On sulfites--salvageable?

[Reverie]

I made a pretty big mistake of using potassium metabisulphite in my bottled mead without fully understanding the beast. I have seen several recommendations to sulfite the finished wine because it prevents oxygen from binding and tainting the taste, so the way I went about doing this was adding just pinch-sized portions of the stuff (yes, a wonderful measuring system) into half of my bottles before corking, thinking that if anything I would undershot the dose. I was obviously wrong. As you can guess my bottles with sulfite now taste foul, bordering on a gag reflex.

I am a fool, but I at least have it nailed in my head not to dump anything without consulting the oracles. It's been a week now. Is there any way this can be saved or aged out or maybe even aired out if is a matter of gases?

 

[CandleWineProject]

I am a fool, but I at least have it nailed in my head not to dump anything without consulting the oracles. It's been a week now. Is there any way this can be saved or aged out or maybe even aired out if is a matter of gases?

I think so... but I don't have any of my books to consult at the moment. A more experienced person could probably tell you.

 

[MedsenFey]

It may be possible to salvage it. The first thing that would be helpful to know is how much free SO2 is in there. If you can open a bottle and take a measurement using a test kit or titret, we may be able to help you plan out the steps to reverse the overdose. It is likely that your batch may be off the scale when measuring and you may have to dilute it in half, or down to 25% in order to get a measurement. Once you get a reading, let us know.

I'm sure someone will suggest pouring it back in a carboy and aerating it, but for a massive overdose, that is unlikely to solve the problem. You are likely to need a dose of peroxide to have a chance of fixing it. This is not something that you want to do flying by the seat of your pants, so taking the measurements is important.

Medsen