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Andrew L Drumm
 
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Default Ascorbic acid as an anti-oxidant?

"Negodki" > wrote in message
m...
> (evilpaul13) wrote:
>
> > What is the general consensus on an addition of vitamin C to act as a
> > preservative in wine? (I'm not talking about replacing sulfur dioxide,
> > just complementing it.)

>
> According to Presque Isle, "Results are inconsistent and we can't
> recommend it. It is often even less effective if used in combination
> with SO2. Its best use is in the treatment of wine that has had some
> H2S progress to disulfides. Using .25 grams per gallon will cause
> disulfides to revert back to mercaptans, albeit slowly, which can then
> be dealt with using copper or boecksin."

To agree with others - this advice regarding combination with SO2 is
absolute BS. ALWAYS use SO2 with ascorbic. Ascorbic works fine for about 6
months to a year, then it's bad. If your wine will be drunk in this period,
then ascorbic does very well as an antioxidant, probably better than SO2.
After this, things go very bad very fast, as oxidation of ascorbic produces
peroxide, which also scavenges your SO2, so oxidation of your wine
accelerates! I've never heard of it used to fix disulphides - it might work,
but your best approach is to knock any H2S on the head with copper before it
has a chance to go to disulphide.