skunky smell in honey apple wine

If you found references to H2S, you should have found discussions of what causes it, and how to treat it. Briefly, it seems most often to be caused by over-stressed yeast, especially if they have inadequate nutrients. The best approach for avoiding H2S problems therefore is to make sure you have sufficient yeast nutrient during the initial growth stages (when the yeast are reproducing rapidly).

In terms of treatment, if the H2S isn't too bad, you may get by with "rack and splash" -- rack back and forth a few times between containers, splashing/aerating in the process. If this doesn't solve the problem, you can try using copper, which reacts with H2S to produce copper sulfide (which is pretty much insoluble, so you allow it to settle and rack off, and/or filter the wine). The simplest way to use copper is to stir the wine with a clean copper rod (or pipe) for a few minutes. Try a couple of stirring sessions, then wait a day or so and check the wine again, to see if the H2S is reduced. Make sure you remove the copper when you are finished stirring - you don't want it in long-term contact with the wine. You can also treat wine with copper sulfate, but you should read about this treatment first, and make sure you are adding just the appropriate amount to react with your H2S, since there is no good way to remove copper sulfate from wine if you add too much, and copper (being a heavy metal) is toxic. There is also a non-toxic chemical sold under the name Bocksin, which removes H2S; you might want to consider that if using copper makes you nervous.

Doug

Thanks! I found lots of information on the nutrients. Hopefully we can prevent this in the future.