Making Muscadine Wine: On The Skins Or Just The Juice?

Posted on July 23, 2020 by AIH

Do I need to leave on the skins with my gold muscadine must, as I do when I make purple scuppernong must? Or do I need to ferment without as most white wine recipes do when making muscadine wine. Love the advice we receive here. Always great. Thanks for your time and knowledge.

Frank V. – TX
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Hello Frank,

Thanks for the kind words and a great question about making muscadine wine.

It is possible to make a white homemade muscadine wine with or without the pulp and skins. It is mostly a matter of personal taste, but it is also an important decision because the resulting wine will be very different in each case.

If you use nothing but the juice from the muscadine grapes to make the wine you will produce a wine that is lighter-bodied, crisp, and refreshing. It will have a straw color. The wine will mature fairly quickly, meaning it will usually be drinkable in a matter of weeks.

One important consideration when making muscadine wine from juice only is that the white muscadines will need to be crush and then pressed with an actual wine press, otherwise you will be leaving a lot of grape juice behind in the pulp. The juice will need to be squeezed from the pulp to avoid this significant waste.

If you leave the pulp in the fermentation, the body of the wine will be much fuller and heavier. The color of the muscadine wine will be more intense and closer to a gold color than a straw color. It will be less refreshing, but more rich and earthy. It will have wider array of flavors, adding complexity to the wine. Leaving the skins in the fermentation can make a considerable difference.

If making a white muscadine wine with the skin and pulp, there may be more care required to get the wine to clear. It will also take longer to age into something you’d want to drink. I could take the better part of a year for the wine to come around.

Once the pulp and skins are removed from the fermentation, it would be advisable to press them to maximize your output of wine. However, in this case it is not not as critical a before because the fermentation will have broken down the pulp to a point where a significant portion of the juice will have be extracted.

My personal opinion is that when you are making muscadine wine at home you should take a middle-of-the-road approach.

Most red wines are fermented on the pulp for around 5 to 7 days. The more days the pulp is in the fermentation, the fuller the body. Wineries use the numbers of days to partially control the body of the wine they are producing. In a sense, they are sculpting the character of the wine.

This sculpting is used occasionally when making white wines, too. One that comes to mind is Sauvignon Blanc. It is not unusual for the skins and pulp to be in with the juice for the first day, just to extract more of the grape’s body.

This approach can be used when making muscadine wine at home, only I would leave the pulp in for 2 or 3 days and then remove the skins and pulp and then press. Make it a short primary fermentation. By doing this you should end up with a white muscadine wine that won’t take a year or more to maturate, but will still have some nice flavor and body that will make the wine enjoyable and interesting.

Having said this, it is your wine. If you are look for a crisp and refreshing muscadine wine, leave the pulp and skins out of the equation altogether. If you’re looking for a big, full muscadine wine with lots of flavor, but may take a year or better to age out, keep the skins and pulp in the fermentation for 7 days.

Frank, I hope this is the information you was looking for. We also have a recipe for making muscadine wine, if you need one. It also has directions on how to make the muscadine wine. If you’re not sure what you want to do, just do something. You’ll end up with a wine regardless. And, you’ll have the experience of making a muscadine wine.

Happy Winemaking,
Ed Kraus
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

Increasing Your Wine’s Fruity Flavors

Posted on July 21, 2020 by AIH

Just wondering if your liqueur flavorings could be added to a fruit wine as a wine flavoring additive… for a little stronger flavor… Our blackberry wine, from last year, is not real fruity…. and wondered if this would give it a flavor boost…

Thank you,
Sandy M.
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Hi Sandy,

To answer your question, yes, you can use these liqueur flavorings as wine flavoring additives to increase the flavor your wine. It is recommended that you do not add more than one bottle of flavoring to each five gallons. These extract flavorings are very strong, and should be used with care. Adding more than one or two bottles can bring a bitter aftertaste to the wine.

One of the wine making tips I tell people when using any kind of wine flavoring extract or additive, is that the full flavor impression does not usually take effect immediately. It takes a little time for the extracts flavoring to come together with the wine. Letting the wine sit a day to let the flavors mingle is recommended before making any decisions to add more flavoring.

