Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Useful Tips For Selecting The Best Wine Making Sanitizer

By Young Lindsay


Using contaminated equipment to make wine will result in the greatest disappointment of your life. The exercise should instead be a hobby that is meant to impress your friends and make you feel accomplished. This brings to fore the importance of choosing the right wine making sanitizer for your home winemaker.

Sanitizing aims at eliminating contaminants from the equipment. Different people use different products and procedures but the aim is the same. It is unthinkable to reuse equipment without sanitizing. It also is important to recognize the difference between sanitizing and cleaning.

Thorough cleaning of the equipment is necessary before commencing with sanitizing. Cleaning aims at removing physical and visible contaminants. There are contaminants that cannot be eliminated in this way. Some are found in folds and others in cracks of the same equipment. It is the small and invisible particles that will spoil an entire barrel.

Stronger cleaning solutions like bleaches are difficult to rinse off the equipment. You will therefore require something specifically made to diffuse their effect without affecting the quality of wine being prepared. This is what sanitizers do. Depending on the quality of material you are using, there are different options in the market.

Winemaking process requires a high level of purity, but this should not be mistaken for sterilizing. The best way to achieve sterile containers is to use heat treatment. This is a rather difficult process but is unnecessary. Sanitizers are found in departmental stores at reasonable prices.

The most common sanitizer is chlorine which is cheap and can be used on a variety of equipment. Its fast reaction with organic substances causes it to loose its power and therefore requires quick action. Many people use it because of its availability. You should soak the equipment for ten minutes and then drip-dry them to remove any residue.

Iodophor is a common sanitizing agent but comes with the disadvantage of staining anything it comes into contact with. It comes with instructions on how to dilute it when you need to sanitize. It indicates the right strength when it is faint brown. This means that any other coloration or the lack of it will mean that it has lost its strength.

Two very effective sanitizing agents are sodium metabisulphite and potassium metabisulphite. The sulfur dioxide formed when they come into contact with water is very strong and effective. The container should be left with the solution for about ten minutes. It should be air tight before being emptied.

It is important to ensure that the sanitizing solution has touched every corner of the equipment. This can be achieved by swirling around since use of hands is not advisable. Ensure that by the time you are completing this procedure, no odor or taste can be felt. This tells you that your equipment are ready for use.

Barrels use different substances and procedures considering their size and form. The tips given above are not exhaustive. They are constantly modified and updated depending on daily development. Whichever method you use, ensure that there is no strange taste or order before beginning to prepare your next round of wine.




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