I was going by this description on Amazon's web site:
"Important Information
Safety Information
contains sulphites and shellfish derivatives
Ingredients
grape juice concentrate, varietal grape juice, liquid invert sugar, tartaric acid, citric acid, tannin,diammonium phosphate,metabisulphite,bentonite, wine yeast,ascorbic acid,potassium sorbate,kieselsol, chitosan. ay contain oak.
Directions
Step 1: preparation and fermentation. Step 2: clearing. Step 3: bottling and bottle decoration
Legal Disclaimer
Actual product packaging and materials may contain more and different information than what is shown on our website. We recommend that you do not rely solely on the information presented and that you always read labels, warnings, and directions before using or consuming a product. Please see our full disclaimer below. "
The legal disclaimer is interesting. With that disclaimer, you could get a box of candy instead of wine! What may have happened is they forgot to add the packet of K-meta to the kit. Was there anything in the directions, if you still have them, about adding K-meta?
It sounds like you did everything right. With new bottles, you would hardly need do anything except rinse them with hot water. I don't know anything about EasyClean but I would think that your bottles would not have needed a very long contact time.
When I use K-meta to sanitize the primary, I usually just let it sit for about 20 minutes with the cover on, swirl it and dump it out, letting it drain as much as possible in a minute or two. I am not too concerned about the trace amount of chemical that could remain compared to 23 liters of juice.
I would have to say that the problem is the lack of K-meta. It is used in just about every manner of wine production (i.e. from grapes, fresh juice, frozen juice, kits, fruit wines) although some people, for whatever reason, do not add it and run the risk of spoilage in order to avoid adding "chemicals" to their wine.