Before you decide to add liqueur flavorings to your wine, there is a point I’d like to bring up. One of the things that can throw you off as a home winemaker, particularly if you’re just beginning to learn how to make your own wine, is experiencing the flavors of a dry fruit wine. Dry means the wine has no taste-able sweetness to it, which is normally the case after fermentation, if the fermentation has completed successfully.

One of the effects that dryness has on a wine is that it reduces the fruity impression. When all the sugars have been fermented out of the fruit juice it takes on an entirely different character.

The reason I’m bringing this up is because, increasing the fruity flavors of the wine may be just a matter of adding some sweetness back to it, and bringing the wine back into better balance. This is simply done by adding a sugar/water syrup mixture to the wine until the desired effect has been achieved.

A wine stabilizer such as potassium sorbate will need to be added, as well, to keep the fermentation from starting up again. This is something that should be done at bottling time.

Even if you like your wines dry, adding some sugar to the wine to make it a little less puckering can bring out a substantial amount of fruitiness, so never rule out back sweetening a wine, regardless of your personal tastes.

Learning how to make adjustments to a wine before bottling is a big part of home winemaking. By utilizing tools such as wine flavoring additives you can increase the flavor and pleasure of your homemade wines.

Happy Wine Making,
Ed Kraus
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

Using Oak Chips To Barrel Age Your Wines

Posted on July 19, 2020 by AIH

I’ve started my first batch of wine using the toasted oak chips, added after the primary fermentation. I am wondering if during the racking process about to be done after the secondary fermentation, do I transfer the oak chips too?

Name: Debra M.
State: Tennessee

Hello Debra,

Adding oak chips, that have been sap cleared and toasted, directly to the wine has long been one of the tricks up the home winemaker’s sleeve. It allows you to enjoy all the advantages of barrel-aging your wine without the cost or work of using and actual wine barrel.

These toasted oak chips are made from white oak that has been kilned to sap clear and then toasted to raise the woods sweetness to the outer surface of the chip. This toasting is no different than what is done to the inside of a wine barrel.

Typically, we recommend adding oak chips after the fermentation has completed and the wine has cleared. The wine is bulk-aged in something like a carboy along with the oak chips for a matter of weeks to months. You can sample the wine along the way to determine when you would like to take the chips out.

Adding the oak chips during the primary fermentation is okay, however you do not have as much control over the flavor when using this method. It’s hard to know if the wine needs more time on the chips or not. This is because you do not know what the wine is going to taste like at that point in the process.

The only exception to this argument is when you are making wine with a wine ingredient kit. Normally, these kits will instruct you to put the oak chips in the primary fermentation, just as you have done, and then remove them when racking the wine into a secondary fermenter. This method is okay in this situation because the producers of these wine ingredient kits already know exactly how much oak chip is needed in the primary fermentation to end up with a wine in good balance. They have already determined this by bench-testing several batches with varying quantities of oak.

If you are not making a wine from a wine ingredient kit, then I would suggest taking the toasted oak chips out of the wine must at this point. You may already have more oak impression in the wine than you like. You have no way of knowing with a wine in progress. Once the fermentation has completed and the wine has cleared, then you can revisit the possibility of adding toasted oak chips at that time for further aging.

When To Start The Secondary Fermentation

Posted on July 16, 2020 by AIH

How long can I let the wine ferment before racking into a carboy and starting the secondary fermentation? My wine has been working vigorously for almost three weeks now.

Russ — NY
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Hello Russ,

When to start the secondary fermentation is a question we get from time to time. The quick answer is, “it depends”.

If you are fermenting on fruit pulp, you will want to move the wine into a secondary fermenter around the 4th to 7th day. Whether you rack on the 4th day or on the 7th day will make a noticeable difference in the body and color of the wine. The longer the pulp is in the primary fermentation, the more tannin and color pigmentation will be extracted from the fruit. So timing is important when there is fresh fruit involved.

If you are fermenting from a juice concentrate, where there is no pulp involved, when to start the secondary fermentation is still important but not nearly as critical. If you are fermenting an actual wine juice kit, then I strongly suggest that you follow the directions that came with it. It will specify a number of days before your first racking.

