Campden Tabs

Hi all,

I just have a quick question on campden tabs. I look through the forum and could not find a specific answer to this.

I put five tabs in my 5 gallon batch and after a week and a half it tastes a little off - not sure if this is the tabs or it just needs to age.

Does anyone have any experience with the tabs giving an off taste?

Thanks

m

mikee said:

Hi all,

I just have a quick question on campden tabs. I look through the forum and could not find a specific answer to this.

I put five tabs in my 5 gallon batch and after a week and a half it tastes a little off - not sure if this is the tabs or it just needs to age.

Does anyone have any experience with the tabs giving an off taste?

Thanks

m

Click to expand...

Yes, they will have a flavor impact until they dissipate some. I assume this is wine? Because I wouldn't imagine you'd put campden in beer. I use sulfites (campden) as an antioxidant and preservative in wine, and add a fresh "dose" at bottling. It dissipates over a few months.

If using in beer that's way too much.

I use campden tabs when brewing beer to remove chloramine, but I only use one for all of the strike/sparge water total. Pretty sure one tablet will treat up to 20 gallons for chloramine.

great...... lhbs said to use five in beer. that sucks

how long do I have to wait? couple months?

mikee said:

great...... lhbs said to use five in beer. that sucks

how long do I have to wait? couple months?

Click to expand...

If you;re smart, you'll never go back to that LHBS.

Yeah, bad advice. I use half a tablet in my mash water and half a tablet in my sparge water. Since I'm doing a five gallon batch, even that is overkill.

I've only used it once it and was a 1/4 table for 6 gallons. I tasted nothing off.

how long will it take for the flavor to dissipate?

Maybe weeks, maybe months, maybe never....

Denny said:

Maybe weeks, maybe months, maybe never....

Click to expand...

Right! You should NEVER put campden tablets in finished beer! Well, maybe not never if you get a nasty infection and want to kill it if possible, but certainly never on a routine basis!

I use them for wine, as like I said it's an antioxidant and preservative. But I can't see any use at all for them in beer as a rule. I know some people use campden in their water to neutralize chloramines- but that is prebeer and only in the water.

roger that. I just remembered I did it on another batch too, so 10 gallons dead. 40 bucks poorer......

sigh

What are you tasting in the beer?

mikee said:

I put five tabs in my 5 gallon batch

Click to expand...

At what point? During fermentation? In any case 5 tabs is way too much. I cut one tab in half for the strike water of a ten gallon batch. Seems like the lhbs has no idea what they are talking about, especially if they told you to add them to the wort or finished beer.

Quarter tab mash, quarter tab sparge for 5 gal batch.

mikee said:

I put five tabs in my 5 gallon batch and after a week and a half it tastes a little off - not sure if this is the tabs or it just needs to age.

Click to expand...

DrinkNoH2O said:

Pretty sure one tablet will treat up to 20 gallons for chloramine.

Click to expand...

the quantity of campden you should use depends on its function.

if, like DrinkNoH2O you want remove chloramine in your pre-boil water, then a quarter tablet per 5 gallons is the recommended dose.

if you're looking to kill bacteria and yeast b/c of infection in your fermented beer, then the dosage is 1 tab per gallon.

apparently wine makers add 1 tab/gallon during racking to protect against oxidation. it's my belief that this isn't as big a concern for brewers since beer will release CO2 during racking so there will be a protective blanket of CO2.

The more I learn in this hobby, the more I realize that some (if not most) lhbs are better for ingredient and equipment purchases, but not necessarily for the free advice on how to use those items.

I had the owner of mine give me a hard time (good natured hard time) over using a hose braid for a batch sparge rig. I shrugged it off, but its not needed from a place where I spend money weekly.

But yeah, 1 tab crushed up will treat 20 gallons of water pre boil.

I use 1/4 tsp of K-meta (1 tsp is the same as 10 Campden tabs) in my hot liquor. It's definitely overkill, but I can't taste it in the beer and I can't measure less than that.

However... to clear up some misconceptions.

Potassium Metabisulfite doesn't kill much yeast or bacteria (in these quantities) - it inhibits their activity, supposedly only temporarily (i.e. "stunning" the bugs). Wine makers use it before fermentation because there's no boil to kill off natural yeasts and bacteria... this lets the winemaker's yeast take off and out compete the natural stuff.

K-meta does provide anti-oxidation qualities in finished wine... but as mentioned above, it's not strictly necessary (especially in glass).

Potassium Sorbate is used to preserve wine. It completely inhibits the ability for yeast to reproduce and allows the wine to be sweetened without further fermentation (aside from what remaining yeast can do before they die). Clearly this would be bad to use in Beer unless force carbonating.

malweth said:

Potassium Metabisulfite doesn't kill much yeast or bacteria (in these quantities) - it inhibits their activity, supposedly only temporarily (i.e. "stunning" the bugs). Wine makers use it before fermentation because there's no boil to kill off natural yeasts and bacteria... this lets the winemaker's yeast take off and out compete the natural stuff.

Click to expand...

i've been looking into potassium metabisulfite (aka campden tabs) quite a bit recently, and i've read both that it kills and that it only stuns. really not sure who to believe anymore. only thing i know for sure is that it put an end to the activity in my infected stout. time will tell how effective this was, but for now the carboy is still again.

malweth said:

Potassium Sorbate is used to preserve wine. It completely inhibits the ability for yeast to reproduce and allows the wine to be sweetened without further fermentation (aside from what remaining yeast can do before they die). Clearly this would be bad to use in Beer unless force carbonating.

Click to expand...

does potassium sorbate dissipate? if so, a brewer could add some yeast at bottling.

I'm by no means an expert, but I tried my hand at cider and did some poking around over on the cider board.

They seemed to recommend using only half the recommended dosage for 5gallons of cider to knock down the natural year before my S-04 took charge, went with 2.5 tables camden 24hrs before pitching.

Doesn't seem to have imparted much or any off flavors

sweetcell said:

i've been looking into potassium metabisulfite (aka campden tabs) quite a bit recently, and i've read both that it kills and that it only stuns. really not sure who to believe anymore. only thing i know for sure is that it put an end to the activity in my infected stout. time will tell how effective this was, but for now the carboy is still again.


does potassium sorbate dissipate? if so, a brewer could add some yeast at bottling.

Click to expand...

I've heard both too and I think a lot depends on how much k-meta is used and how much infection is present (possibly also what the infection has to eat). The bug's tolerance may also be a factor. I used to use it as a sanitizer before I found StarSan.

K-Sorbate does not dissipate. Certainly not in the time-frame you're looking at. It's often added to (commercial) juices as a preservative.

As a disclaimer, I'm not a chemist - but I've tried to find out as much as possible about these chemicals when transitioning from wine making to brewing. (I am an engineer and have done research in the past). Unfortunately, the things we care about isn't readily available information and there's a lot of rumor on how these things work. Unfortunately a lot of research is out there, but the articles are not readily available (it's not my field, so I don't have subscriptions).