Campden question

[brewman551]

This is my first time to brew anything. I have a white film with splotches on top of my apple cider in primary. It is ready to be racked into secondary. If I drop 5 campden tabs when I rack can I still prime and carb in bottles in a month or so, or will the Campden have prevented that?

By the way, I used fresh apples that I pressed myself. I used 5 campden tabs a day before pitching red star wine yeast. The primary has been in a closet at about 75 degrees for a week.

Thanks in advance!

 

[wilserbrewer]

I believe the campden will kill any yeast and other critters that are alive in your cider...if you want to nuke it with campden at this point, I would think you need to add some yeast at bottling. Dry yeast works well for bottling AFAIK.

Could the white splotches you describe be yeast? How long has this been fermenting? If it has been a month or more, it is likely some sort of infection or bug, if only a week or two it is likely yeast remaining from the fermentation.

 

[Yooper]

Wine and brewer's yeast are tolerant of sulfites- that's why winemakers use them. Even at 75ppm or more, wine yeast is pretty unaffected by campden.

I don't know if it will kill your infection or not, though. It might.

 

[brewman551]

Wilserbrewer - it could be yeast, I guess. Like I said, I'm really new at this. I can tell you that this is the sixth day of fermenting, and it doesn't have a strong odor or anything. Tastes a good bit like Woodchuck. On about day three it had a sulfurous odor, but not too strong, and it went away after a day.

If it is yeast, when should I rack to secondary, and should I still use Campden at that time? I also forgot to mention that I added about a cup and a half of brown sugar before I pitched.

Thanks!

 

[wilserbrewer]

I can tell you that this is the sixth day of fermenting, and it doesn't have a strong odor or anything.
Thanks!

Oh ok...this is only the sixth day...I now see you are rather excited and a bit anxious...yes it is probably only rafts of yeast that have not settled yet and you have nothing to worry about.

As far as adding campden, or back sweetening, or when to stop the fermentation...I will defer to the much more experienced wine makers on the board. I will only add to relax and stop mucking around so early in the process, that my friend may lead to a real infection...as they say RDWHAHB and cheers!