If you do not have an actual wine juice kit but are freestyling it with some juice concentrate you have, then I would take the following into consideration when determining when to start the secondary fermentation:

You will want the primary fermentation to be long enough to allow the yeast colony to grow into healthy numbers. The primary fermentation should be exposed to air. Don’t use an air-lock on it. Just cover it with a thin towel. Oxygen is what allows that little packet of wine yeast you added to flourish to about 100 to 200 times itself. If all goes well, this will happen in about 3 days.

The fermentation needs to have settled down enough so that it doesn’t foam out of the secondary fermenter. You do not want the secondary fermenter to have a lot of head-space, so there will be little room for foaming. Yes, you could employ a blow-off tube into a jug of water, but it is completely unnecessary to go through such measures when simply waiting longer will do. This is not an issue that will affect the wine. It’s more of a practicality issue.

You do not want the wine to be sitting on dead yeast cells for extended periods of time. You want to get the wine off the sediment in a timely manner. Not doing so can cause a condition known as autolysis. This is when the live yeast cells start feeding on dead yeast cells. This mostly happens the wine yeast run out of sugars to consume. This result is an off-taste in the wine that ranges from bitter-nut to metallic. For this reason the primary fermentation should last no longer than 2 weeks, and less than this if the fermentation has already stopped.

Russ, all these things need to be considered when trying to figure out when to start the secondary fermentation. If you are making your wine from fresh fruit, the timing is fairly narrow 4 to 7 days. If you are making your wine from a wine juice kit, the answer’s simple: follow the directions. But if you on your own with some concentrate consider the three bullet-points above.

Happy Wine Making,
Customer Service at E. C. Kraus
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

Are You Sweetening A Wine Before Bottling? Then Read This…

Posted on July 14, 2020 by AIH

This is my first time making apple wine. So far it is racked into it’s secondary. Once ready to bottle, do I add a campden tablet to kill any remaining yeast and then add some sugar to make a sweeter apple wine? I have tried to do some research, but have found myself more confused.

Name: Matt
State: Virginia
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Hello Matt,

First, thank you for such the great question. Sweetening a wine before bottling is a subject that causes great confusion among many novice winemakers.

Most of the confusion surrounds the thought that Campden tablets will kill yeast. For the most part this is true. Campden tablets will kill yeast… so long as it’s a wild yeast! But, if you use a domesticated wine yeast to make your wine – just like everybody does in this century – it’s a completely different story.

Domesticated wine yeast, such as that produced by Lalvin or Red Star, have been acclimated to the active ingredient in Campden tablets, sulfite. In other words, these domesticate yeast strains have been bred to become somewhat immune to effects of sulfite.

This does not mean that using Campden tablets will not kill some of the wine yeast. In fact, it will kill some or even a significant part of the yeast colony, depending on how many tablets you use, but it will not kill all of the wine yeast. This is where the problem comes in for the home winemaker sweetening a wine before bottling.

If you are sweetening a wine before bottling it is essential that the wine yeast be dealt with so that it cannot start re-growing a colony again. Campden tablets will not do this. It may put a momentary dent in the yeasts’ ability to ferment, but it does not take away their ability to propagate and grow back into numbers that can cause a winemaker some grief in the form of a rejuvenated fermentation.

If only Campden tablets are used when sweetening a wine before bottling, then there is a decent chance that a fermentation will occur in the wine bottle. The result is a buildup of pressure from the CO2 gas, and eventually one of two things will happen: either the corks will start popping out, or the wine bottles will fail. Neither one is a good thing.

So Matt, I imagine by this time you are wondering, what are you supposed to do when sweetening a wine before bottling? It’s really pretty straight forward. And, you almost had the right idea.

Sweeten The wine To Taste:
Most home winemakers will use cane sugar as a sweetener, but you can try sweetening the wine with honey, corn sugar, beet sugar, etc. There is room for experimentation. Just realize that regardless of whatever you use, it needs to be completely dissolved and evenly blended into the wine. Don’t skimp on the stirring.

