The science of stabilising...

[pope_pius_ix]

Hello all,

I'll not bother you with the personal details but due to my job I'm only back at home with all the homebrew for about one day a week. This day just gone I made a check on the fermentation stages of various wines and meads and eight or nine of them were due for stabilising. However, due to a cat-related-breakage issue :evil: , I had no spare DJs for racking, so simply stablised in the DJs that the wines are already in.

Not a massive problem...or is it? Some of the wines have thrown quite a lot of residue - we're talking elderberry, meads, dandelion and strawberries here - a LOT of residue.

So the question is - is a campden tablet going to stabilise the wines in this condition, given all the residue in the DJs, or do I need to do anything else? I'm loathe to rack the wine because it means buying new DJs and would much rather just bottle the wine next week, assuming the tablet's done it's work. I should also add that throwing the wine away isn't really an option - this stuff is really good, aside from the fact I've potentially just knackered it. :

Any thoughts welcomed!

Cheers,

Andy

 

[Johnsan]

Hello all,

I'll not bother you with the personal details but due to my job I'm only back at home with all the homebrew for about one day a week. This day just gone I made a check on the fermentation stages of various wines and meads and eight or nine of them were due for stabilising. However, due to a cat-related-breakage issue :evil: , I had no spare DJs for racking, so simply stablised in the DJs that the wines are already in.

Not a massive problem...or is it? Some of the wines have thrown quite a lot of residue - we're talking elderberry, meads, dandelion and strawberries here - a LOT of residue.

So the question is - is a campden tablet going to stabilise the wines in this condition, given all the residue in the DJs, or do I need to do anything else? I'm loathe to rack the wine because it means buying new DJs and would much rather just bottle the wine next week, assuming the tablet's done it's work. I should also add that throwing the wine away isn't really an option - this stuff is really good, aside from the fact I've potentially just knackered it. :

Any thoughts welcomed!

Cheers,

Andy

Hello Andy. I'm new here so won't offer advice re stabilisation (although I was under the impression that campden sterilises and potassium sorbate stabilises?). Re the demi john issue. They are expensive but if you were to buy a £1 5litre bottle of water from a supermarket you could empty the contents and have the right size for racking off. Then clean that demi and rack the next one and so one. A bit of a faff I know but it may get you out of a hole? Good luck anyway.

 

[alanywiseman.]

Hello Andy. I'm new here so won't offer advice re stabilisation (although I was under the impression that campden sterilises and potassium sorbate stabilises?). Re the demi john issue. They are expensive but if you were to buy a £1 5litre bottle of water from a supermarket you could empty the contents and have the right size for racking off. Then clean that demi and rack the next one and so one. A bit of a faff I know but it may get you out of a hole? Good luck anyway.

This is a good cheap way to do it. With regards to stabilizing you need to use campden tablets in combination with Potassium Sorbate. The campden stuns the yeast temporarily stopping it fermenting the potassium sorbate inhibits yeast reproduction. if you do not use the potassium sorbate then if you back sweeten the yeast will eventually start to ferment and pop the corks on your bottles.

With regards to adding it to the primary fermentation vessel I would not do that. Some of the sediment will have viable yeast in it so you will probably need to use increased amounts and it is impossible to decide how much more you would need so my advice would be to rack off the sediment and add campden tablet and potassium sorbate.