"Make sure that fermentation does not restart"
 

I've seen that several times in talk of sorbate/sulfiting. No restart means you're OK to bottle.

But what do you do if your ferment does restart? Bite the bullet, let it slow down and rack it again onto more sorbate/sulfite?

Basic search for this yields a bunch of stuff about stuck beer fermentations :(

Thanks in advance.

If it does restart, wait until it's done. Then rack off of the sediment and try again. That's about all you can do.

If your fermentation restarts it means your havent reached a dry ferment yet. somewhere along the line your yeast got stuck. Never bottle or sorbate until you are sure that the yeast have ran out of food to eat.

I have seen sorbate referred to on this forum as "yeast birth control" and what do we know about birth control?? Its not effective when there is already a pregnancy and all birth control packages say 99.5% effective if used correctly. Sorbate is no different, It will not work if the yeast are still active, it is never 100% that it will work and if you don't have things just right that % of effectiveness goes down.

That is just one of the many reasons I am anti chemicals. IMHO there is no substitution for pasteurization. IT IS 100% effective, and as long as you use a thermometer it is hard to do incorrectly. Not only will it kill the yeast but it kills anything else in the bottle and makes the shelf life on a lower ABV wine or cider indefinite. I have a skeeterpee that just cleared and will soon be back-sweetened and bottled and I will be pasteurizing it.

What temp is pasturisation temp of wine? I should rob just google that.. But share your method. Cheers

Here's one method: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/easy-stove-top-pasteurizing-pics-193295

I just pasteurized a batch of mead over the weekend by putting the (glass) carboy in my stockpot on top of a small wire rack (to make sure the bottom of the carboy was off the bottom of the pot) and filling it with water. I heated the water on the stove, which in turn heated the mead. I used a thermometer with a probe to get the temp up to 150º, where it sat for a few minutes before I took it off the heat.

If I am bottle pasteurizing I use my own method which is a variation on Papprs method. Here is a link to my modified way of bottle pasteurizing.

If I am not pasteurizing in pressure rated bottles with caps I use my own method which I call "bulk pasteurization" You can not pasteurize in wine bottles or you will pop the corks. To bulk pasteurize you put the wine or cider in a stock pot, heat it to 140º F (no hotter) From there you have two choices:

1. cover with a lid and let cool, than rack into wine bottles than cork. If you bottle and cork while hot, as it cools the corks will be sucked in to the bottles so it must cool first.

2. rack the hot wine in to bottles and cover loosely with plastic wrap, than once cool cork. (again the wine must be cool before corking) The advantage of doing this is the wine will help sanitize the racking tube and wine bottles. The disadvantage is you are working with hot liquid and run the risk of burning your self as well as the fact that the bottles will ned to be preheated.

Here are some basic pasteurizing temperature guidelines

Pasteurizing temperatures
at 53C = 128F minimum time to kill population 56 min
at 60C = 140F minimum time to kill population 5.6 min
at 67c = 152F minimum time to kill population .56 min



It occurred to me as I was replying to this thread that you could bottle pasteurize in wine bottles as long as they were open, then like above can be corked when they cool. The trick would be keeping contaminants out as the bottles were being pasteurized

If your stockpot is deep enough to contain the wine bottles you could just put the lid on it to keep contaminants out. Or you could just not worry about it.