When I racked my Reisling for the first time a couple weeks ago it was below 1.010 but there was very little sediment in the bottom of the primary. I just added k-sorbate, sulfites, reserved juice and Super Kleer. Is it possible to have too much yeast sediment so that the amount of k-sorbate is insufficient? I really don't want this to ferment dry.
Mark
Well, what did you do to stop it? If it's stillgoing, chill it. You add sorbate to still wines. I'm not sure what super kleer is but fining is done on still wines or must also.
Joe
Joe is right. Sorbat is not effective at stopping an ongoing ferment. It will prevent a restart if it has stopped but it does not stop one. the best thing to do is let it finish out dry, then sorbate so it will not restart and sweeten to taste.
Ray
This is precisely what I was going to ask: Which is better at preventing re-starts; sorbate or sodium benzoate?????
I have always used sorbate and potasium metabiosulphate and have never had a restart. You need both as they work together. I don't like to add anything that lifts the Na level.
Ray
I just have to weigh in on this issue, although I know I shouldn't.
If you're serious about making sweet wines, do it right and learn how to do sterile filtration.
It's not really that difficult, but it does require some outlay of capital. Figure ~$500 do do it with off the shelf items, for batches in the range of
1 - 2 barrels (~100 gallons). You can probably do it on the cheap for ~$300. Maybe less if you're lucky on e-Bay.Tom S
Tom, what do you mean by "do it right"?
Is there a problem with using sorbate? I'm not much of a sweet (or white) wine drinker myself, but have used the techniques described above (ferment to dry, sorbate and sweeten to taste) for Riesling, and this turned out to be one of the favorite wines I've made for friends and family that like this style. In fact, I'm due to pick up some Riesling this weekend - don't intend to spend the bucks for filter equipment though, as I wouldn't use it enough.
Miker
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