Ruined my Mead with Potassium Sorbate?

[Thunder_Chicken]

I made a 1 gallon mead, 3 lbs of honey and make-up water, described in this thread.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/high-og-mead-404633/

The FG leveled off at 1.006, leaving a nice hint of sweetness. Prior to bottling the samples were delicious though obviously young.

Come bottling day, anticipating that the mead would be in bottles for quite some time, I added a 1/2 campden tablet (I had added 1 full tablet a couple of weeks prior at racking) and 1/4 teaspoon of potassium sorbate (since there were residual sugars in the mead).

I bottled in clear 750 mL bottles and corked them, and then sampled some of the remainder - BLECH! The honey sweetness had morphed to a disgusting candy-like sickly sweet flavor with a chemical aftertaste, and there was no alcohol noticable at all. Not remotely drinkable.

I do not think this is due to the campden, as I added campden at the same dosage rate to a batch of dry apfelwein and it was quite delicious both before and after the dosing - no detectable off-flavors at all. The difference was that, as the apfelwein was dry, I did not add any potassium sorbate to it.

So my question is - did I screw up the dosing of the potassium sorbate? I followed the instructions on the bottle and double checked those instructions on the web, that dosage doesn't seem out of the norm. Is this taste normal and something that will age away? I was so amazed with the flavor of this mead and I'm afraid that I'll have to dump it because it is not reasonably drinkable now.

 

[fatbloke]

Was that per gallon or did you add that per bottle ?

 

[Thunder_Chicken]

I dissolved 1/4 teaspoon in a little warmed mead and added it to the bottling bucket and stirred it in, so 1/4 teaspoon for the entire gallon.

It's not a minor off-flavor either, it's a "OMG what the **** is this crap in my mead" sort of flavor.

 

[fatbloke]

Well if the dosages you suggest were for a whole gallon its unlikely to be the chems.......

If anything, the only flavour attribute I've read that sorbate is sometimes thought to be blamed for, is with sweetened fruit brews (particularly berry recipes) and it causing a very slightly jam/jelly note to it.

Perhaps at 1.006, it's still fermenting and the yeast is getting stressed some (there's a number of regularly encountered issues but nothing to stop your brew displaying a different "fault")?

Stabilising chems don't stop active fermentation, they just stop it restarting. So maybe some boiled yeast and a gentle stir as proventative for that, then a cold crash ?

Excessively sweet has only, IME, been a result of stuck ferments or mistakes with back sweetening.......

 

[Thunder_Chicken]

The mead had fallen clear and had a gravity of 1.006 for three weeks. The sweetness flavor before and after the addition was radically different. Before the addition it tasted like honey, after it tasted like a horrible cheap candy.

I can't think of anything other than the potassium sorbate, yet I dosed it correctly and should be undetectable. Does it react with campden in any weird way? Was it bad to combine them at bottling?

 

[Thunder_Chicken]

Has anyone had a bad experience using potassium sorbate in meads and wines? I have other wines planned and I really want to know if this is a deal-killer for sweet wines or not.

 

[wefdog]

Has anyone had a bad experience using potassium sorbate in meads and wines? I have other wines planned and I really want to know if this is a deal-killer for sweet wines or not.

Once this happened to my wine. As I found out the hard way, If sorbate is stored in extreme heat it can break down. I left liquid k sorbate in the car for a few hot summer months. The result is a chemical form that tastes like game meat ie goat. This is established you can look it up. I suspect you denatured the sorbate in the warm water mixture. Next time add it just powder. I would not worry about contamination as much late in the fermentation due to high alcohol establishment.

 

[Klinzai]

I'd say if it is a sharp, stinging chemical taste and smell it's the kmeta, if t's a sort of dead, rotted flower taste and smell its the k sorbate, if it's both . . . have a beer.

 

[Thunder_Chicken]

Nope, not the rotted geranium smell. Sweetness, not a natural sugary or honey sweetness, but like a very artificial candy sweetness.

Sweeten your coffee/tea with sugar, then sweeten another cup with Pez. That's the difference that I tasted.

 

[fatbloke]

I'd still suspect the mead before the chems.....

I don't make my brews like a beer brewer i.e. work out the honey weight according to a start number or final number. The "all sugars up front" method is fine for beers but with meads its 100% fermentables and if you wanted 18% with 10 points of residual sugars....

Damn that's a lot of honey and a bloody high SG.

Which often leads to fermentation issues, stressed yeasts, flavour issues etc.

