Letting berries sit for three days?

I have been told by a new professional winemaker that when making berry wines, cover the fruit with water, add sulphite and pectic enzyme and let sit for three days so that the pectic enzyme can work. I've been making berry wines for a lot of years and have never heard of this. Comments?
Doug Brown

DougBrown said:

I have been told by a new professional winemaker that when making berry wines, cover the fruit with water, add sulphite and pectic enzyme and let sit for three days so that the pectic enzyme can work. I've been making berry wines for a lot of years and have never heard of this. Comments?
Doug Brown

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Three days? I've never waited three days. Actually, my understanding is that pectic enzyme doesn't work as well in the presence of sulfites, so the sulfites are added first, and then the pectic enzyme is added at least 12 hours later. Since yeast and pectic enzyme don't go well together either, the yeast is added 12 hours after that.

I think if he's adding the sulfites and pectic enzyme at the same time, that's probably why he has to wait three days for it to "work".

Also, one of the things I typically do is freeze the fruit first. This breaks down the cell walls well, and does some of the "work" that pectic enzyme does. If I was starting with fresh fruit (not frozen), I could see waiting longer for the fruit to break up.

I typically add the sulfites and pectic enzyme and wait 1 day, and condition temperature during this time.

I could be wrong, but I don't think it matters if you add the sulfites earlier than the pectic enzyme, because the sulfites don't really change over time.

X2 on freezing the fruit first.

Yes, I do freeze my berries first. Thanks for the info.