Too Much Metabisulfite

I have a neighbor who is making cider. He put too much metabisufite in his apple juice and wants to know how to remove some of it (heat, aerate, etc). He contacted me because I am a home brewer, but I am not familiar with using metabisulfite. Anyone have an experience with this problem and a solution??

Dr Malt

How much juice does he have and how much metabisulfite did he use?

No practical way. Just wait longer before adding the yeast. If he doubled the dose, I'd wait twice as long.

Couldn't he double the juice?

Waiting longer is not going to help him. Doubling the juice might, depending on how much juice he has and how much k-meta he added.

K-meta creates free S02 which acts as an anti-microbial or preservative, depending on when it is added. 1/4tsp in 5 gallons provides 45ppm of S02. With fresh juice, some of the S02 gets bound up with the juice, the rest is available as free S02.

Research by wine makers has determined that as a rule of thumb 20ppm gets bound up with the juice, so you get 25ppm of free S02 from the first pitching of k-meta (the actual amount is dependant on pH), which is where the standard "1/4tsp in 5 gallons" dose comes from. However this is for grape must, which has a totally different chemistry than fresh apple juice. For fresh apple juice, 1/8 tsp in 5 gallons is more than enough to kill any wild yeast.

So if your friend added too much k-meta, he now has way too much free S02 in his must and it will kill just about anything. Time will not help him (unless he wants to wait for months), he needs something else for it to bind with, such as more fresh juice.

He might be able to aerate it out. Something like a drywall mixer or big spoon on the end of an electric drill would probably work, but would take some time.

Best bet is to cut it with more juice so that the k-meta is in the right proportion. Sweet juice (high pH) will soak up more of the k-meta.

You have to know how much he put in, but a few drops of hydrogen peroxide will get rid of some sulphite. Stirring will also help, or diluting. Its easy to put way too mush camden in so it becomes unhealthy.

CvilleKevin said:

He might be able to aerate it out. Something like a drywall mixer or big spoon on the end of an electric drill would probably work, but would take some time.

Best bet is to cut it with more juice so that the k-meta is in the right proportion. Sweet juice (high pH) will soak up more of the k-meta.

Click to expand...

I'd try both areation & cutting with more juice, wait 24 hrs & pitch a yeast starter. I'd also make sure to add yeast nutrient/energizer. Regards, GF.

Thanks for the excellent advice. I don't know how much meta he put in, I will find out this weekend when I see him. It was enough to prevent his added yeast from growing. I will suggest the aeration and dilution approach. I can't really help him much as I am allergic to the sulfite/SO2.

Dr Malt

I, too, have put too much Pot Met in my must... I received an incorrect recipe from a winemaker... Must have been a typo... Anyway, I put in 5 Tbsp pot met in 6 gallons pomegranate must when I should have used 1/4 tsp... I believe I have made 6 gallons of drain cleaner... The winemaker who gave me the bad info/typo says it might be salvagable... What do you think? If it is salvageable, how long should I wait to add yeast? I have attempted to make a yeast starter from 1/2 gal of the stuff... Only did this an hour ago... Should I hang it up and dump the mess?

Hydrogen peroxide (H2o2) is the way to get rid of metabisulphite. Since you have added so much, diluting won't help. Add peroxide one drop at a time, stirring well between additions. I know a professional winemaker who had to do this, it is the only way.
Forget the starter it will have killed the yeast.

There is a calculator here...

http://vinoenology.com/calculators/SO2-addition/

I plugged in 6gals, 1425ppm, 3%w/w (3% H2o2 no dilution).

It says you'll need to add 528ml of H202.

I'm not exactly sure what %w/w means.
I'm using 1Tbs = 300ppm SO2

studiodon said:

I, too, have put too much Pot Met in my must... I received an incorrect recipe from a winemaker... Must have been a typo... Anyway, I put in 5 Tbsp pot met in 6 gallons pomegranate must when I should have used 1/4 tsp... I believe I have made 6 gallons of drain cleaner... The winemaker who gave me the bad info/typo says it might be salvagable... What do you think? If it is salvageable, how long should I wait to add yeast? I have attempted to make a yeast starter from 1/2 gal of the stuff... Only did this an hour ago... Should I hang it up and dump the mess?

Click to expand...

Wow- that's a lot. I'd try pouring the must back and forth between fermenters, to aerate and disipate the SO2.

Perhaps not a drop at a time then! It would take a long time for 528ml. sorry yooper but you can't dissipate that much so2.

gregbathurst said:

Perhaps not a drop at a time then! It would take a long time for 528ml. sorry yooper but you can't dissipate that much so2.

Click to expand...

