To Rinse or Not To Rinse...

[GrapeApe]

...That is my question. Ok, the first batch is in the primary and doing well. I suspect (hope) that within 5 days, we'll be racking to the carboy.


When I prepped the primary, I Easy Cleaned it, rinsed it, K-Meta'd it, then rinsed it again before starting the kit. I figured the extra rinse after the K-Meta would not hurt anything. Was this a safe assumption?


Now I have the same question for the carboy, testing equipment,and evenutally the bottles. Will rinsing after the K-Meta hurt anything? I know the amount of K-Meta left in the vessel is small, but I also read the K-Meta can throw off the taste. If it's all the same, I prefer to do a final rinse, unless it's going to introduce bacteria back into the vessel and potentially spoil the batch.


Thanks again for the advice.

 

[masta]

Rinsing after K-meta is perfectly fine.As you mentioned the amount of K-metaleft on your equipment is very small and should not affect the taste at all especially if you are makingkits since the levels of sulfite are kept very low compared to commercial wines.




BTW: Winexpert does tell you to rinse after K-meta in their instructions and I have read one of the reasons behind this is to help eliminate the issue of someone not draining all of the sanitizing solution from the equipment.


So as Tim V. says "FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS, OMITTING NO DETAIL HOWEVER SLIGHT."

Edited by: masta

 

[Funky Fish]

If you properly drain the k-meta solution, then it won't really have any effect. Tim Vandergrift once posted the equations in another forum to show what effect it wouldn't have, but he summed up by saying that thinking you get any effects (or protection) from the k-meta residue is like taking an empty cough syrup bottle, rinsing it with water and hoping that the residue will help your cold.

 

[PeterZ]

Rinsing after the k-meta step is fine IF and ONLY IF you are on a municipal water supply. If your water source is your own local well (here in the rural areas around Memphis are many subdivisions with $600k - 2m homes - 5000 - 8000 sq ft - with well water and septic tanks) then you risk contamination by bacteria that won't hurt you, but may hurt your wine.

Municipal water is chlorinated, and pretty near sterile. Well water is not, and does not need to be. When the local health authority checks a home well they are only testing for a limited set of bacteria known to be harmful to humans.

If you are on well water and feel you have to rinse, use bottled water for the final rinse.

 

[GrapeApe]

Perfect. Thanks for all the info. I'm on "city water" so I should be ok. I actually used non-filtered tap water for the batch, so geez, I hope it's ok. I would not want to upset the wine gods.


Next kit will probably be a step up from Vintners Reserve, so I may consider using bottled / filtered water. It all depends on how well my first batch goes. Racking from primaryto carboy tomorrow. Woohoo!!

 

[PolishWineP]

Perfect. Thanks for all the info. I'm on "city water" so I should be ok. I actually used non-filtered tap water for the batch, so geez, I hope it's ok. I would not want to upset the wine gods.


Next kit will probably be a step up from Vintners Reserve, so I may consider using bottled / filtered water. It all depends on how well my first batch goes. Racking from primaryto carboy tomorrow. Woohoo!!

We've been using city water with not a problem. We boiled it first until TimV said we didn't need to do that.

I'm sure the wine gods are just fine with city water.