 days later I checked my S.G. and its at 1.00 so I figure its time to transfer to my carboy. So I check my SO2 level again and its at 11 mg/l again. So it would make me think I should add another 2 tablets? Does that seem weird?

Second question.
The wine has a slightly yeastee smell, a hint of strawberry, and I hate to say but possibly a hint of vinegar smell? Should I just taste it to see if its gone bad? Could that be a cause of the SO2 level drop?

 

[sly22guy]

How long ago did you start this and what was your recipe? Yes go ahead and taste it

 

[osborngj]

The recipe is as follows
Intial:
3 campden tablets
14lbs of strawberries
4.5 teaspoons of acid blend
3/4" pectic enzyme
6 lbs of honey

After a day of fermenting I headed the advise of others and added the following

8lbs of straweberries
1 lbs of honey
I had low SO2 so added 2 more campden tablets

I tasted the wine, It had a strong taste but not of strawberries. It really didn't have a taste, it almost just felt like tingling/burning.

 

[ffemt128]

The recipe looks fine to me so far. I can't really help you with the SO2 levels as I don't check mine. I add initially 1 tab per gallon or 1/4 tsp/5 gallon then at 90 day intervals from there.

I had this issue with one of my batches of red wine recently and someone suggested that it sounded as though the yeast were getting stressed and that I should add energizer. I initially added nutrient but was out of energizer. This could be what you are experiencing as well.

I add nutient to all batches of wine prior to pitching yeast.

I'm sure someone with more knowlege will chime in soon.

 

[osborngj]

My bad, I added yeast nutrient intially. I forgot to list that.

 

[SBWs]

You SHOULD NOT be adding campden tablets during fermentation. You will stun/stress the yeast.

 

[osborngj]

Ok, don't add campden tablets while in fermentation. So if I stressed the yeast is that what is causing my flavor swing? Can it be resolved or do I just start over?

 

[SBWs]

The flavor swing is most likely from the sugar (honey) changing to Alcohol. Most fruit wines unlike grape wines need to have some sweetness added back after fermentation is done. It all depends on one taste. Fruit wines are a lot like fruit pies if you make them without sugar they would taste sweet. Remember that most of the sugar (honey in your case) added in the beginning is converted to alcohol. If you want sweet, it needs to be added back (backsweeten) after fermentation is done (wine is dry) and the wine has been stabilized with k-meta and k-sorbate.

 

[osborngj]

What should wine taste like at this point? I like dry wines, this batch doesn't taste like a dry wine.

 

[SBWs]

I've never tasted a dry strawberry wine so I don't know what one would taste like. But if your wine hasn't aged at all it's not going to taste very good at this point. That along with the fact, what you have made is Mead (honey wine) it's not going to taste like most fruit wines.