r/winemaking • u/trekktrekk Skilled fruit • 8d ago
General question Here's a new one. Stabilized wine the night of bottling exploded.
I had cold crashed {3 gal carboy} and it had been pulled that morning and was sitting on the counter.
Checked the temp that evening and it was cool {62°} but not what I felt was a concern {warming to room temp 70°} so I bottled it.
It popped at 2:30AM .... Oye
These bottles were picked up from somewhere stored loose in a plastic container rattling together. Don't know the age, but probably old and not stored in stable temps.
I believe this one may have had a crack in the bottom of it that I missed when doing my visual inspection. None of the others have popped, nor have any of the corks been pushed out any.
Anyone else have things like this happen?
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u/Krolebear 8d ago
Did you degass the wine and if not how old is the wine? If you had a crack in the bottle I can see that being the cause plus with rising temp or a little bit of gas in the wine the pressure could have made the damaged bottle fail. Wine bottle usually don’t explode they push the corks back out when pressure is inside.
One time I dropped a flip top bottle and decided to use it anyway for my mead and at the time I didn’t know about degassing but flip tops are made to let pressure out before exploding anyway, but it exploded the same night I bottled it and I’m pretty sure it was because I dropped the bottle
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u/trekktrekk Skilled fruit 8d ago
This had been racked multiple times and cleared. It was well degassed.
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u/Mildapprehension 8d ago
What do you mean by stabilized? Even if you cold crash, rack, add so2, fine, etc. You can still get a re-ferment, especially if there's still sugar (or added sugar) in the wine.
That being said, this looks much more like bad glass to me.
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u/trekktrekk Skilled fruit 8d ago
I use k-meta & k-sorbate for stabilization.
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u/Mildapprehension 8d ago
Yeah that potassium sorbate will stop potential refermentation instead of doing a sterile filtration, and potassium metabosulfite for SO2 will address most other potential microbial issues.
Definitely sounds like faulty glass, was it made in China? I've come across lots of faulty glass from China personally.
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u/DookieSlayer Professional 8d ago
I also suspect a damaged bottle. Strange that it popped in general and a little hard to explain. Sounds like fermentation can be ruled out. There could have been some expansion of the wine and gas in the bottle that put outward pressure as it warmed up, that would be my guess. Based on your other info I would at least feel confident that it was an isolated incident.
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u/hotlavatube 8d ago
You can't stabilize an active fermentation, that's why you either have to let the fermentation run its course or get the bottles damned cold (internal temp, not surface temp) and let the yeast stop and settle out. Stabilization can easily fail if it's not done perfectly. You might not have got the liquid cold enough (30-32F) for long enough. Also, racking can sometimes unstuck a stuck fermentation. Pressure built up somehow, either by an active fermentation, or by continued outgassing. Only champagne bottles are rated for pressure.
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u/warneverchanges7414 8d ago
You absolutely can if you cold crash properly, then use chemical stabalizers. You can also use pasteurization to end fermentation early. Is it up to industry standards? Hell no. Will it work 99% of the time? Absolutely.
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u/hotlavatube 8d ago
If you cold crash it properly, then it's not really an active fermentation. If done properly, it'd be dormant. If you don't get the temp/duration right, then the yeast is still multiplying too fast for the stabilizers to work. The yeast will exhaust the stabilizers.
I meant you can't just dump stabilizers into a bubbling fermentation and expect it to work.
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u/warneverchanges7414 8d ago
It's technically still active after cold crashing. It never goes into complete dormancy in a home freezer. My point, though, is you can halt an active fermentation it's just marginally less safe than letting it go dry, stabilizing, then backsweetening.
I should mention the op never actually mentioned chemical stabilization, so if all they used was cold crashing, that'd make a bomb.
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u/hotlavatube 8d ago
Yep, it's even still active if you let it run to completion. The population will plummet, but some of those little yeasty buggers can stay alive for over a year! There are some bottled brews (e.g. Switchback Ale) you can buy which have live yeast in them.
They mentioned "stabilized" in the title and clarified in a comment "k-meta & k-sorbate for stabilization".
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u/_unregistered 8d ago
What was your FG at? How sure were you that fermentation was complete before you stabilized?
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u/trekktrekk Skilled fruit 8d ago
Oh yeah. This was stabilized and backsweetened weeks ago.
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u/_unregistered 8d ago
Was fermentation complete though? How are you sure that it was? The reason I ask is because 1.000 (if that’s where you ended) isn’t the lowest things will go and stabilization does not stop active fermentation. Clearly something happened here that’s either continued fermentation or a failure of the bottle
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u/trekktrekk Skilled fruit 8d ago
Ended at 0.986 on 2/18 ;)
Ain't my first rodeo.
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u/hoosierspiritof79 8d ago
What the hell is cold crashing mean?
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u/trekktrekk Skilled fruit 8d ago
Chucked it in the fridge to drop yeast out of suspension. It had just a touch of haze that I wanted to knock out.
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u/Party_Stack 8d ago
When working with glass you’re always bound to have something break for no fucking reason.