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Accidentally added potassium carbonate to cider instead of potassium sorbate for stabilizing

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zosimus

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Apr 17, 2023
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So wasn't thinking or reading ingredients very well... Pretty new to brewing and pulled out the wrong potassium and added potassium carbonate to my cider instead of sorbate along with campden.

Will this ruin it? I also read instructions for p-carbonate and it says wine must be refrigerated several weeks after adding. It has been in the fridge thankfully, but has anyone had experience with this? Do I need to wait longer before bottling? It has been about 2ish weeks since I did that.
 
If you had planned to add sorbate + campden to stop fermentation, then your actual addition of carbonate + campden will not have stopped it. Hence the dry taste, as the yeast kept going.

It would be a good idea to make sure fermentation is complete before bottling, i.e., gravity readings.
 
If you had planned to add sorbate + campden to stop fermentation, then your actual addition of carbonate + campden will not have stopped it. Hence the dry taste, as the yeast kept going.

It would be a good idea to make sure fermentation is complete before bottling, i.e., gravity readings.
Well I'm not surprised it's dry and fermentation has pretty much halted anyway as it it has been many weeks and it's being stored cold.
Campden would have done something to stop fermentation, right? I don't want to add campden again because from what I've read, it may affect taste. I was just planning on adding the p-sorbate to finish the stabilization.
 
By itself, the campden won't stop fermentation, but it might stunt it a little. It's the sorbate that stops it.

Are you planning to add sugar to sweeten it? If so, then you'll need to stabilize with sorbate to prevent refermentation. If you don't plan to add sugar to the cider, and you plan to keep it as is, then no stabilizer is needed.
 
By itself, the campden won't stop fermentation, but it might stunt it a little. It's the sorbate that stops it.

Are you planning to add sugar to sweeten it? If so, then you'll need to stabilize with sorbate to prevent refermentation. If you don't plan to add sugar to the cider, and you plan to keep it as is, then no stabilizer is needed.
I will backsweeten and yeah I added p-sorbate to it last night to complete stabilization.
I just wasn't sure if I needed to add campden again since I did that like a week ago.

I plan on kegging half of it and bottling the other half after back sweetening
 
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