As others have said, sorbate works by preventing yeast budding or
reproduction, not by killing the yeast. If you slow the yeast activity down
in some way such as chilling, the yeast and other substances will settle to
the bottom. Yeast activity and CO2 generation keeps things in suspension.
You can help by using a fining agent to take things out of suspension and
forcing it to the bottom after yeast activity has slowed or stopped. The
faster it is cleared the less likely the yeast will kick off again before
you are ready. I like SuperKlear for light or white wines. it can clear a
wine overnight.

Once it is pretty much clear, rack it off the sediment and you will leave
the yeast behind. Now you can treat it with sorbate and sulfite and prevent
the few remaining yeast from reproducing again. Let it set for a month to
allow any further sediment and yeast to drop out and bottle. By this time
there will be so few yeast that they will not cause a problem However, if
you did not treat with sorbate, over time, a few yeast can reproduce and
become a big problem.

Ray

"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.)
>
>