Add Campden Tablets To The Wine:
For sure, you want to add sulfites such as Campden tablets. You can also use potassium metabisulfite or sodium metabisulfite, instead. Both of these work in the same way as Campden tablets. The only difference is that they are in a granulated form. If using Campden tablets, add one per gallon. If you are using either potassium metabisulfite or sodium metabisulfite, add 1/16 of a teaspoon per gallon.

Add Potassium Sorbate To The Wine:
Up to now I have not mentioned potassium sorbate, (aka, wine stabilizer) but it is the real key to sweetening a wine before bottling. Potassium sorbate does not kill or destroy yeast, wild or domestic, but instead, it stops them from reproducing.

Any yeast fermentation thrives on the fact that a single yeast cell can reproduce itself several times before it dies. It does so through a process called budding. A little bud will emerge from the yeast’s cell wall. The bud will eventually separate and become its own yeast cell. This is how a yeast colony propagates throughout a fermentation. If the yeast cannot reproduce, then the fermentation cannot sustain itself.

This is where potassium sorbate comes in. Potassium sorbate interrupts the reproductive process by coating the yeasts’ outer cell outer wall, making budding impossible. If the yeast cannot bud, the colony will not flourish.

The recommended dosage for potassium sorbate is 1/2 teaspoon per gallons.

Additional Thoughts:
One thing you can do to insure the success when sweetening a wine before bottling is to give the wine plenty of time so that it is can drop out as much yeast as possible. Yeast will fall to the bottom when they run out of sugar to feed on, but it takes time for these very fine particles to fall completely out through gravity. To help speed up the process you can treat the wine with bentonite then follow it up with a polish fining agent such as isinglass or Kitosol 40.

Also realize that Campden tablets and potassium sorbate will have little if any effect on an active fermentation, so do not try to use these ingredients to stop a fermentation in progress. Domesticated wine yeast are too immune to sulfites, and the amount of potassium sorbate it would take to coat such a large number of active yeast cells makes the dosage required unreasonable.

That’s pretty much the ins-and-outs of sweetening a wine before bottling. To summarize quickly, you give the wine plenty of wine to drop out the the excessive yeast cells. Even use a wine clarifier. Then sweeten the wine to taste, and then add the Campden tablets, then the potassium sorbate.

Happy Winemaking!

Why Do Some Wine Recipes Call For Pectic Enzyme?

Posted on July 12, 2020 by AIH

This is Greg again with another question. I have been making wine with your concentrated homemade wine kits for several years and have had a lot of fun for sure. I would like to make apple wine… saw the apple recipe you have on your website. It looks a lot like making wine from concentrate. The only thing I do not understand is the pectic enzyme. What is the purpose of adding pectic enzyme to a wine?

Greg
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Dear Greg,

Pectic enzyme is called for in almost all wine recipes that use fresh fruit. The recipes you see in books like The First Steps In Wine Making and the wine recipes on our website will all call for pectic enzymes. However, you do not need to add it to wines made from concentrated homemade wine kits, like the ones you have been making wine with. This is because the necessary pectic enzyme has already been added to the concentrate by the wine kit producer.

The purpose of using pectic enzyme in wine making is twofold:

First and foremost, pectic enzyme helps to break down the fruit’s fiber or pulp. This allows more flavor and color to be extracted from whatever fruit is being used during the fermentation.

Secondly, it helps to make sure the wine has a clearer, more translucent, appearance after the fermentation has completed and the wine has had ample time to clear up.

Pectic enzyme accomplishes both of these tasks by breaking down the pectin cells in the fruit. Pectin is the gelatinous material that holds together the strands of fiber found within fruits such as strawberry or grape. It is also the “stuff” that makes apple sauce thick and cloudy.

By breaking down these pectin cells, the fruit’s pulp becomes less thick. This allows more of the fruit’s character to be released during fermentation or even when running the pulp through the grape presses. Because pectin is somewhat opaque, if it isn’t sufficiently broken down during the fermentation, the resulting wine will have a pectin haze. For the most part, this type of defect is not correctable once the fermentation is complete.

When making wine from concentrated homemade wine kits, the flavor and color extraction has already been taken care of for you. No pulp is involved and Pectic enzyme is not necessary. It’s one more variable that these kits take out of the equation so that you can be a successful home wine maker.

