carbonation rather than aeration for H2S?

Can I simply bubble CO2 through my wine rather than racking and aerating it to scrub out H2S? It seems many winemakers use aeration, but that might be because they lack corny tanks used by brewers. Is that assumption correct, or is there something I'm missing?

Warren Place

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Warren Place
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That will probably work just as well as aeration, without the additional risk of oxidizing to mercaptan.

If the CO2 doesn't do the trick, there's always copper.

Tom S

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Tom S

Actually, I was thinking of copper also. I planned to toss a copper wool pad into the carboy (sanitized with boiling water), and pin it down with my racking cane. I hoped that this would help reduce the amount of H2S, but in case it doesn't do enough, I'll follow with bubbling CO2 through the wine. With bubbling CO2, would small bubble be more effective than larger bubbles? Warren Place

Reply to
Warren Place

Just another little fact about sparging: an inert gas is used to avoid its becoming dissolved in the solution to be degassed. CO2 will dissolve in your wine and not only be useless at removing the H2S but then will interfere in the clarification.

You got some expert advice earlier with this problem. I suggest you go with Tom's wisdom about the minimal treatment of stirring with a copper pipe.

THE STIRRING WILL REMOVE GAS FASTER THAN SPARGING. THE COPPER WILL PUSH THE H2S OUT FAST ENOUGH WITHOUT ADDING TOO MUCH COPPER TO THE WINE.

Irene (who uses high tech when it is called for)

Reply to
Irene

Tom didn't say CO2 was useless. As far as CO2 dissolving, I'm not worried about that. It will help prevent oxidation and I have all the time in the world to wait for my wine to degass and clear.

I like the copper pipe idea and will try that since it is less trouble. Thanks for corraborating Tom's advice. Warren Place

Reply to
Warren Place

I was thinking of stuffing the pad into the carboy containing the wine, placing the racking cane tip into the wool, and racking the wine through the pad as it is transerred to a new carboy. I'll remove the pad when I clean out the empty carboy by grabbing it with a coat hanger. It sounds like there would be less oxidation occuring with the wool pad method than stirring with pipe, but less control over copper contact time (might be too much copper by the time I'm done racking). Warren Place

Reply to
Warren Place

On the contrary, the more CO2 gas is dissolved, the less the solution will be able to hold onto the H2S gas. It will help to push the H2S out of solution. And I don't understand your statement about CO2 interfering with clarification. Why would that be?

Reply to
Greg Cook

You can also get a small bottle of copper sulfate from

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. If you follow the directions you can add just enough copper to take care of the problem AND you'll know exactly how much copper is in the wine. I used to use the copper pipe/flashing/silverware approach, but once I discovered how easy copper sulfate is and how little you need to solve the problem I wouldn't do anything else anymore. It really works like magic.

Good Luck,

John

Reply to
John DeFiore

Magic indeed. With a fair amount of skepticism, I put in 12 ml of copper sulfate into a barrel of stinky syrah last night. I just checked 24 hours later and the stink is G-O-N-E. Amazing.

Reply to
Michael Brill

I've heard that copper can cause problems with the body of the wine. Is this true? If I can just bubble CO2 through the wine to get ride of H2S, then that seems like the best solution as it will have NO detrimental effect on the wine. I did a quick experiment today where I transferred the wine to a keg, carbonated, and now I am defizzing. I'm guessing that it may take 24 hours to go flat so I won't know how well the CO2 scrubbing experiment worked. However, the initial blast of CO2 when I depressurized the keg had so much SO2 that it burnt my nose and made the entire garage smell of rotten eggs. I hope this wine is salvageable.\ Has anybody heard of CO2 being employed in this manner? Was it a success? Warren Place

Reply to
Warren Place

I don't think so. The quantities added are so small that I can't see how it could have any effect on the body. I noticed no detrimental effect at all. Copper can cause a haze and can also be toxic in quantities WAY higher than you need to get rid of H2S. In fact in my case drinking a whole bottle of the wine I treated would not even get me to the US recommended daily allowance of copper, if I remember right. Anybody else aware of any detrimental effects? Of course if the CO2 works, you're set.

Regards,

John

Reply to
John DeFiore

--Inert gas (N2, Ar, He) is ~1000X less soluble than CO2. We use He for those special applications, or a vacuum degasser (that would probably be better for wine).

--CO2 reacts as well as dissolves easily. H2O + CO2 = H2CO3 = (H+) and (HCO3-)

So my concern would be to avoid H2S + CO2 = ??? HCO2S- is pretty disgusting.

About clarification: the smallest particulates are carried up and down the bulk of the wine by the release and dissolution of the CO2. To have the most effective compact sediment that is easily racked, one stirs out the CO2. If you have bubbled in the CO2, it takes more effort to get it back out again.

Note that this is significantly different than adding the headspace dose of CO2 in industrial size tanks--that only displaces the air as CO2 is heavier.

In general, I believe that one should use the most controllable form of chemical addition that is available. YES to a fixed amount of copper sulfate solution. NO to peroxide as its strength varies with storage and it has stabilizers added...Likewise, the copper wire has much more surface area than the pipe and therefore the reaction is less controllable.

Irene

P.S. In case anybody is interested, there is the Journal of Food and Agricultural Chemistry published by the American Chemical Society that has a good number of papers concerning subjects such as the extraction of colour from grapes, the detection of pesticides and ag-chemicals in wine, the effect of grape species on volatiles...and many other topics to do with viticulture, grapes and winemaking.

solution will

Reply to
Irene

to do what a little CuSO4 can do. I'll add some copper and see if that fixes it. A professor at UC Davis pointed out that a potential problem with adding CO2 is that I might also scrub out desired aromas.

Quite true. CO2 bubbling might help with a wine that has a _slight_ H2S problem though. Copper fining is a more drastic step, which might be required for a more severe case.

Tom S

Reply to
Tom S

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