exploded cork!

[Paul]

I came home today to find a cork had blown out on a bottle which was fortunately upright as I had just bottled last Saturday and was waiting until this Saturday before laying down.

This is one gal. of plum melomel that I started March 27 and fermented to less than 1.000 and transferred to a jug on April 7. I placed the gallon in a refrigerator on July 23rd and it had been racked twice between April and July. I noted that there was a haze in the batch but it eventually cleared.

I stabilized on August 8 and then used a wiz stick for two days before bottling on August 11th. The cork blew sometime today. There are four other bottles that still appear to be okay. A day after stabilizing I began sweetening and added some acid, this wine was very flat. I continued to aerate thinking it would help blend the sugar and acid.

It seems like there was a slight sulfur smell in the room from the wine remaining in the bottle. This is in my upstairs office which is usually around 70 farenheit.

So any guesses at what might have happened? I checked Jack Keller's site before beginning the cold treatment, that lasted 3 weeks, then another week while adding stabilizing and sugar/acid additions.

Paul

[Hippie]

Malo-Lactic fermentation in the bottle. Apparently the wine did not contain an aesthetic amount of sulphite sufficient to prevent the bacteria from using the extra malic acid you added as food. did you add sorbate when you stabilized? If not, it could actually be a yeast fermentation. Some yeasts are very tolerant of sulphites. It is really hard to be sure which it is. What acid did you add? Cold stabilizing is done to reduce the tartaric acid. If you added acid blend, you added some tartaric back to the wine along with malic and citric. Open another bottle and see if it fizzes. By the way, plums contain alot of malic acid.

[Paul]

Sodium Benzoate

I added this after crushing one tablet and mixing with the must. Jack Keller's info below led me to believe that since I was going to be sweetening back up I might be safer with this compound. It is however an older bottle of tablets because the store where I used to purchase went out of business and the owner just handed me a half-used bottle, that was almost a year ago. Is there a shelf life? I gently shook the other bottles to see if there was any fizz, there was a very small amount of bubbles and things seemed to settle out. Nothing popped over night.

From Jack Keller's website:
Another stabilizer is sodium benzoate, sold as a chemical or as Stabilizing Tablets. Its action is much the same as potassium sorbate. One crushed tablet per gallon of wine, added in conjunction with one crushed Campden tablet per gallon, is usually sufficient to stop fermentation. It can be added to the wine at the same time as sweetener and just before bottling, although I recommend allowing the wine to sit for several days after stabilizing to allow any dead or dying yeast to settle out as lees. It is less obnoxious, in my opinion, than potassium sorbate, but it does contain sodium. Use your own judgment.

[Paul]

acid blend

sorry, missed the other question.

[Hippie]

It seems you might have got lucky with the other bottles. I wouldn't lay them down.

[Paul]

I have champale!

For those who are old enough to remember the concoction on the western side of the Atlantic. Another bottle went today. I pulled the remaining three to transfer and let ferment. This next part is very important:

When you uncork a bottle of wine after having evidence the popping of two corks from the same batch -- be outside! I promise it is easier to clean up.

So realizing that half a gallon is just to much effor to save, the remains of the plum melomel have provided nourishment to my compost heap. However, the half bottle that went up in the backyard got rave reviews from Mandy and Precious (black lab mix that live in our backyard).

There was easily seen evidence of dregs in the bottom of each bottle and one bottle became very starch hazy as soon as I started moving the cork.

So I think the lesson learned here is that even after fermentation should be over and stabilization is complete, we can still create new fermentation from acid just as easily as from sugar. Oh, and the patience thing, very important. Hurry up and learn patience.

Paul

[Hippie]

Bulk age. BULK age. BULK AGE. Yes, and patience.