What's in Campden tablets

Nov 16, 2004 9 Replies

Hi all, been browseing for a while, wanted to ask an off the cuff question.



What is in Campden tablets? I use them instead of sodium or potassium metabisulfate, 'cause to date I haven't made more than 1-2 gal of wine at a time. People say they're sodum metabisulfate and a binder, but what's the binder?



It couldn't be sugar, that would ferment. Could it be starch? Or can beer yeast use that? Or maybe just silica dust. There's a lot of binder if each tablet contains only 1/2 gram of pot-meta. So where does it all go?



A google searh of "campden" leads to some strange results -- and "Campden tablets" leads to the usual home brew web sites. Does anyone know who invented Campden tablets -- guessing his last name was Campden ;)


Binder is a compound that makes the meta bisulphite compound stick together in the tablet and must not be reactive in the tablet or when added to the food.

No I think anti-freeze is Ethylene Glycol.

A quick Google shows Polyethylene Glycol freezes at quite a high temperature in comparison, at around 19.5C.

Any chemists about who can confirm this?

You are correct, "me".

Polyethylene glycol is not antifreeze. Polyethylene glycol is an approved additive for food products.

Big difference between the toxic ethylene glycol (antifreeze) and polyethylene glycol.

gene

They are a metabisulfite of some kind that fizzes out sulfuous gas? of some kind. Mine appear to be bound with some sort of incredibly small amount of wax or something, as they leave a floating residue of white specks.

Ethylene glycol is antifreeze. Close, yet cigarless!

Yeah, I see that in my wine as well, that sounds like the polyethylene glycol mentioned above. The tiny amount of benzoate mentioned worries me mildly, if I added campden at each racking(I don't), would I build up enough to inhibit yeast? If I added to little, would bacteria grow and make the geranium smell?

This is all probably not worth worrying about. 'Tho I think I'll switch to 5 gal amounts, and get a small gram scale for measuring out metabisulfate, anyway.

The geranium smell comes from having wine go through ML in the presence of _sorbate_ - not sulfite.

Good idea - and BTW it's potassium metabisulf_i_te.

Tom S

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