Just want to see how many different ways people deal with keeping up
adequate sulfite levels in their wine. I feel like it is the biggest
guessing game in winemaking and have never felt comfortable with it. I
know some of you don't add any sulfites at all, but for those who do,
how do you determine how much to add?

I have tried the titrets and think they are a pain especially with red
wine, and everything I've read says they're not accurate anyway, that
you need to adjust by a certain level for whites and even more for
reds. I feel like error is already present since the change is so hard
to read anyway, then you add this additional error adjustment, and by
the time you get a figure it may be way off. I know there are other
titration methods but I really don't have lab equipment, and they sound
like they are not that accurate either. To be clear, if there is an
accurate way to measure sulfite levels I don't mind the effort, but I
don't like all the rigamarole and then not feeling comfortable with the
results.

What I have been doing for the last couple of years is this. I add
sulfite to around 30 ppm at crush and again at each racking and then
again at bottling. I have read that sulfite levels drop over time so I
figure adding this minimum amount each time is about right overall.

But.. as I say, I have never felt comfortable with this guessing and
would like to see how others deal with this problem - maybe no one else
considers it a problem, we shall see.

"miker" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> Just want to see how many different ways people deal with keeping up
> adequate sulfite levels in their wine. I feel like it is the biggest
> guessing game in winemaking and have never felt comfortable with it. I
> know some of you don't add any sulfites at all, but for those who do,
> how do you determine how much to add?
>
> I have tried the titrets and think they are a pain especially with red
> wine, and everything I've read says they're not accurate anyway, that
> you need to adjust by a certain level for whites and even more for
> reds. I feel like error is already present since the change is so hard
> to read anyway, then you add this additional error adjustment, and by
> the time you get a figure it may be way off. I know there are other
> titration methods but I really don't have lab equipment, and they sound
> like they are not that accurate either. To be clear, if there is an
> accurate way to measure sulfite levels I don't mind the effort, but I
> don't like all the rigamarole and then not feeling comfortable with the
> results.
>
> What I have been doing for the last couple of years is this. I add
> sulfite to around 30 ppm at crush and again at each racking and then
> again at bottling. I have read that sulfite levels drop over time so I
> figure adding this minimum amount each time is about right overall.
>
> But.. as I say, I have never felt comfortable with this guessing and
> would like to see how others deal with this problem - maybe no one else
> considers it a problem, we shall see.

If you are aging in glass carboys, keeping track of sulphite additons and
recording in a log and adding a tad more during rackings is not a bad
approach. If, however, you are aging in barrel, then you need to do some
testing. Barreled wine will loose free SO2 quite rapidly. The very best
approach is Aeration/Oxidation testing. The apparatus is not cheap but it
is the very best for testing red wines. I know you can get apparatus at
"Wine, Wine & More Wine" and from "Presque Isle". Some on this news group
have devised their own setup. Or - you can send in a sample to such places
as "Vinquiry" and they will do an AO test for about $12.00. I also think
that "Wine, Wine & More wine" will do this test also. I do not know their
price. This may be a bit much for a five gallon batch but if you have a 30
or 59 gallon barrel, it makes it a lot more reasonable approach. 30 to 60
gallons of wine is a big chunk of wine to loose for being too frugal to
spend $12.00

Hope this helps.

"miker" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> Just want to see how many different ways people deal with keeping up
> adequate sulfite levels in their wine. I feel like it is the biggest
> guessing game in winemaking and have never felt comfortable with it. I
> know some of you don't add any sulfites at all, but for those who do,
> how do you determine how much to add?

You need to know 2 things in order to intelligently sulfite your wine:

(1) How much free SO2 is already in there, and
(2) What the pH of the wine is.

That's it.

Measuring the pH is easy. You use a pH meter. Forget about pH papers.
They don't resolve to 0.1 pH units. Papers are useless for that.

There are 4 ways to measure the free SO2:

(1) Ripper titration, which is easy for whites and harder for reds,

(2) Titrets, which some swear by and others swear _at_,

(3) Aeration/oxidation, which requires a small investment in apparatus and
chemicals - but nowhere near the $300 or so I see mentioned by others. You
really don't need all that fancy glassware. A small aquarium pump, some
glass and rubber tubing, some rubber stoppers, a graduated pipette and a
couple of small flasks will suffice. And finally,

(4) Send a sample to a commercial lab. If you're making large batches,
even as an amateur, this makes sense.

Tom S
www.chateauburbank.com

I guess I should have mentioned that I make wine in small batches,
about 20 gallons or so a year, so don't think I want to spend money for
lab testing or aeration/oxidation at this point. I think we will be
going the barrel route in the future and then will have to weigh the
different options then.

Is there a way to estimate SO2 losses over time in a carboy?

Also, no one has mentioned the method you use yet.

Well, here is what I do for 5 gallon carboys:

Each rack I add 1/8 teaspoon of potassium metabisulfite powder
dissolved in a few ml of water. I used to measure it on a precision
balance and said to heck with that long ago. If it's a larger carboy,
I don't level off the spoon... That works out to about 20 PPM per
addition. If the pH is higher (>3.5), I round the spoon on later
racks. I don't rack much more than 3 or 4 times.

I usually have pH in the 3.4 to 3.8 range so there are some trade-offs;
if the pH is above 3.6 and the wine tastes good I 'undersulfite'
technically; I usually won't go above 60 PPM free as measured by
titretes. I agree with Tom about swearing at them; when i do reds i
don't look for a change in the liquid, I look at the bubbles. That
seems to keep me from missing the mark. As soon as the bubbles come in
'pinker' versus 'bluer' I either pause or stop based on what happens in
the next 10 seconds or so. That is not what the manufacturer
suggests, I made it up to suit my process.

I haven't had wine spoil but that may be dumb luck. I have had a few
reds get gassy, It's possible I am under-sulfiting and a malo is
starting in those, or it could be residual sugar. (You could consider
that spoilage, I consider it more for me...) I have bottled with RS of
0.4 at times too.

Joe