I’ve heard that Pot Met [potassium metabisulfite] does not need to touch the carboy or bottles to sanitize, but the fumes are what actually does the sanitizing. Can you tell me which is correct?
Name: Bob
State: NY
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Hello Bob,
What you have stated above is correct. The SO2 gas that releases from a solution of water and potassium metabisulfite will sanitize the inside of your secondary carboys and primary fermenter buckets. It’s very effective, simple to do, and cost efficient.
Put about 2 or 3 inches of water in the bottom of your carboy, then add 1 teaspoon of potassium metabisulfite. It is also very important that you add 1/2 teaspoon of citric acid along with it. Without the citric acid, the SO2 will not release readily enough to do the sanitizing. If you are doing this in a bucket-style primary fermenter you will want to put the lid loosely on the fermenter to cause the gas to linger longer. Do not seal the fermenter or carboy air-tight. Allow the fumes to vent.
You only need to let the sulfite/water solution fume for about 30 minutes, and the fermenter will be sanitized. No need to rinse anything off. Just dump the solution out of the fermenter then add your wine.
To take this method of sanitizing a fermenter even further, you can also put your smaller pieces of wine making equipment in a primary fermenter while sanitizing it. You can put in: hydrometers, siphon hose, rubber stoppers, air-locks. Anything that will fit in fermenter, and all will be sanitized at the same time.
This method works whether you use the potassium metabisulfite, sodium metabisulfite or Campden tablets. All can be added to water with citric acid to make this fuming sanitizing solutions. To read more about these sulfites you may want to take a look at another blog post: “A Simple Guide To Metabisulfites“.
This using sulfite fumes to sanitize can also be applied to wine bottles just as well. Mix up the solution and add an inch or two to each wine bottle. Let sit for 30 minutes; drain then use.
Using a sulfite solution is an easy and effective way to sanitize your carboy and other fermenters and equipment. Hope this information helps you out.
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.

Hi all!
I’m still just waiting for my Cellar Craft Sterling California Chardonnay Reserve to finish clearing so I can move onto the next stage, but for now I wanted to talk a little bit about a specific stage in the winemaking process that I’ve noticed is never present in any of the winemaking kits I’ve made so far…
Cold stabilization.
Cold stabilization in wine making is a common practice, so why is it not done in any of the home wine making kits I’ve made?
Cold stabilization is basically the process of keeping tartaric acid crystals from forming in the wine after it has been bottled. If a wine has not gone through cold stabilization before bottling, sticking the wine in the refrigerator, cellar, or otherwise very cold room may cause tartaric acid crystals, or “wine diamonds” to form. These crystals aren’t bad for you (it’s just cream of tartar!) and won’t hurt the wine, but some think it’s better for aesthetic purposes.
Tartaric acid is naturally present in grapes, so theoretically any wine is at risk of developing tartaric acid crystals or “wine diamonds” when at the right temperature or if the wine just jostled around or bumped just right. There has to be a concentration of tartaric acid higher than what can be handled by the wine in order for these crystals to be created under those circumstances, but for consistency, winemakers usually perform a cold stabilization prior to bottling regardless.
Actually performing a cold stabilization is actually pretty simple according to what I’ve read online.
All you have to do is before bottling, reduce the temperature of your wine to 30°F or lower for at least 36 hours. Doing this might be a little difficult if you don’t have a space refrigerator or if you’re not making your wine in the middle of winter in a cold locale, but if you have the ability, it wouldn’t hurt to just do it.
I also read that it is recommended you add potassium bitartrate powder to the wine right before you drop the temperature, as the presence of the potassium bitartrate (cream of tarter) will help pull any tartrate crystals out of the wine faster than if you were simply relying on the temperature drop.
The amount of alcohol present in your wine could affect the ideal cold stabilization temperature, so a simple mathematical equation is all you need to figure that out. All you have to do is take the alcohol level of your wine, divide that by 2, and then subtract 1. This will get you the ideal cold stabilization temperature for your wine in Celsius.
Now that I’ve read about how to do a cold stabilization in wine making, I have a feeling I know why it’s not listed on the instructions for any home winemaking kit I’ve ever made. It’s probably related to the fact that you need an entire separate refrigerator or need to be living in a place where it’s very cold outside when you’re making that wine in order to successfully cold stabilize your wine. Of course, they sell cooling jackets for stainless steel tanks, but that’s not something the home winemaker has.
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My name is Leigh Erwin, and I am a brand-spankin’ new home winemaker! E. C. Kraus has asked me to share with you my journey from a first-time dabbler to an accomplished home winemaker. From time to time I’ll be checking in with this blog and reporting my experience with you: the good, bad – and the ugly.

