Newbie Winemaker doing Newbie things

[darksideofjae]

Well sorta newbie things. So I was bored a month or so ago (February 10th) and decided to fill my Mr. Beer LBK's with Juice, throw some yeast in them and see what happens.

So I went to my local grocery store (Giant) and picked up the following non preservative Juice:
Ocean Spray Cranberry Mango 120 fl. oz. (CM)
Welch's Black Cherry Concord Grape 128 fl. oz. (CG)
Farmers Pick Mixed Berry 138 fl. oz.(MB)
&
Ocean Spray CitrusMango Pineapple 120 fl. oz.(CMP)

Each one were going to get their own different type of yeast.
They are as follows:
(CM) EC-1118
(CG) 71B-1122
(MB) D47
(CMP) K1-V1116

I boiled 3/4 cup of Sugar for each one and threw it in the Mr. Beer LBK's with the juice. Each juice had a similar gravity reading:
CM - 1.060
CG - 1.062
MB - 1.060
CMP - 1.054

They then sat in my living room (basement was too cold) for 2 weeks and once i reached 10 days I began taking gravity readings to make sure they were consistent and fermentation had stopped. After confirming it had stopped i proceeded to fill 1 Gallon Glass jugs and throw in some Potassium stuff (name eludes me) along with Airlocks and placed them back in my living room. That is where they've been sitting ever since.

Plan is the first week of May cold crashing the whole shabang in my fridge for 48 hours followed by carbing them with sugar individually in bottles (wife likes the fizzies). Afterwards i'll leave them to sit in the bottles this time in my basement in beverage coolers (just in case i end up creating bottle bombs) and then the week before memorial day weekend, i'll take some and place them in the fridge for another crashing.

I really don't know how this will turn out but at worse i've wasted $30 in juice. Base case scenario i have something to share with whoever is BBQing on Memorial Day.

 

[BHebert]

The potassium stuff will kill the yeast. If you add sugar at bottling, it won't ferment to carbonate, you will just have sweeter wine.

 

[Yooper]

The potassium stuff will kill the yeast. If you add sugar at bottling, it won't ferment to carbonate, you will just have sweeter wine.

No, 'potassium stuff' doesn't necessarily kill yeast.

Potassium metabisulfite is primarily used as an antioxidant for the wine, or to kill bacteria at the beginning of fermentation, but wine yeast (and ale yeast) are very tolerant of sulfites, and that's why many winemakers keep the sulfite level at 50 ppm or even higher.

I use k-meta at every other racking and at bottling to prevent oxidation and as a preservative in the bottle.

Potassium sorbate doesn't kill yeast either, but it does inhibit yeast reproduction so it's probable that it will not carbonate in the bottle.

The thing is, to know which it is would only be a guess until the label is checked to see which it is.

 

[darksideofjae]

I never thought about the fact that the Wine may not carbonate in the bottles due to the extra stuff I added. I 100% did not plan this out, i had the day off of work and I hadn't brewed anything in almost 6 months and after reading about some slurm on here I wanted to experiment with stuff in the small LBK's.

 

[darksideofjae]

Just got home and it's potassium metabisulfite

 

[DoctorCAD]

You are good to go with your plan, sometimes it pays to be lucky.

 

[marco5150]

thank you for the info on the sulfides,, always wondered why you could add yeast to something you killed with the sulfides and not kill the yeast !!