Too much sulphite, eeek!!!

[lockwood1956]

1/4 gallon of this wine addd to a 5 gallon batch will get you 50ppm (I think....steve?)

[ms67]

i believe that several messy pourings (lots of splashing etc) before serving helps to drive off, or use up, the excess sulphurous compounds. dunno if it will work in this case as the excess may be too much. but give it a try for as long as you have the patience and every time you do it things should get better.

please dispell me of this wisdom if its a myth, and some evidence would be good too.

[NorthernWiner]

Ah well at least it won't go to waste

Karl, you are an eternal optimist.

[NorthernWiner]

1/4 gallon of this wine addd to a 5 gallon batch will get you 50ppm (I think....steve?)

I was thinking even less... about 1/7 gallon of this wine would sufficiently sulfite 5 gallons.

Omniata, if you drink this wine as is, the mortician will not need to add any embalming fluid to keep you pickled.

The only treatment I'm aware of to reduce excess sulfites involves the addition of hydrogen peroxide. And that's not so safe, either.

Personally I would bin it. Sorry to say that.

Here's some good reading on excess sulfites from UC-Davis in California.

http://waterhouse.ucdavis.edu/winecomp/so2.htm

[Omniata]

Steve, where can I obtain a kit to asertain the level of sulphite in the wine?

One of the conversions will be to sulphurous acid (H2SO3), this then oxidises to sulphuric, this can be removed in preference with the addition of chalk. As the sulphurous/sulphuric is more reactive it will react first so I may be able to judge the chalk stoichiometrically and get it back to reasonable levels of sulphite...

I've read up on the addition of hydrogen peroxide too, being that there is plenty of free sodium from the sodium metabisulphite as long as I work beneath the minimum levels I sould be able to work that safely too.
The free sodium will cause the peroxide to react completely, oxygenating the wine and counteracting the sulphite...

The wine has already slightly oxidised so this could be a good experiment for recovering from a stupid mistake...


However, if the test kit shows otherwise I may not even have too

[NorthernWiner]

I use a Titrets kit to measure SO2, but it's not terribly accurate and the results tend to read high. I also don't see SO2 kits available on any of the UK brew shop sites I'm familiar with. Perhaps Karl or Bob know where to find these.

If you can't find a kit, you can also use the Ripper method, detailed here.

[Omniata]

Steve,

Cole-Parmer stock the kits here in the UK, Sulphite_Test Kit, but won't ship to "private individuals" or "residential addresses".
I've emailed them to ask if they'll make an exception as I've purchased lab equipment and reagents from them in the past.

They only read up to 100ppm though, and I hate titrations with a passion.
A previous job of mine consisted of doing nothing but titrations for nearly two years.
10 minutes per titration, 8 work hours in a day, working 5 days a week, I'll let you do the math...


I may be able to do it with little effort if I have to, anyone got a spare burette in Cheshire???

Jim.

[lockwood1956]

Jim
if you ship some to me i will run a Free SO2 test on it using my kit.....

(bought from vigo ltd for silly money)

[Omniata]

Ok Bob, I'll take you up on that

I'll send some in one of the 250ml bottles I have left over from the VWC...


Thanks again,

Jim.


Edit: Bob, should I send it to the "LDC House" address???

[lockwood1956]

Well

measured free sulphite.......

YIKES 1100 ppm

around 22 times the amount you need

[lockwood1956]

Tested for total sulphite, and gave up at 1500 ppm....or would run out of titration solution.....

I really dont think you can recover this wine Jim

Sorry

[NorthernWiner]

Holy cow! I would say bury it in the back yard. Maybe some archaeologist will come along and excavate it a thousand years in the future.

By then it will still not be drinkable but, with all that sulphite, at least it will be very well preserved.

[Omniata]

Many thanks Bob, damn

Might give the peroxide desulphiting a whirl to see what happens...
Then again, if 1ml of 5% removes 80ppm from 750ml, I'll need ~100ml of 5% H2O2 then a load of chalk to get the acid levels down...

If you don't hear from me for a while you know what happened