Degassing And Possible Infection?

[yeastluvr]

My first wine ever, an apple wine is about 3 1/2 months in and it has cleared very well. I have been extremely careful with sanitation up until now. I decided to add my campden and potassium sorbate today as I am going to backsweeten 1/2 when I bottle in the near future. While adding the mixutre to the carboy I overflowed it essentially making contact with the entire rim of the unsanitzed carboy. Also while adding, a ton of gas bubbles erupted.

Questions are if people think this will have a good chance at contaminating the wine and how long it will take to know if it is infected.......and if a person needs to degass before bottling?

 

[Yooper]

My first wine ever, an apple wine is about 3 1/2 months in and it has cleared very well. I have been extremely careful with sanitation up until now. I decided to add my campden and potassium sorbate today as I am going to backsweeten 1/2 when I bottle in the near future. While adding the mixutre to the carboy I overflowed it essentially making contact with the entire rim of the unsanitzed carboy. Also while adding, a ton of gas bubbles erupted.

Questions are if people think this will have a good chance at contaminating the wine and how long it will take to know if it is infected.......and if a person needs to degass before bottling?

No, it'll be fine. I guess you learned a lesson today about "nucleation points"!

What you do when you add campden and sorbate is dissolve it in some of the wine (or water), crushing and stirring well until totally dissolved. Then, pour that into a new carboy and rack the wine into it.

You shouldn't need to degas a wine that's been sitting for 3 months, especially if it's at room temperature. If it's been cold, or it seems really "gassy" to you, then you could degas. I prefer not to degas wines (except for kit wines) because if the wine is gassy at room temperature, it's probably just too young to bottle.

 

[yeastluvr]

Good advice on the racking. Yes its been at room temp, around 70 degrees the entire time....I did boil 1/2 cup water and disolve the campden and sorbate......I guess I need another carboy now to rack onto it in the future. Main concern is the possible infection but I know I'm probably thinking the worst. This waiting for the wine to be done has seemed like a prison sentence.......I want to drink it!!

 

[gregbathurst]

Sounds to me like it could be going through a secondary malolactic fermentation, which is normal. Adding the camden and sorbate should put a stop to that, and also protect against other bugs you might have introduced. Just leave it a while longer before bottling.
After a malo cider is more stable and less susceptible to infections.

 

[DoctorCAD]

I had a similar experience with my blackberry wine. Its been a total of 4 months since crushing the berries and I didn't expect any gas. I added a crushed campden tab and 5 oz. of wine conditioner (sorbate and invert sugar mix I got at a LBHS) to the carboy. The wine tastes fantastic, no carbonic acid feel at all, however, when stirring to mix after racking, I got lots of bubbles.

I shook the gallon jug 5 times and let the bubbles settle between shakings.

I used my vaccum pump today and onlt a few bubbles came out. I guess I just got the order of chemicals wrong.

I am bottling next weekend.