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Chemical stabilization protocol?

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Beer Of Thrones

NewBee
Registered Member
Mar 27, 2018
12
0
1
Rookie question:
First of all, say that I have made several batches of mead and read the books of Piazt and Schram. Apart from that, I have dug into many Facebook groups and this forum about the chemical stabilization of mead with potassium sorbate and metabisulfite.
Does anyone have a clear and proven protocol of the amounts to be used (by weight, not volume) of sorbate and metabisulfite depending on the mead ?. I have seen that there are sulphite calculators for wine that can be applied, but I don't know how the equivalent quantity of sorbate would be applied.
Currently, based on my reading (Dadux, this forum), I am using 0.27 g / l of potassium sorbate and 0.35 g / l of metabisulfite; I do not know if they are the correct doses but I have not had refermentation and I do not notice off flavors.
Thank you very much in advance and Greetings from Spain.
 
dingurth

dingurth

Worker Bee
Registered Member
May 23, 2012
489
3
18
Brooklyn , NY
Beer Of Thrones said:
Rookie question:
First of all, say that I have made several batches of mead and read the books of Piazt and Schram. Apart from that, I have dug into many Facebook groups and this forum about the chemical stabilization of mead with potassium sorbate and metabisulfite.
Does anyone have a clear and proven protocol of the amounts to be used (by weight, not volume) of sorbate and metabisulfite depending on the mead ?. I have seen that there are sulphite calculators for wine that can be applied, but I don't know how the equivalent quantity of sorbate would be applied.
Currently, based on my reading (Dadux, this forum), I am using 0.27 g / l of potassium sorbate and 0.35 g / l of metabisulfite; I do not know if they are the correct doses but I have not had refermentation and I do not notice off flavors.
Thank you very much in advance and Greetings from Spain.
Click to expand...

Definitely give that link of squatchy's a read, covers pretty much everything you need to know.
For sulfites, basically g/L are useless since the amount needed depends on ph. If you can't measure your ph, my first response would be "try", my second would be "follow the directions on the bottle". The bottle will say 1/4 tsp for a 5 gallon batch. Which will roughly equate to 50ppm give or take. Don't worry about over sulfiting tooooo much, as the excess will bind to things eventually. Just don't go really overboard into the 100s of ppms.

I have heard sorbates also have an effective curve which is dictated by abv. As far as I know though, this isn't something a lot of people worry about and again you can follow the directions on the bottle.
 
B

Beer Of Thrones

NewBee
Registered Member
Mar 27, 2018
12
0
1
Thank you very much Dingurth and Squatchy, and excuse me if my english aren't very good.
I've been reading and searching a lot this days and I've reach some conclussions; let me know if I´m wrong.
First of all, let´s say that I can measure my pH but not my free SO2. And my strategy is using sorbate and metabisulfite only prior to bottling time.
- For sulphite calculation: use an online calculator for wines like this http://www.wine.jerrybilous.ca/testcalculators/sulfitecalc.asp#sulfite additions. For sweet/dessert meads, is it right to aim at 80-100ppm to avoid refermentation? Another threeshold?. Also I´ve found this nice ppt : http://www.foodsci.purdue.edu/resea...ng Calculations Spring Workshop 4_29_2011.pdf that suggest to add 30ppm extra to cover losses of SO2 during bottling.
- For sorbate calculatión: again, in http://www.foodsci.purdue.edu/resea...ng Calculations Spring Workshop 4_29_2011.pdf suggest to use 200 mg/l of sorbate, with 1.35 correction factor if using potassium sorbate.

Thanks for all the information. In Spain we don´t have a lot of information over modern approach of mead making and this forum has been my lifeboat to continue learning.
 
S

Squatchy

Lifetime GotMead Patron
Lifetime GotMead Patron
Nov 3, 2014
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Denver
Did you look at the link I provided? It will tell you how to approach things and do the best you can without an analyzer. 80-100 points are pretty high. Especially if you have already added SO2 prior to that. You don't want to go too high or people will taste it. Some can taste as little as 30PPM. Although rare.
 
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