Joe - If you have your sweetened wine stabilized, and by that I mean proper
pH, sulfite and sufficient K sorbate, I don't believe a few microbes or
yeast cells inside a clean bottle will be a problem. Even if the yeast live
they won't multiply and will poop out in a short time. My earlier post
about my Vidal wine is a good example. It took a couple of weeks for some
residual yeast (I suspect they were added when I added reserve juice) to
expire. I waited them out but doubt they would have caused a problem if I
bottled right away. Even for sweetened wine I don't sanitize bottles. I
just make sure they are clean and stored upside down.

With respect to pasteurization. I make beer. I can cool freshly boiled
wort to 70 degrees in 15 minutes with an immersion chiller. Your wine
would have to be in an open kettle to accommodate the chiller. Mine is home
made with two coils of copper tubing, one within the other, sort of like a
DNA chain. Depending on how high a temperature you need to heat the wine
air exposure time could be as little as 30 minutes. And, you could blanket
the wine with an inert gas for protection.

I always make my wife some grape juice in the fall when I crush and press
grapes. I heat the juice like you would do for pasteurization. I don't
bother with a fast chill for this juice and it does change the flavor. She
actually likes the flavor post heating better than the raw juice.

Bill Frazier
Olathe, Kansas USA

> I will always be making at least 15 gallons of something sweet so the
> membrane filter may be worth doing. I have also been reading about
> some of the pasteurization techniques people are using commercially.
> It seems there are several way people are doing that and some of those
> are in reach of a home winemaker.
>
> Joe
>