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Levers101 · 06-20-2008, 02:24 AM

I just added 1/4 teaspoon of potassium metabisulfite to 14 lbs strawberries in 2.5 gallons which I intend to make up to 5 gallons of water. However, after adding this along with pectic enzyme and grape tannin the whole mess went from a nice strawberry red to a hideous brown color.

Is this temporary, should I RDWHAHB or did I just screw up this batch of strawberry wine?

I wouldn't have expected metabisulfite to change the color to brown being an antioxidant...

***Yooper*** · 06-20-2008, 12:10 PM

Hopefully, you added about 1/4 or 1/8 tsp of grape tannin so that's not why it's brown. I've never seen it in strawberry wine, but I've seen some wines get really ugly. (Look at my banana wine recipe, there is a picture of the must in another post and it's hideously gray). What I think must have happened is the pectic enzyme is already working. Pectic enzyme breaks down the cell walls of fruit, so maybe that's why? I don't know, but that's my best guess.

yaeyama · 06-22-2008, 11:34 AM

I'm still a little green behind the ears, but, I strongly suspect the colouring is from suspended tannins and other particulates. Give your wine plenty of time to clear; you may be pleasantly surprised when the off-colours decide to fade away.

Levers101 · 06-24-2008, 04:57 AM

Not exactly sure what caused this. It cleared up after sitting overnight. Probably was the grape tannins I added that didn't have time to settle. The yeast is currently tearing through the sugars in the must at quite the clip. It certainly paid to add 3 5g packets of dried yeast (Lavlin Montpelier). I had fermentation take off as fast or faster than I get with beer starters at an OG = 1.085.