re-ferment after using Campden Tabs? Help me Please

Alright, first I'm typically a beer guy and have recently gotten into making wine for my wife. Please excuse my ignorance.

I just brewed a batch of cherry beer that I thought was at the correct final gravity I wanted so I crushed 6 Campden tabs up and dropped them into my 5 gallon keg. I use these tabs to kill the yeast. After about a week of force carbonating, I tried the beer and decided it is much too thick!

My question is, What is Sodium metabisulphite? Is it a preservative that will not allow for yeast to ferment? If not, will it eventually just disapear from my finished product so I could add aditional yeast and start fermenting again?

The reason I ask is because I would like, if possible, to put the beer back into a carboy, add more yeast, and begin the fermentation process again until I reach a lower specific gravity. Does anyone know if this is possible or is my 5 gallon batch a total loss?

Thanks for any advice you can lend, like I stated earlier I'm really pretty new at this and would like to try to recover this batch.

The Sodium metabisulphite is a sanitizing agent. Potassium sorbate is what you use to kill any remaining yeast. Camden tablets ARE Sodium metabisulphite.

As far as saving your batch I'll leave that question to the experts here.

yes, I know that Campden tabs are the sodium metabisulfate. In typical wine recipes it says to crush and drop in one tablet into your must along with your yeast. I have also read that it releases sulfer into your final product which kills your yeast (use 1 tab per gallon) and will shorly disapate from your final product. Is this correct? If so, I should be able to add more yeast and begin fermentation agian, right?

Yes, when Sodium metabisulfite mixes with the water it creates SO2 which kills the yeast but it dissipates in a day or two. Repitch you should be fine.

Yeastie - Thanks that is GREAT news! The beer I'm trying to save is a "new glarus belgium red clone" it's a cherry beer that I'm pretty financially indebted too at this point. It's something that I've been trying to get just right, and used a bit of the actual stuff to give me the gravity that I thought I wanted to stop my clone at. Eitherway, THANK YOU! I have my carboy full of a hard lemonade that I started today, so I will probably let that finish in a week or two and then re-pitch the beer in question. I'll keep the post updated as I progress.

Thanks again Yeastie-
Sincerly
Matt (dillon1320)

To get rid of SMS hydrogen peroxide is the preferred additive, but only a few drops or it will oxidise your beer. The winery where I work, the winemaker got the amount of sulphite wrong by a factor of 10! Had to get rid of it to satisfy food laws so added a bit of H2O2 at a time, it is the natural enemy of wine but can be used in very small quantities only for this purpose.
If you added 6 tablets it will take months to dissipate and you may need to get rid of it to restart the yeast.

Yeastie said:

Yes, when Sodium metabisulfite mixes with the water it creates SO2 which kills the yeast but it dissipates in a day or two. Repitch you should be fine.

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I'm a newbie so forgive my ignorance, but why do they recommend you use Sorbate then to kill the yeast if the Camden tablets do the same thing?