Stopping fermentation

Joe - If you have your sweetened wine stabilized, and by that I mean proper pH, sulfite and sufficient K sorbate, I don't believe a few microbes or yeast cells inside a clean bottle will be a problem. Even if the yeast live they won't multiply and will poop out in a short time. My earlier post about my Vidal wine is a good example. It took a couple of weeks for some residual yeast (I suspect they were added when I added reserve juice) to expire. I waited them out but doubt they would have caused a problem if I bottled right away. Even for sweetened wine I don't sanitize bottles. I just make sure they are clean and stored upside down.

With respect to pasteurization. I make beer. I can cool freshly boiled wort to 70 degrees in 15 minutes with an immersion chiller. Your wine would have to be in an open kettle to accommodate the chiller. Mine is home made with two coils of copper tubing, one within the other, sort of like a DNA chain. Depending on how high a temperature you need to heat the wine air exposure time could be as little as 30 minutes. And, you could blanket the wine with an inert gas for protection.

I always make my wife some grape juice in the fall when I crush and press grapes. I heat the juice like you would do for pasteurization. I don't bother with a fast chill for this juice and it does change the flavor. She actually likes the flavor post heating better than the raw juice.

Bill Frazier Olathe, Kansas USA

Are you sure it is still fermenting? Or perhaps you are just seeing gradual gas expulsion due to temerature changes. Perhaps you should consider degassing and an addition of sulphite.

Thanks, Joe, good idea about warming up a test bottle, I'll try that.

For the minimum sorbate levels, I've got a couple of tables that determine the minimum required level based on the alcohol and pH; I think the original source for this is Peynaud.

With the "sterile" filter, how much bypass would you get these days on a 6 gal batch?

Pp

Thanks, Frederick, I knew about this one as an alternative but haven't tried it yet. Too late for the current batches but will keep it in mind for the future.

Pp

I get about a quart if I tighten it up well before I start. Before I filter it's clear from either time or bentonite. I run that though the filter last, even though accourding to Buon Vino , it's filtered.

I soak the filters in sulfite/citric acid for several minutes first, than run that solution through the filter for a few minutes, just recycling it. Then a quick rinse with plain water.

I throw out maybe a pint or so of the initial wine colored output before keeping it. I can actually hear the pump change pitch as the filter loads up. To be honest, I think I have a dud pump and always have; I can get it to work so never worried about replacing it.

Hi Bill

Disremember, and can't find my notes. In any case, I only ever used the pills (at 1 per gallon). By the end I had used it in 30 plus (33?) batches with never an issue. FWIW - all of these were "country" (non-grape) wines.

Frederick