Help me Make my yeast stop fermenting

Closetairlock said:

Hey guys, my wine I have going, I just filtered it, and the airlocks were stopped dead before that. But... Some of my stuff, when I open up the mason jar it is clearing up in, it starts to fizzle, and bits of yeast float up to the surface from the bottem and redissolve in the wine, is there any way to kill ALL the yest so that it can clear up and age? Thank you for help!!!

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Matti said:

First you need to check your SG, if it's somewhere between 0.994-0.997 then your alcoholic femrementation is done. The "fizzle" could be caused by many things. It could be the CO2 in the wine itself, it could be malolactic fermentation.

Killing the yeast and stopping the ferementation is a process called Wine Stabilization. You use a chemical called Potassium sorbate, you use about 1 teaspoon per gallon.

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Closetairlock said:

Hey guys, my wine I have going, I just filtered it, and the airlocks were stopped dead before that. But... Some of my stuff, when I open up the mason jar it is clearing up in, it starts to fizzle, and bits of yeast float up to the surface from the bottem and redissolve in the wine, is there any way to kill ALL the yest so that it can clear up and age? Thank you for help!!!

Click to expand...

Yooper said:

Well, you don't kill the yeast, or stop the fermentation with sorbate. Sorbate prevents yeast reproduction but it doesn't kill yeast nor does it stop fermentation. And a teaspoon per gallon is about twice as much as you'd normally use.

Potassium sorbate is used in a finished, clear wine, when it's time to sweeten the wine prior to bottling. It does nothing in an active batch, nor does it do anything when there is lots of yeast in suspension.

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Matti said:

Thanks for the info. One question though, would using potassium metabisulfite with the sorbate acheive what we're after (stopping the ferementation)?

I ask because I've always used a mixture of sorbate and metabisulfite to stop my ferementation at some stages, either to get sweet wine or to stabilize, and I've never had any problems. Of course I might be doing something and just getting lucky.

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