kwiley
Active Member
- Joined
- Oct 13, 2020
- Messages
- 32
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This must be an incredibly straightforward question, but it seems problematic to leave campden-treated cider, either pre-primary-ferment, or racked-to-secondary, sitting open-topped for 24 hours to degas the sulfur dioxide.
First, there is the concern that you are exposing everything to air bacteria/mold/etc. Are you really supposed to just leave it fully exposed for a day while the campden tablets do their work? Does that not simply reinfect the wine at the same time you are decontaminating it?
Second, perhaps more relevant to post-primary-racking, if you add campden tablets as you go to the secondary and leave it exposed to air to offgas the SO2, then aren't you massively exposing the wine to oxygenation? How do you satisfy both the criteria of getting the secondary into a new carboy with minimal headspace as fast as possible and also leave it exposed to air for 24 hours to shed the SO2? I don't get it.
I know this comes up a lot, but I searched a bit, and while I found numerous discussions about this topic, I still don't feel I ever landed on a resolute answer. I'm still unclear about this.
Thanks.
First, there is the concern that you are exposing everything to air bacteria/mold/etc. Are you really supposed to just leave it fully exposed for a day while the campden tablets do their work? Does that not simply reinfect the wine at the same time you are decontaminating it?
Second, perhaps more relevant to post-primary-racking, if you add campden tablets as you go to the secondary and leave it exposed to air to offgas the SO2, then aren't you massively exposing the wine to oxygenation? How do you satisfy both the criteria of getting the secondary into a new carboy with minimal headspace as fast as possible and also leave it exposed to air for 24 hours to shed the SO2? I don't get it.
I know this comes up a lot, but I searched a bit, and while I found numerous discussions about this topic, I still don't feel I ever landed on a resolute answer. I'm still unclear about this.
Thanks.