I just did my acid adjustment and first SO2 addition to this year's wine, and I'm wondering about the resulting gas release.
I can understand why adding tartaric to a low-acid wine would result in a big release of CO2, enough to overflow the carboys. But there's a lesser bubbling with the addition of just a quarter teaspoon of K-meta. What's the chemical basis of this? Is it SO2 gas being released?
That's probably it. Wine is acidic and sulfite is acid activated. If you dropped the powder straight in, there would be a release of SO2 gas because the local concentration would be too high for the wine to solvate. You should have been able to smell it - but I don't recommend that you try.
Tom S
A sudden release of SO2? Enough to cause bubbling? Wouldn't it be more likely that the addition of any powder or crystallized item would provide nucleation sites for the breakout of dissolved CO2?
Yeppers. Your good!!
Regards, Gene
Hi All, I do think that most of the foam was caused by CO2. The addition to a fermenting wine or just finished wine of dry sulphite will add a lot of SO2 to the released CO2. Because the SO2 cannot dissolve in the wine as fast as it is generated by the acidic environment. The gas escaping would contain quite a bid of SO2. Eddie V.
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