"Mr. Wolfie" > wrote in message
ups.com...
> >From everything I've read, if you add potassium sorbate to a currently
> fermenting wine it wont do anything to stop it, but I was wondering if
> you chilled the wine to make the yeast go into hybernation and added
> sulfites and sorbate, would it stop it, or would it still start up and
> use the residual sugar when it warmed back up?
> (Got a cranberry wine that's been SLOWLY bubbling for over a month,
> with a drop of .002 s.g. in all that time.)
>

Potassium sorbate prevents yeast cells from budding (reproducing).
Consequently, sorbate is only effective when the yeast population is small.
Chill your wine, stop fermentation and let the yeast settle. Then rack the
wine off of the yeast lees to reduce the yeast population. You may need to
repeat this operation a couple of times to get your wine clean enough for
sorbate to be effective.
Good luck,
Lum
Del Mar, California, USA