Sparkling Wine From One Gallon Kit

[thesocialwinesclub]

Hi Everyone,

I hope you’ve all done some great brewing in 2021.

I’m thinking about making a sparkling wine out of one of the one-gallon batches. Do you know if the reserve juice bag has any preservatives that will prevent a secondary fermentation in the bottle?

 

[sour_grapes]

It might. Can you tell us what kit you are making? Are there any ingredients listed on the kit?

 

[thesocialwinesclub]

It might. Can you tell us what kit you are making? Are there any ingredients listed on the kit?

Yes, I'm making the winexpert 1 Gallon Moscato kit. The only ingredients listed are what's in the clarifiers. It doesn't give much detail about the actual juice.

 

[winemaker81]

Yes, I'm making the winexpert 1 Gallon Moscato kit. The only ingredients listed are what's in the clarifiers. It doesn't give much detail about the actual juice.

WE says almost nothing about what's in the kit, but I'll make an educated guess.

These kits are designed to be fool-proof for a complete novice, and since this wine rates a 6/10 in the WE sweetness scale, I expect there is sorbate in the F-pack. Potassium sorbate in conjunction with potassium metabisulfite (K-meta) prevent a renewed fermentation when backsweetening (the combo is birth control for yeast). While the kit has a finishing pack (sorbate + K-meta), I expect there is also sorbate in the F-pack to prevent volcanoes if the finishing pack is not used. Failure to add the sorbate will most likely result in a renewed fermentation in the bottle, producing 5 mini-volcanoes and a mess to clean up.

Unless you have a method to inject CO2, like a kegging system, this wine is not a good candidate for home sparkling. However, a quick-n-dirty method recently mentioned in another thread is to add sparkling water or sparkling wine to the Moscato in the glass.

 

[Jovimaple]

@thesocialwinesclub Welcome to WMT!

 

[Rice_Guy]

Welcome to Wine Making Talk

As winemaker noted sorbate is the key question about doing a carbonated, sorbate degrades with exposure to humidity therefore if there is a separate dry packet for finishing chemicals my bet would be WE only puts it in one location/ a dry chemical packet ,,, so you could leave the finishing chemical out.
This has some safety risk!
A carbonated wine needs to be in heavy weight glass champagne bottles with champaign stoppers which are wired on. If the Fpack has lots of fresh sugar it still might cause the bottle to explode! Carbonation for cider and beer is very measured targeting less than two atmospheres of pressure and adds a high alcohol yeast (as 1118) since the yeast in primary may not do the job.
I have unintentionally carbonated a mulberry wine when back sweetening, the volcano problem is minimized by chilling the wine when served.

 

[winemaker81]

As winemaker noted sorbate is the key question about doing a carbonated, sorbate degrades with exposure to humidity therefore if there is a separate dry packet for finishing chemicals my bet would be WE only puts it in one location/ a dry chemical packet ,,, so you could leave the finishing chemical out.

I seem to recall that at least 1 vendor's F-pack contained sorbate, but my memory may be fuzzy on that. I emailed Winexpert and asked -- in the past they have responded within a couple of days.

@thesocialwinesclub, regardless of the answer regarding sorbate in the F-pack, the Moscato is not a good candidate.

If you're not familiar with the process of natural carbonation -- typically a dry wine (or beer or cider) has a measured amount of sugar added to it. For beer it's typically 1/2 to 3/4 cup per 5 US gallons. The remaining yeast eats that sugar, and because it's in a sealed container, the emitted CO2 remains dissolved in the wine. Wa-la! Carbonation!

If an F-pack contains sugar (like the Moscato), the amount is unknown although from the 6/10 sweetness rating of the kit, my guess is it's "a lot". The yeast keeps eating until it poisons its own environment by producing too much alcohol, or it runs out of sugar. If the pressure exceeds the bottle's strength, the bottle explodes, probably quite violently. For this reason only champagne, beer, and plastic soda bottles should be used, as they are designed to handle pressure. NEVER use screwcap bottles, as the glass is typically thin and the likelihood of an explosion, even with relatively low pressure, is much higher.

 

[winemaker81]

Wow! Winexpert replied already:

Thank you for contacting me.
Yes, the f-packs and reserves contain sorbate.
Please let me know if you need further details.