Restarting fermentation after Campden & Sorbate?

[dlfendley]

I looked around a bit but couldn't find a thread that spoke to this issue directly. Here's the story and question. I picked a lot of bronze muscadines from my Great Uncle's property and ended up with about 13 gallons of juice. My friend wanted to ferment it without dilution, so I hesitantly agreed. When it finished, we stabilized with campden and potassium sorbate. As you probably guessed, it was so acidic that I can barely tolerate it. Yesterday I diluted the 6.5 gallons that we did not bottle, by adding 3 gallons of SG 1090-ish water to 2 gallons of the full strength wine, and repitched yeast. Normally, the yeast would be off to the races now, but nothing seems to be happening. I'm wondering if the sorbate is still inhibiting or if my yeast were bad. Any ideas?

 

[Yooper]

I looked around a bit but couldn't find a thread that spoke to this issue directly. Here's the story and question. I picked a lot of bronze muscadines from my Great Uncle's property and ended up with about 13 gallons of juice. My friend wanted to ferment it without dilution, so I hesitantly agreed. When it finished, we stabilized with campden and potassium sorbate. As you probably guessed, it was so acidic that I can barely tolerate it. Yesterday I diluted the 6.5 gallons that we did not bottle, by adding 3 gallons of SG 1090-ish water to 2 gallons of the full strength wine, and repitched yeast. Normally, the yeast would be off to the races now, but nothing seems to be happening. I'm wondering if the sorbate is still inhibiting or if my yeast were bad. Any ideas?

Sorbate is used to stabilize the wine, to prevent re-fermentation. It should prevent fermentation, even when diluted. Sorry.

 

[WilliamSlayer]

Sorry to hear that! Can't help with the sorbate problem, I would have also thought that dilution would be the key. However, I can say that to save the rest of the wine you could try to drop out some of the acid with potassium bicarbonate and a cold stabilization. I hope this gets tou to a 'drinkable' level!

 

[Inner10]

Damn, you could try a big starter...but you're probably screwed.

 

[dlfendley]

Thanks for the feedback. I hoped sorbate would have a limit to how long it would be effective, but it doesn't sound like that's the case. The good news is I can get more muscadines, just not until September.

 

[JFK]

Thanks for the feedback. I hoped sorbate would have a limit to how long it would be effective, but it doesn't sound like that's the case. The good news is I can get more muscadines, just not until September.

potassium sorbate attaches itself to the cell wall of yeast stopping it from reproducing and from being able to metabolise sugar into alcohol. you could brew another batch of wine and then blend them afterwards but I am not aware of any way to overpower or remove the potasium sorbate. ill check into it but I wont promise anything.

 

[JFK]

http://www.fermentarium.com/homebrewing/winemaking/everything-you-know-about-potassium-sorbate-is-wrong/

you can overpower the potassium sorbate but the higher the alcohol level present the harder this is to do. make a mega starter like the guy in above link did. I would probably try to do triple since his had no alcohol present. gl and let me know if it works. I guess he made a pure welch grape starter or something. id add excessive yeast nutrient and dap ueast energizer so it goes in like a yeast grenade with incredible hulk vengence.

 

[dlfendley]

Good news! Two of the three are now slowly bubbling. I haven't done anything to them. I guess because the overall SG was only about 1060, it just took a while with the diluted sorbate. I gently stirred the still non-responsive carboy and it definitely caused off-gassing. Maybe it's slowly coming along too. I may yeast bomb them like mentioned above, but I'm going to wait and see what happens in the next few days. Thanks for all the input.

 

[WilliamSlayer]

Good news! Two of the three are now slowly bubbling. I haven't done anything to them. I guess because the overall SG was only about 1060, it just took a while with the diluted sorbate. I gently stirred the still non-responsive carboy and it definitely caused off-gassing. Maybe it's slowly coming along too. I may yeast bomb them like mentioned above, but I'm going to wait and see what happens in the next few days. Thanks for all the input.

Good to hear.

 

[dlfendley]

As a quick follow-up, all three carboys are slowly chugging along now. Looks like the yeast won out and hopefully I'll have a drinkable product in the end.