Had a good exchange with a manufacturing supplier. I asked: "I have noticed that many recipes online use camden/sorbate in fruit prior to pitching, and similar with grape wines. Why does it require it?" I am interested because I am preparing to make my first mel.
Sometimes it's good to ask "stupid" questions. I say "stupid" because I have read a lot about the skins of fruit bearing wild beasties, and I thought I knew the answer. But, I have learned that asking the question you thought you knew the answer to sometimes gives informative results.
Answer:
Sorbate should never be put in prior to fermentation. It's entire purpose is to prevent fermentation. You put it in later if you want to sweeten the wine to keep the yeast from starting up again. [Ok, I kinda knew this part already.]
Camden tablets are poor bacteria killers. Its main purpose is as an anti-oxidant. It's also best to use this post fermentation to keep the wine from oxidizing. They’re good enough to dampen a wild yeasts’ enthusiasm a bit, but if they were effective, they’d kill the regular yeast as well. Sulphites – whether sodium or potassium don’t really accomplish that very well anyway.
Most commercial red wine sits for 2-3 weeks in primary before being racked out – primary is big huge open containers with lots of exposure to air. Additionally, they’re getting stirred around by having he fruit cap punched down twice a day for at least the first week. It’s not really a big deal, but home winemakers are absolutely set on this idea that sulphites are there to kill bugs. But, that really, really isn’t why they’re used commercially. I’ll qualify – there’s some bacteriostatic properties to sulphites. But, it’s not the primary reason they’re used commercially.
(if he visits this site, I hope he doesn't mind me reposting some of his informative and helpful email to me)
I never really understood before that campden/kms was really used to prevent oxidation.