Plus if your mead is young, then it possibly is something that will mellow/age. Young meads often taste hideous (many grades of hideous too).

If you are a bit of a perfectionist, is it possible that youre wanting it to be good too quickly ? I can be like that, and I can be impatient too. It sort of helps because when my young meads are, well, like young meads, after I've tasted it and get disappointed that its not spot on, straight away, I'm too much of a tight wad so I just put it away and forget it for a year or two......

Most of my meads aren't stellar but damn they're not too bad at all

 

[Thunder_Chicken]

No, it wasn't anything to do with the mead itself. The mead prior to the k-sorbate application was nice, young but really nice. It picked up the flavor right after the application. I kept it for a month hoping it would dissipate, but it was really undrinkable at that point.

 

[Devo9]

No, it wasn't anything to do with the mead itself. The mead prior to the k-sorbate application was nice, young but really nice. It picked up the flavor right after the application. I kept it for a month hoping it would dissipate, but it was really undrinkable at that point.

Give it time, in my experience a young mead can go from tasting great to horrible and then back to great again. Set it aside for a while and worry about it later. Mead requires patience, more so then most other types of brewing.

If you want to have instant results, then mead brewing is probably not the way to go.

I've had my JAOM sitting in a cupboard for about 6 months now, I was upset early on because it tasted awful. The consensus here was that I was being impatient. I have tried it since and it gets better every month.

Good luck!

 

[Thunder_Chicken]

Give it time, in my experience a young mead can go from tasting great to horrible and then back to great again. Set it aside for a while and worry about it later. Mead requires patience, more so then most other types of brewing.

This mead was dumped a while ago. I'm not sure what your definition of "horrible" is, but no amount of aging was going to fix what was wrong with that mead after I appled the sorbate. I sampled the mead prior to applying the sorbate, and it was young but good. Immediately after application - BLECH! A month after the application, even worse. It wasn't mead anymore. It was liquid Pez, a very chemical artificial sweetness. I don't know how anyone could miss this taste.

 

[snuesen]

Dumping a mead after 4 months??? Hell maybe if it was still terrible after a year and a half.. but 4 months is like abortion.

Mead is a losing game unless you have the patience to see it through.

 

[Thunder_Chicken]

I am well aware of the typical aging times for meads. I tell you this stuff was no longer mead nor did it have plans to be mead ever again, it was bad.

 

[snuesen]

Well I'll take your word for it, but for posterity please keep it around so we can all learn!

It's pretty tough to place all blame on the sorbate at this point, but if it was indeed the sorbate, why did it happen? Nobody will ever know now :-(

 

[DaveTheDamaja]

Has anyone had a bad experience using potassium sorbate in meads and wines? I have other wines planned and I really want to know if this is a deal-killer for sweet wines or not.

I used potassium sorbate on my last batch of Pinot Noir to halt fermentation before bottling. I experience the same off taste as you. I followed the directions on the bottle and don't understand why it taste like it does. It's so bad that I can't drink it.

 

[fuelish]

Mead is a losing game unless you have the patience to see it through.

Absolutely!!!

 

[max42]

I havent used Potassium Sorbate as yet but planned to on a sweet peach brandy. However, when I was researching it I found the following on the Winemakers Academy website that has me rethinking of ever using it:

While this additive does stabilize wines it does have three distinct limitations. First, it is ineffective against bacteria.

If stray bacteria or lactic acid bacteria were to get in your wine while using only potassium sorbate it would not prevent spoilage or malolactic fermentation (as caused by lactic acid bacteria). The combination of sulfites and sorbate help reduce your risks of this as mentioned before.

The second limitation of potassium sorbate is the length of time it is effective. Once added to wine it stays in the desireable form of sorbic acid only for a short time. Over time it breaks down into ethyl sorbate which can add notes of pineapple or celery to your wine.

The change into ethyl sorbate is not preventable. By using potassium sorbate winemakers are putting a definite shelf life on their wines before they pick up these off flavors.

The third limitation is that it reacts poorly with lactic acid bacteria. According to my research it can produce strong geranium odors which most wine drinkers consider a flaw.

Because of these limitations many wineries do not use potassium sorbate. They opt to stabilize with sulfites only an rely on their ability to properly sanitize everything to prevent spoilage. Interestingly, wines with potassium sorbate may not be classified as organic.

 

[DaveTheDamaja]

Great reply thanks for the advise! I think I will take a look at their website.