No, I guess not.

Oops. I forgot, 1 Tbs = 3 tsp. So, 3 times what I said earlier.

Wow!

studiodon said:

...I put in 5 Tbsp pot met in 6 gallons pomegranate must when I should have used 1/4 tsp...

Click to expand...

I can see recovering from 2x too much, but what you did was 60x too much so I would dump it myself.

I'm not sure that certain fungicides contain that much SO2!

Tell ya what, tell him to just start a LOT of other batches and add an appropriate amount of this stuff to each batch to get the new batches to the proper K-Meta levels.

Otherwise... If you have/he has a garden, especially if there've been any issues with blight or other fungal disease, pour this stuff on the soil. Can't hurt, and it beats sending it down the drain. Even without fungus problems, this stuff is GOOD for the dirt, be it lawns or flower beds or gardens or trees or ---

Thanks for all the info... Looks like i need almost a quart of Hydrogen Peroxcide... Don't think I'd ever want to drink the results... I guess I'll try pouring it in the garden and then not plant anything there for 10 or so years... LOL...

OK. I know this is a really old post. but for those who need it, it can save them a lot of money. I added 2 tsps of meta bi sulfate to my 5 gallons of fresh strawberry must. Turned all 5 gallons brown in less than 1 minute. After reading this post. I went to the calculator that was posted http://vinoenology.com/calculators/SO2-addition/ and put in my numbers:

5 gallons of must
330ppm of target SO2 to be removed
3% Hydrogen Peroxide (standard grocery store stuff)
gave me a reading of 102.02 ML of peroxide to add

converted 102.2 to OZ and slowly added 4.4oz of peroxide to the must stirring vigorously in between doses of peroxide. 20 mins later i have blood red must again.

Will pitch yeast tomorrow and hopes for the best. anything else i should do before pitching?

Thanks for the info, even if it is 2 years old. :-D

If you can, measure the free SO2 and confirm that you removed the correct amount. The 3% peroxide available in pharmacies breaks down quite rapidly after opening and may have thrown your calculations off if it wasn't a fresh bottle.

i do not have any way of testing. :-(
will it hurt to add more peroxide?
how long after i add peroxide should i wait till pitching yeast?

Yes it can hurt to add more peroxide, it can oxidise your cider very badly. your are better to be under than over the amount, if it doesn't smell strongly of meta I would leave it as it is and pitch your yeast. The yeast will also get rid of some of the so2.

If your yeast doesn't start in a few days you could add some more peroxide.

Good to know. Thanks a bunch. I'll post results for the future mess ups like me :-D

One thing to remember is that just as the peroxide may lose potency in storage, so does the metabisulfite. You probably didn't add as much metabisulfite as you thought, if you use the calculator you should be right.

I want to keep this thread alive, since I have also made this mistake
not sure of the amount of Sodium Meta I added, 2-3 teaspoons I think for 25Litre of Apple Juice.
My yeast keeps dying, so I have mixed and poured from vessel to vessel, but the same result. no fermentation.
It has been over two weeks, and I have another 15L of juice that is fermenting well, so that is my source yeast culture.
Having read the prospect of adding H2O2 I have 100ml 6% (comes with added phosphoric acid and phenactin (both I have googled and the phenactin will only be trace at this dilution). some basic calculations are 2-3 teaspoons is about 40 cambden tablets==50ppm x 40 == 2000ppm to remove.
the calculator says 400ml of 6% H2O2 - that seems like a lot, since the juice is over 2weeks old now, and has been thrashed about a bit.
so I'll add 100ml, mix well and pitch some culture from the brew that is fermenting well and see what happens
annoying, since I am an experienced home brewer, and I have used cambden tablets all my life, so using powder totally threw me.
the next time I'll use half a teaspoon for 25Litre of juice...
what does anyone think of the above reasoning?
Cheers

Your reasoning seems ok, in Australia we call that the "suck it and see" approach.
When using powder, one approach is to make a stock solution. Eg dissolve 100g of powder in 1L of water or 10g in 100 ml. To get 50ppm in 25L you would use 25ml of the solution (assuming 50% so2 in the powder). These larger quantities are much easier to measure than 2.5g of powder.