So as you can start to see there is a reason for adding pectic enzyme to a wine. Pectic enzyme has a purpose. It helps to extract more color and flavor from the fruit, and it helps to insure that the resulting wine is clear.

Making Muscadine And Scuppernong Wine

Posted on July 9, 2020 by AIH

My question is related to making both Muscadine and Scuppernong with 100% pure juice. I have an opportunity to obtain 100% pure juice for both products with a Brix range between 22.0-23.0.

I have always utilized real, whole fruit in all my batches and I am not sure if there are recipe differences when using pure juice. Do you have a Muscadine recipe or a Scuppernong recipes that I could follow utilizing 100% grape juice? Are all the wine making ingredients the same? Do I add water or more sugar considering the Brix is in the ideal range?

I really appreciate your assistance.

Best Regards,
John and Cathy H.
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Hello John and Cathy,

Most fresh Muscadine or Scuppernong wine recipes you will find typically call for both water and sugar in addition to the juice/grapes:

Water: to lower the higher acidity typically found in these grapes. If you use straight Scuppernong or Muscadine juice, you will most likely end up with a wine that is too tart.
Sugar: to bring the potential alcohol of the wine back up to a decent range. Because you added water to dilute/lower the acidity of the juice, you will need to add sugar to bring the potential alcohol level up to a descent range: 10% to 13%.

However, these wine recipes can only guess as to what are the optimal amounts of each. My suggestion to you would be to purchase two items to help you bring everything into optimal balance:

Acid Testing Kit: This kit will allow you to test the acidity level of the Scuppernong or Muscadine juice. The acidity relates to the sourness/sharpness of the wine verses the flatness/lifelessness of the flavor. The acid testing kit also comes with directions that will tell you what the optimal readings are, so you can calculate how much water to add to the juice, if any. I would shoot for an acid reading of around .65%.

Wine Hydrometer: This priceless instrument is what tells you what the brix reading is of the juice. Your supplier has already given you a brix range of 22 to 23, but these numbers will change if you have to dilute the grape juice with water to lower the acidity. The wine hydrometer will tell you what the new brix reading is and help guide you back to a brix range of 22-33 when adding sugar back to the wine must.

As for the rest of the wine making ingredients, you can follow the wine recipes on the wine recipes page of our website. There you will find a Muscadine wine recipe and a Scuppernong wine recipe. Basically, add the following for every 5 gallons of wine must:

5 Tsps. Yeast Nutrient
3/4 Tsp. Pectic Enzyme
1 Tsp. Tannin

The wine yeast recommended for the Scuppernong is the Lalvin type: K1V-1116; for the Muscadine the Red Star type: Pasture Blanc is recommended.

What About Fresh Muscadine And Scuppernong Grapes?
I would also like to point out that the above information can be applied to making wine from actual Muscadine a Scuppernong grapes. Just crush the grapes then take a reading with your gravity hydrometer and acid test kit, and take it from there.

Adding Sulfites To Homemade Wine

Posted on July 7, 2020 by AIH

I started fruit wine making in May. Yesterday I came across reading something on your blog which caught my attention. Something that I haven’t read or was told before. That is to add Campden tablets and sorbate after each racking. Do I need to do this after each racking or is it OK with every other racking?… By me not adding any since I started and going on my 3 and 4th rackings am I in jeopardy of losing my wine?…

Eric — LA
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Hello Eric,

The fact that you haven’t been adding sulfites [Campden tablets] to your homemade wine doesn’t mean you have ruined it by any means. There are winemakers that never use sulfite and turn out good wines. But having said this, I would urge you to start adding sulfites to homemade wine.

Sulfites such as Campden tablets and sodium metabisulfite make sure your wine does not spoil during the wine making process. After the wine has been made, sulfites help to insure that your wine will keep for many years and not just weeks or months in the wine bottle. Sulfites also help your wine to be free from the effects of oxidation. This is when the color of the wine darkens and the flavor taken on a little bitterness. Adding sulfites to homemade wine is not an absolute necessity, but it only makes sense to do so.

Potassium sorbate on the other hand is a different beast. It should only be used before bottling the wine – if at all. It is required if you are planning on back-sweetening your wine at bottling time. If it is not added along with the sweetening sugar, you stand a very strong chance of experiencing a re-fermentation of your wine while in the bottle. This can eventually result in popping corks and fizzy wine.

