What magic is this??!!

[winegums]

So I started my first wine about 10 weeks ago, fruit wine; kiwis, grapes, pears and some tamarillos. I bottled a couple of weeks ago had cleared pretty well and is a sort of amber colour. Anyway it has a really strong, smell of rubber reminiscent of a rubber bung, but suspected it could be so2.
As an experiment I added a copper penny to a glass and nothing happened so then i tried dropping a few drops of hydrogen peroxide to the bottle. this morning the colour had changed completely! if you look at my profile pic you'll see the amber wine it was last night and the colour it is today.. what does this mean?? should i throw it or try tasting it??
Thanks in advance, i have had many questions answered here on my journey thus far but this surely merits a bit more action!!

John

 

[seth8530]

I can not see the picture so I can not comment, but I would advice against drinking hydrogen peroxide.

 

[chrisjw]

If you are going to play around with hydrogen peroxide (an oxidizer) to reduce SO2 then you should really be using an SO2 test kit and adding the hydrogen peroxide based on the results of the tests. You can use one of the many websites around to figure out how much to add like this one.

You did not tell us what concentration of hydrogen peroxide you added and what size bottle that you added it to but a few drops of 3% hydrogen peroxide added to a 750 ml bottle of wine is not much. A few drops of 35% hydrogen peroxide added to the same size bottle will remove about 150 ppm of SO2, which is very high. In either case, you may have removed all your free SO2 and you have oxidized your wine which would account for a color change.

OK, that said, hydrogen peroxide can be taken internally in very, very small doses but it can be dangerous to people that have certain conditions. So I would not use it under any circumstances.

Curious, though, what does it smell like. Did the rubber smell disappear? Does your wine smell (or taste) like sherry?

 

[LoneStarLori]

Can you post a pic? we don't see it

 

[JohnT]

If I were a betting man, I would bet that the "burnt rubber" you smell are mercaptans. This is a later, much harder-to-git-rid-of problem stemming from untreated hydrogensulfide. Mercaptans are bonded, in that they can not be simply treated with copper.

Tell me, did the wine at any point smell like rotten eggs in the past? If yes, then I would have to say that we found your problem.

Mercaptans can be treated. You need to first treat the wine with ascorbic acid to revert the mercaptans back to hydrogensulfide, then treat the wine with copper (copper sulfate would prob be best).

 

[winegums]

Thanks for your replies guys
it was 35% H202 food grade to 750ml bottle about a third of a small dropper full; maybe 10 drops! I'm guessing that's a lot, I know when people take H202 they go up to 25 drops in a glass of water, but in alcohol i dunno!!
it changed from amber to almost clear and the rubber smell did disappear now it has a faint aroma of fresh baked bread yes, weird huh?! Tastes like nail polish remover though, yuk! It never smelled like rotten eggs tho!
Anyway I only bottled 1 gallon out of 4 and don't mind sacrificing these few bottles to save the many!
Mistakes I made from the beginning include; sealed the primary after pitching and thinking it wasn't working re pitched more yeast different type.. popped the bung into carboy after first rack got it out quickly enough within half an hour. Didn't use hydrometer either... all rookie mistakes I'm sure! I was inclined to believe this strong smell taste was just because it's still really young, but if there is a problem I don't wanna patiently wait 6 months to find out..
So any of this spark any ideas??
Thanks for reading my essay! :/

 

[JohnT]

I still urge you to go with ascorbic acid. This is an antioxident and should address the problem provided you copper-treat afterwards.

Ascorbic acid is a lot safer than peroxide!

 

[chrisjw]

Ascorbic acid is a lot safer than peroxide!

H2S is a real possible cause for the rubber smell but ascorbic acid and peroxide are really addressing two different problems so it is still good to figure out which problem winegums has first. Also, winegums, please note that copper can also be very dangerous if too much is ingested. You can't just wing it. Follow procedures.

10 drops of 35% hydrogen peroxide is enough to wipe out about 400 ppm of free SO2 in a 750 ml bottle. Why did the wine turn clear? Beats me! I would have thought that the wine would turn brown not the other way around. Pretty interesting results.

If you think that you may have added too much kmeta then you should test for SO2 (cheapest method is with an SO2 test kit).

If you think that you have H2S, which is a real possibility, then test for H2S/mercaptans/disulphides using ascorbic acid and copper sulphate as described here.

Good luck.

 

[winegums]

Thanks guys sounds like you agree on ascorbic acid and copper sulphate, I don''t really think I added too much kmeta far as i remember it was 5teaspoons of 10%solution to the 30l primary of must.
My wine suppliers in NZ don't stock the ascorbic acid or copper sulphate can you recommend a good online supplier?
Cheers!

 

[JohnT]

You should be able to get these supplies from just about any site (including e-bay or amazon)

 

[jpsmithny]

What year was the penny?
It would have to be before 1982 I think for it to be pure copper.

That's in US. Not sure about other countries.

 

[winegums]

Twas Nz 10 cent coin; copper plated steel.. I have tracked down some copper sulphate and ascorbic acid though so will soon see what results they achieve!

 

[JohnT]

Winegums,

Follow the directions that Chrisjw attached to his post on 9/6 (above) to the letter and you should be more than fine. I have dealt with this same sort of problem before and was able to greatly improve my wine.

If you have any questions, by all means ask before you act.

johnT.