“Rules are meant to be broken.” Nowhere is this more true than in home brewing!
Sure, there are plenty of recommendations about what you should do in order to make the best beer you can, but homebrewing wouldn’t exist without experimentation. It’s often how new discoveries are made. Without experimentation, would double IPAs and chocolate stouts even exist?
With that in mind, here are just a few home brewing rules you might consider breaking on your next brew day:

• Cleaning and sanitation – 99% of the time, yes, cleaning and sanitation is very important if you want a degree of predictability in your beer. But as a homebrewer, you have the luxury of deciding when – and when not – to follow the rules. If you’re into Belgian, wild fermented, or sour beers, maybe you can risk a little slack in your cleaning routine. No guarantees that it will turn out well – but what’s the worst that can happen? Start with a one-gallon, “wild” batch before risking a whole five-gallons.

• Beer must have hops – Depending on who you ask, beer isn’t beer without hops. But anyone who knows a little beer history can tell you that hops weren’t always a main flavor ingredient in beer. Want to try something unique? Mix a blend of herbs and spices to make a gruit or mumm – hops are optional!

• Beer must have malted barley – Yes, most beers have malted barley, but not all. Chicha is a traditional Peruvian corn beer. Sound intriguing? Brew it!

• Yeast starters – Do you have to do a yeast starter? Absolutely not. At least one experiment has actually shown that they do little, if anything, to actually improve beer flavor. Maybe this is a step you can skip on your next brew?

• Temperature control – You’ve heard it time and again: temperature control is the most important thing you can do to make better beer. But what happens when you let temperature go? This experiment shows that temperature control might not be as important as we think. Plus, many Belgian yeast strains do well at higher temperatures. Try pushing the temperature on your next saison and see what happens.

Of all the home brewing “rules”, there is only one that is sacred: have fun! Because if it’s not fun, what’s the point? Yes, there will be challenges, there will be frustrations. These are times to recall the homebrewer’s mantra: “Relax, don’t worry, have a homebrew.” But beyond that, don’t let anyone tell you there’s a certain way things have to be done. Experiment, test, evaluate, go crazy! You may just stumble upon the next big thing!
What are some home brewing rules you like to break on brew day? 
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David Ackley is a writer, brewer, and craft beer marketing consultant. He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder of the Local Beer Blog.

Hi guys!
Just a quick follow up on how things are going with my Cellar Craft Sterling California Chardonnay! Last time, I’d taken you through the degassing stage, and other than a (hopefully) minor oversight that resulted in me stopping secondary fermentation 2 specific gravity points early, I think everything is going well!
The next stage, then, is the clearing stage. The specific gravity is still holding at 0.980 on the hydrometer, though the wine’s fermentation temperature is a lot lower now that I decided to unplug the heating pad after the fermentation was complete. My reasoning was since I don’t need to keep the yeasts happy anymore with good fermentation temperatures, then I didn’t need to keep the heating pad plugged in and running. Hopefully that was the right decision.
The only issue I ran into during the clearing stage was that I accidentally spilled most of the Kieselsol pouch on the counter due to clumsiness. Thankfully, since I never got to that stage with my last batch of Sterling California Chardonnay, I still had the Kieselsol package from that, so I just went ahead and opened that one and dumped those contents into my wine. Problem solved! Ah, the benefits of having extra ingredients laying around! I’ll have to keep that in mind for my next order and just stock up on a bunch of ingredients that I use on a semi-regular basis.
Now, I have the wine sitting around waiting to clear and basically waiting to be bottled. I don’t think I’ll be filtering the wine this time, as I forgot to purchase new filter pads for my wine filter system and I’m not convinced the system even works very well to begin with, but me making unfiltered wine is pretty much par for the course at this point and my husband is still pleased with the wines, so why not continue that trend!
The only other question I had so far when making this Chardonnay was again related to the wine’s fermentation temperature. I noticed that the heating pad kept my wine consistently in the high 70°F range. This is according to my thermometer strip I have stuck to the side of the fermenter. I am only slightly concerned about this, as according to the instructions, the upper fermentation temperature limit recommended was 75^oF. Now, the heat pad that I bought seems to have been keeping the temperature around 78^oF which makes me a little nervous. How big a deal is 3^oF? Does that really matter?
Seeing as how I didn’t do anything about the temperature and it still ended finishing out fermentation around the appropriate specific gravity, it is probably OK, but I would not be surprised if it had slowed it down just a little at the end. If you recall, it did take an extra couple days for the wine to reach 0.998, though technically I was supposed to take it to 0.996 and likely would have taken several more days to do that. I’m wondering if that extra 3 degrees of fermentation temperature was too much for some of the wine yeast and a few more of them died off than would have if the temperature was just a little cooler.
Why in the world, then, would a heating pad designed for winemaking be programmed to heat up to that high of a fermentation temperature? Maybe next time I’ll have to just remember to plug and unplug a bunch of times to try and keep the temperature a little lower.
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My name is Leigh Erwin, and I am a brand-spankin’ new home winemaker! E. C. Kraus has asked me to share with you my journey from a first-time dabbler to an accomplished home winemaker. From time to time I’ll be checking in with this blog and reporting my experience with you: the good, bad – and the ugly.