I've had a lot of trouble finding a quick and easy answer to this question. Wine makers will add these chemical to wine after fermentation to prevent spoilage, and as an antioxidant. You can also add these two ingredients in mead, cider, wine, and beer to stop fermentation in order to hit a final gravity, or back sweeten. Without the use of a SO2 meter, what is a good approximation of how much potassium metabisulfite/Potassium Sorbate I should add to …

I read here that wines can be stabilized by "adding potassium sorbate just before the wine is bottled". I understand that "just before" in this context means a day or two later. But is it really necessary to bottle quickly after stabilizing with potassium sorbate? Can I not wait a month or two to bottle it? I am trying to understand why this article says "just before", and whether this is truly important or not. The reason I need to …

I had fermented mango wine weeks back. After a week I did my first racking to remove pulp. The Brix value is not moving down so assuming fermentation is over, I'm planning to bottle it. Initially, after a week, it was very sour then sourness got reduced and it was tasting bitter. Now it tastes flat. Can I add sweetened, thinned homemade mango juice to give it a flavour? Also, can I add metabisulfite and sorbate together? I haven't used …

This article claims the following: The second limitation of potassium sorbate is the length of time it is effective. Once added to wine it stays in the desireable form of sorbic acid only for a short time. Over time it breaks down into ethyl sorbate which can add notes of pineapple or celery to your wine. The change into ethyl sorbate is not preventable. By using potassium sorbate winemakers are putting a definite shelf life on their wines before they …

It’s coming up on the third week of secondary for my first mead batch and my intention was to sterilize the yeast culture with campden tablets and potassium sorbate. I added the correct dose of each for a 5.5 gallon batch after the SG reached 1.002. I assumed this would be dry enough that it would halt further fermentation, but 48 hours later the airlock is still bubbling at a period of about 18.3 seconds. Shining a light through the …

I am an avid brewer but have just finished fermenting my 1st muscadine wine. It has been fermenting for 6 months and has been racked once. Even though it's really clear I just added sparkaloid along with campden and potassium sorbate. I am planning to bottle within 2 weeks. Will the sparkaloid affect the campden and potassium sorbate? I added them to deactivate the yeast for back sweetening. I am hoping it won't cause the two to precipitate out.

I would like to ferment 2 and 4 Liters of papaya and watermelon (respectively) but am looking for how much potassium sorbate is needed, for each volume, to prevent yeast from multiplying. An equation, for future reference would be nice but an exact answer is welcome as well. Thanks in advance.

I made 4 gallons watermelon wine and I wanted to leave it a little sweet. So, when the brew was at 1.01 gravity I added 2 tsp of potassium sorbate. I stirred it well. Over the next few days there was still a lot of activity at the air lock. I let it go about a week. The temperature was 73f-75f. I checked the gravity again and it was, sadly, down to 0.990. I know I can add sugar to …