There is no reason to add potassium sorbate at any other time than at bottling. In fact, if it is added before the fermentation has completed it will most likely result in a sluggish or stuck fermentation. I would not recommend adding it at bottling time if you are not making a sweet wine. It is not necessary.

If you are making wine from fresh fruit, I always recommend adding sulfite to homemade wine about 24 hours before adding the yeast. Leave the wine must uncovered during this 24 hours so that the sulfite gas may dissipate. Then add the wine yeast as you normally would. Doing this will easily destroy any wild molds, bacteria, etc. that may be coming along with the fruit.

I always recommend that sulfite be added before bottling, as well. This is the dose that keeps the wine fresh and free of oxidation while in the wine bottle. Before fermentation and before bottling are the two times I would never forgo.

I also suggest adding sulfites to wine after the fermentation has completed. This is with the understanding that the wine is going to sit for a while before clearing up. This will keep any airborne contaminants from growing on your wine while clearing.

Once the wine is clear and you have racked it off the sediment, I would also recommend adding a 1/2 dose of sulfites if you plan on bulk-aging the wine. If you plan on bottling within a few days don’t worry about it.

Eric, at this point I would add a dose of Campden tablets. Just on per gallon. If you are on your 3rd or 4th racking you shouldn’t need to rack your wine any more other than to bottle it, at which point I would add another dose of Campden tablets. No potassium sorbate should be added unless you are sweetening your wine.

Adding sulfites to homemade wine is important and highly recommended. It’s like buying insurance for making a wine that doesn’t spoil or oxidize. If you do not add sulfites you can make wine successfully, but most will find it hard for the wine to keep over extended periods of time without refrigeration.

Happy Winemaking,
Customer Service at E. C. Kraus
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

My Wine Stopped Fermenting Too Early

Posted on July 5, 2020 by AIH

I am making a wine with black and red currants. I mixed everything together and the fermentation started the next day. But now my wine has stopped fermenting too early. It has only been fermenting for about 5 days. What should I do?

Name: Kelly F.
State: GA
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Hello Kelly,

It may very well be that you have a stuck fermentation, and need to figure out how to get it going again. But, more than likely the reason your wine is not fermenting is because the fermentation is simply done. Once all the available sugars have been turned into alcohol by the wine yeast, there is nothing else to do. No reason to add more yeast, etc.

While most fermentations will last anywhere from 5 days to 10 days, I have personally seen wine fermentations be completely done in less than 3 days. It’s all just a matter of how happy you make the wine yeast.

To determine if your wine stopped fermenting too early or if you have a stuck fermentation, you will need to test the wine with a hydrometer. If you do not have a hydrometer, I would strongly urge you to get one. A wine hydrometer is the single most valuable tool any winemaker can have, and it is quick and easy to use.

If your wine has a specific gravity reading less than .998, then your fermentation is done. All that you need to do is to continue on with any wine recipe directions you are following. This would typically be to rack the wine into a secondary fermenter and allow it time to clear.

If your wine has a specific gravity reading more than .998, then you have a stuck fermentation on your hands and will need to figure out how to get the wine fermenting again.

There are a number of reasons why a wine might stop fermenting too early – too many to go over here – but fortunately you can go to our Top 10 Reasons For Fermentation Failure. There you will find the mostly likely reasons why you have a stuck fermentation. The reasons are in order from the most to least likely reason. This list was culminated from our years and years of experience with helping home winemakers. Go over them and see if any of the top 10 reasons apply to this batch of wine.

In short, if you have a wine that stopped fermenting too early, it does not necessarily mean you have a problem. In fact, it could mean the opposite – that you had a very good fermentation and it is done sooner than expected. But, if the fermentation is not complete, you need to figure out why, and then address that issue.

Can I Use Potassium Sorbate To Stop A Fermentation?

Posted on July 2, 2020 by AIH

As the yeast eats the sugars, the sweet taste disappears as the sugar is eaten. I have heard you can’t stop the yeast from doing their job. But if I want a sweeter wine and my reading has reached an SG of 1.010, can I put potassium sorbate in the fermentation to stop it there for some sweetness instead of letting it ferment to the end at .998 and having to try and back sweeten a dry wine?

