wine making falacy?

By all means I am not an expert but I am making wine from store bought juice without any problems (namely Welch grape - Niagara and Concorde). It may sound like a heresy but I stopped sanitizing equipment and did not see and problems neither. Tee Doubleyou

-- Verba volant, scripta manent.

''It may sound like a heresy but I stopped sanitizing equipment and did not see and problems neither''.

I have been rinsing equipment/carboys with cold water for the past two years (no sanitizing) and did not see any problem either!

Guy

I don't know what the shelf life of sorbate is, and whether the effectiveness of sorbate added to a product (juice, etc.) would drop at the same rate as the raw material in a jar. However, consider that kit makers routinely package sorbate with their kits, and most expect a shelf life for the kits of 12 to 18 months. So I would have to think that sorbate (properly stored) should still be effective for that length of time.

On the other hand, the presence of sorbate in "store bought" juice does not necessarily mean that you can't ferment it. Sorbate does not prevent fermentation, it just prevents yeast from reproducing. So it should (in theory) be possible to add some amount of juice containing sorbate to an active fermentation (where the yeast population is stable) and have the existing yeast ferment that juice. It just wouldn't work to try to start the fermentation with that juice.

Having said that, though, I'll admit I would try to avoid fermenting anything wih a high level of sorbate. It might work if you were clever enough, but on the other hand, it might not.

Doug

As the others comment, I am not an expert, but there are shelf lives and there are shelf lives. For instance the proper amount of sulfite in a wine under a cork may last for many years. The same amount of sulfite in an bottle that is open to air would not last a month, maybe not a day. Also there may be other chemicals in the product that make the sorbate more stabile. For instance when you add sorbate to wine, you should add a bit of sulfite to make it more effective. I believe a bit of citric acid also improved it but that is in most wine naturally.

The product you are buying in the store is probably in a sealed container and should have enough sorbate to last the shelf life of the product as long as it remains sealed. If you want to know when the sorbate will probably stop working, then you can probably use products that are older than their expiration date. I don't think I would advise that.

Sorbate in fruit juice will not necessarily mean that you cannot use it to make wine but it probably will be harder. Your wine may start and then stick early or you may have trouble getting it going as the yeast cannot reproduce or it may ferment very slowly as the yeast cannot build up a good culture.

You can try it but why bother whey you can find things that do not have sorbate. Most frozen juices and fruit do not have preservatives and may be fresher than fresh fruit.

Ray