K-Meta at Bottling Questions

[thisissami]

Hi Everybody,

I understand that adding Potassium Metabisulfite at bottling will help with anti-oxidation and preserving your wine longer. I have some questions related to this:


1) It seems counter-intuitive to add K-Meta to my carboy then bottle immediately. Wouldn't that cause a build-up of pressure inside my bottles? It seems smarter to me that I would do that earlier in the day that I would want to bottle, let some of the gas dissipate, then bottle after things are starting to settle a bit.

But I am a relative n00b and maybe what makes sense to me is not the right approach... how long do you wait between adding K-Meta and bottling?


2) If I wanted to add a bit of sugar at bottling to carbonate my creation (I have a ~10% blackberry drink that I made ready to be bottled, and I want some of said bottles to carbonate): would adding K-Meta before bottling affect the yeast enough to the point that they wouldn't be able to process that added sugar? If not, is there any chance that the combined pressure (of the gases produced by K-Meta + carbonation from the yeast+sugar) could be too much for my bottles?


I would highly appreciate any insight into this! Thanks so much for taking the time to read this post.

 

[jgmillr1]

1) It seems counter-intuitive to add K-Meta to my carboy then bottle immediately

You will need a certain amount of free sulfites available at bottling to counter the oxygen exposure and help preserve the wine. So, whether you dose with sulfites right before bottling or weeks before, you need the right amount depending on the pH of your wine.

2) If I wanted to add a bit of sugar at bottling to carbonate my creation

You presumably will plan on using heavy glass champagne bottles that can handle the pressure and you have a mushroom corker or crown capping tool. The yeast can handle sulfites to a large degree. Dose carefully and keep the glass bottles from exploding in your face. Sorbate is the ingredient to use along with sulfites to help prevent bottle refermentation.