Skeeter pee calcium citrate precipitation

[jgmillr1]

Anyone else have large scale crystal formation after using calcium carbonate to deacidify a citric wine?

I made a moderately small batch of Skeeter pee and used the calium carbonate to lower the TA. Apparently I've hit some critical solubility constant and I've had massive formation of what I'm presuming to be calcium citrate. See attached picture.

I'm used to finding a coating of crystals along the walls of the tank and some sheets of crystals on the bottom .But this batch had a full 1/4" thick layer of crystal sedimentation across the entire bottom. Note that this isn't yeast either since I'd already racked it off the lees. I did not encounter this on a bench trial.

Guess we'll see how long it takes for the process to complete. Unfortunately it's too small a batch to put in a jacketed tank and cold stabilizate. Don't usually have to cold stabilizate wines without tartaric!

 

[jgmillr1]

Figured I'd provide an update on the wine. I racked it a couple times over 6 months. It never cleared up though and still had significant calcium like precipitates at the last racking in early March. Kieselsol and chitosan didn't touch it.

I filtered it and that cleared it up as expected and gave it a cleaner taste. Anyway, it was sweetened, diluted with water lightly to soften the remaining acidity, filtered down to sterile membrane filtration and bottled. Got only about 400 bottles with this trial run.

Wasn't sure what the reception would be, but it has proved a hit and I'll probably make more after carefully reviewing my notes to resolve some of the initial trouble. I'm still waiting to see if it remains stable or throws precipitation down the road.

 

[Blacksmith1]

400? Seriously?

 

[jgmillr1]

Yeah and I'm down to about 170 bottles now. I'd just bottled it on Apr 3rd too. The lemon frozen concentrate comes in like 75gal batches. Guess I'll double or triple the batch next time.