so I added 100ml of 6%, mixed it thoroughly and left it for a few days to react then added some yeasty cider from my other brew. am waiting on the results to see if it starts fermenting. it is pretty cold here at night, and i don't have a heating pad so could take a few days.. will report back here soon

so nothing happened after I added the 100ml of 6% H2O2, and the colour was the same light yellow/orange, so I added another 100ml of 6% H2O2, stirred well and left it overnight. the next day it was a murky brown colour which was the same colour it was when the juice was first pressed. pressed apple juice is a brown oxidised colour. I have now added some yeasty brew from the cider I am brewing in another container, and 48hrs later it is now fermenting!
I am chuffed to bits, since I was thinking I had lost 25L of cider.
The website told me to add 330ml of 6% for 2x teaspoons of metabisulphate (roughly calculated)
I added 200ml of 6%, and this appears to have done the trick.
The test was that the colour of the juice turned back to what it was when oxidised. The juice was very well preserved until that point due to excessive metabisulphate, so I was not concerned with stay bacteria and yeasts. When I added my yeast it stayed alive and started fermenting.
Na2S2O5 + H2O2 --> 2NaHSO4 + H2O, and NaHSO4 is Sodium bisulfate and is used as a food additive and is safe to eat.
So thank you for pointing me in the right direction to rectify my mistake. This is important informaiton.
Cheers
Pete

So you got it to ferment?

This method works, I have read a few successful reports from people who have tried it.

Hi guys, I'm a newbie to both the site and to the art of brewing. Myself and a mate decided we wanted to get into brewing and had been talking about it for ages. Then this autumn I had a bumper crop of apples on the trees in my garden so we decided to have a bash at making cider. We followed a recipe I found on line. All went well until we got to the part where it said 'Add *some sodium metabisulphite'. We didn't know how much *some was. As it didn't stress anything specifically we figured just do as the photo showed and sprinkle some in. Which we did. 48 hours later we pitched the cider with a specialist cider yeast and waited.... Nothing happened. We did this several times before realising something was most DEFINITELY up. I did research on line and eventually this thread. I followed what others in our position had done and got some hydrogen peroxide. I added 50ml of 9% of it to our approx 15 litres of juice. Waited 24 hours and pitched with Youngs dried active yeast and yeast nutrient. 3 tespons of each. 24 hours later I checked and saw some movement in the water in the air lock. It wasn't bubbling but it had pushed it down some, indiscating increased pressure. We waited and eventually it gurgled just the once. Then again about 2 hours later. The next day (today) it is going like a crazed gurgling thing. So we are hopeful that we have brought the cider back from the brink. I guess we'll know when the fermenting or whatever else is causing the gas production stops and we can have a taste. Many thanks for your helpful posts.

He peroxide will help to get fermentation going but keep in mind if too much is used it will oxidize you're wort/must producing off flavors , I just recently had to use peroxide on several batches of my Cider I used different amounts and I will report back on what works best after their bottled

I had to do this on my 2013 batch of rhubarb wine. Added 6x the amount of Kmeta I was supposed to. Kept adding rehydrated yeast and each time it would be DOA. Finally figured it out and added some hydrogen peroxide. Maybe 1/4 bottle if I remember right. It worked like a charm and the fermentation took off with some fresh yeast.

How it will taste, I have no idea. Its sitting in tertiary right now and will not get racked to the final vessel until the first of the year at least.

I added 4.5 tsps of K meta to 5 gallons of cider. The calculator says I should add about a cup of H2O2.

I'm figuring if 1/4 tsp = 45 ppm x 4.5 = 810 ppm, less the 45 I actually wanted = 765.

5 gal, Target SO2 to be removed=765 ppm, H2O2% = 3%. It gives me 0.06 gallons, which is .96 cups. I've been trying to aerate it already, so I'd not add a whole cup at all, probably start much smaller.

My question is: is it safe to add so much H2O2? Is it potable?

The peroxide I used in my cider allowed the ferment to finish, and created a clear cider. The other batches without excess meta or H2O2 also finished but stayed cloudy. weird. both taste fine. now bottled and awaiting bottle fermentation. 84x 750ml bottles. nice
In my experience I had to add two separate amounts of H2O2. It cannot hurt to add less than thought, and then add more. You will know it is working, and if it is not.

Alchymist,

Do you use regular store bought 3% H2O2, or do you buy food grade 35% and dilute it?

I don't think the 3% stuff is potable, something about the stabilizer added to store at room temperature IIRC.

If you do use the 35% stuff, be careful. At that concentration it will chemically burn your skin, so wear gloves, sleeves, goggles (especially), and have some water accessible nearby.

3% works fine

I made a batch of mead two days ago and added 1 1/2 tsp of sodium/sulfite and then realized my mistake. I splashed it into a bucket fermenter and wine/whipped it periodically throughout the day and left the lid off. the next day I put a cup or the must in a bowel and added a small amount of my yeast. it started fermenting so I added the rest of the yeast and let it build cell for a while. then I added that to a half gallon of must and let that go for a few hours. I finally added it to the rest of the batch and its fermenting beautifully.