Byron J. — FL
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Hello Byron,

This is a great question because it covers a two wine making topics that often trip up home winemakers: using potassium sorbate and sweetening a wine.

Let me start off by saying that it is possible to stop a fermentation in progress, but it is much more difficult than just using potassium sorbate to stop a fermentation and/or sulfites such as Campden tablets and sodium metabisulfite. These wine making ingredients will give the fermentation a blow to the gut, but vary rarely will they permanently stop a fermentation. Not good enough for a homemade wine that is destined to be bottled. The last thing any winemaker wants is fermenting bottles of wine.

The potassium sorbate does not stop or inhibit the fermenting in any way. What it does do is stop the yeast from reproducing themselves. During a typical fermentation the wine yeast will go through several re-generations. By adding potassium sorbate to a wine you are making sure that the current generation of yeast is the last generation of yeast. Eventually, the wine yeast will begin to die, but not all at once. Some yeast will live longer than others always leaving a possibility of a re-fermentation occurring, even months down the road.

Sulfites, like the Campden tablets and sodium metabisulfite, will destroy some of the yeast cells but not all of them. Domesticated wine yeast are somewhat immune to the effects of sulfite. They are acclimated to the sulfites when they are being produced. This is done on purpose so that a fermentation can exist with some of the protective benefits of sulfites.

Since potassium sorbate won’t stop a fermentation, here is what a commercial winery does when they want to stop an active fermentation:

Chill the fermentation tanks down to about 45°F. This causes the wine yeast to stop their activity and drop to the bottom. This can be done in a matter of 3 or 4 days depending on how fast the tanks chill. As a home winemaker, refrigeration should be done for at least a week.

Rack the wine off the sediment. The sediment is mostly yeast cells at this stage of the winemaking process, so by racking or siphoning the wine, you are leaving most of the yeast behind.

Filter the wine. It is vital that the wine be finely filtered at this point. While almost all of the wine yeast is gone, if some is left in the wine they can propagate themselves into larger numbers, regenerating a new colony of yeast that can ferment the wine after it has been bottled. Not a good thing. A winery will typically filter a wine down to .5 micron. This will require filtration under pressure with an actual wine filter system.

This is how a winery controls the sweetness of a wine, but there is a much, much easier way available to the home winemaker. It doesn’t involve using potassium sorbate to stop a fermentation, and it doesn’t involve going through all the steps laid out above.

Allow the fermentation to finish. All the sugars will be gone and the wine yeast will start dropping out.

Rack the wine off the sediment. Again, this will leave most of the yeast behind – well over 90%.

Add sugar syrup to taste. The sugar syrup can be made by taking equal parts water and sugar and heating them in a sauce pan until completely clear. You may want to take a measured portion of the wine and add measured portions of the sugar syrup to establish a dosage, first, before committing the entire batch.

Add potassium sorbate and sulfite to the wine. The dosage should be listed on the containers they come in, but you want to use 1/2 teaspoon of potassium sorbate per gallon and 1/16 teaspoon per gallon of either: potassium metabisulfite, sodium metabisulfite, or 1 Campden tablet per gallon of wine.

Bottle the wine right away. If the wine is allowed to sit, some of the sulfite will dissipate, so you will want to bottle the wine on the same day.

By allowing the wine to finish, you will have much greater control on the sweetness of the wine. Instead of saying I want the wine to finish at a specific gravity 1.010, as you have suggested, you can actually sweeten the wine to taste. This is important because some wines require more sugar than others to get the same effect of sweetness than others. Every wine is different.

By operating in this way you can also bulk age the wine first. This is a great advantage, because it allows you to sweeten the wine after the harshness has been aged out. Often times when sweetening a young, too much sugar will be added. This is because the winemaker tries to cover up the harshness with sweetness — a harshness that won’t be there later.

Byron, I hope this information helps you out. Again, I’m glad you asked about using potassium sorbate to stop a fermentation for the simple fact that it’s answer will help to clear up a lot of confusion among new winemakers.