Campden Tablets And Potassium Sorbate

[ScottE75]

Hi all,

Just thought I'd share something I've just read about stopping fermentation. On the Wikipedia website I was reading about campden tablets, and it says that campden tabs alone are not enough to stop fermentation, you should use Potassium Sorbate also. However, I have read in a book that Potassium Sorbate can leave an after taste.

I'd be interested to hear your views on this subject. I like sweet wine, so this is quite important to my home brewing.

Thanks in advance : )

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I haven't noticed any strange flavours when using youngs wine stabiliser.


What Do Campden Tablets Do?

The original reason these tablets were used in wine making was to keep the wine from spoiling after it had been bottled. By adding these tablets at bottling time, you could virtually eliminate any chance of your wine falling victim to mold, bacteria and other foreign enemies.
Since their introduction into wine making, they have also become routinely used for sterilizing the juice prior to fermentation. By adding Campden Tablets a day before adding your wine yeast, you can start your fermentation with a clean slate, so to speak. All the unwanted micro organisms will be gone.
Some home winemakers also use Campden Tablets with water to create a sanitizing solution. This solution will safely sanitize fermenters, air-lock, stirring spoons, hoses and all the other pieces of equipment that may come into contact with the wine must.

What Campden Tablets Don't Do?

Many beginning winemakers believe that Campden Tablets are a magic pill of sorts. One that can instantaneously stop a wine fermentation dead in its tracks. While it is true that Campden Tablets can bring a fermentation to its knees for a period of time, it is also true that these fermentations will usually gather themselves back up and eventually overcome the effects of the tablets. The result is a continued fermentation -- sometimes after the wine has been bottled.
Shop FermentersTruth is, Campden Tablets are not designed to stop a fermentation and never have been. Using them for that purpose can get you into all kinds of trouble. There is really no ingredient that can be safely used by itself to assuredly stop a fermentation.

http://www.eckraus.com/blog/campden-tablets-what-they-can-and-cant-do

 

[Tau]

Had a bottle of blackberry blow, made a hell of a mess, was convinced it had stoppped using just a camden. I found that when using demijohns the sulphur dioxide (suppose it is) from the camden tablet doesn't always dispate easily, even 1/2 a camden tab. Often have to give it a shake and remove airlock to get it going again especially after 1st racking when there still some ferment left. In the 5 gallon fermenter you often have some air space for the so2 to escape but if topped up hardly any space in a demijohn.

Found with ingredients that you have to sulphinate at start with 2 tabs, can take a ten more days to start and still have to add more yeast to flush gas out with co2 from yeast ferment.

Do use potassium sorbate but slightly less than recomended, as you do get an after taste. If you use kit stabiliser (the little sachet) and all of it, will ruin the wine, as it is for 5 gallons and not one. Once bitten twice shy, I try to keep sulphination down to minimum by leaving to complete a full ferment.

 

[ScottE75]

Thanks guys. I'm learning more everyday on this forum. Better than any book I've read : )

 

[cheapbrew]

1 campden tab and 1 level tsp of pot sorbate per gallon will stop fermentation and not give any taint to wine if you want it ready to drink quicker, , otherwise leave til fermentation is completely finished and rack off sediment, leave for a few months rack again.