Question on conditioning wine before bottling?

I'm getting ready to bottle 5 gals of apple wine in a couple of weeks. What I would like to know is, what opinions or practices everyone uses as far as conditioning their wines. Yes, this is my first time. But don't worry, I'm not a fragile person.

1. Just use a wine conditioner with the liquid sugar and potassiom sorbate
in it. But then, do you need to add campden tablets or sodium bisulfite
to preserve the flavor and color?

2. Or use potassuim sorbate with campden tablets (crushed) or sodium
bisulfite and then sweeten to taste?

Well, anyway that's my question in a nutshell.
Thanks for your time.
JJones

First of all, make sure the wine is clear and stable - nothing going on. Remove 1 bottle of the wine (750ml) and dissolve 2 teaspoons of sugar in that wine. See how it tastes. If you want it a bit sweeter, dissolve another teasppon, and so on. Each 2 teaspoons of sugar will add about 1% sugar. When you decide how sweet you want it, measure out the sugar for the entire batch. 1 cup of cane sugar will yield about 1% sugar in 5 gallons (same as 2 teaspoons in 1 bottle). Dissolve the sugar in a small quantity of the wine. Add 2 teaspoons of potassium sorbate. Add Potassium metabisulfite to give a level of about 80ppm SO2. DO NOT USE sodium bisulfite. After bottling, allow 4-6 weeks for the sugar to stabilize before drinking.

Calculation of Sulfur Dioxide (SO2)
Potassium metabisulfite, 1 gram = 150 ppm in 1 gallon, 30 ppm in 5 gallons
Potassium metabisulfite, ¼ teaspoon = 225 ppm in 1 gallon, 45 ppm in 5 gallons
1 Campden tablet contains 0.55 grams potassium metabisulfite, yielding 75 ppm SO2 to one gallon of must or wine

The wine is clear with no more action (bubbles, fiz). Some residual at the bottom of the carboy.

Thanks for the help.
Justin Jones

Carefully syphon the wine off the top of the "lees" at the bottom of the carboy before mixing. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

Just one more thing. I never actually ever measure where 5 gals. come up to on a five gal carboy. The wine is actually just a below the stopper in the neck. I really want to make sure that there is sufficient patassium
sorbate, for the obvious reasons. I suppose not all 5 gal carboy are made identical, probably making it impossible to tell me where the 5 gal mark would be. But I guess, if I stay above the lees anyway, taking a little less. I'll won't have the whole 5 gal anyway. So your calculations for 5 gal should be more than sufficient. Is this correct. I don't know if this is a ? or if I'm just thinking out loud. I'll post it anyway

JJones

If you lose a little volume after racking (syphoning) top it up to just below the stopper with a little bit of white wine that you may have around. However, if you wait until just before you do the mixing and bottling, you won't have to worry about making up the head space.

Welcome to the forum, Justin.

It's been several years since I've made apple wine, but I recall one major problem I always had was preventing the juice from browning. I used to use a centrifugal food processor to juice the apples, and no doubt this resulted in a highly aerated juice - perfect conditions for rapid browning. Then again, over the years, I have noticed that some apple varieties brown faster than others when sliced. Some of the wild apples I used to pick for my wine would in fact brown the fastest of them all.

Now, I know that sulfites should slow down the browning considerably - but perhaps apple variety is really key to the speed at which a juice browns. I also realize that a traditional press would probably be better than a centrifuge, but I don't own one of those.

Just another curious query: what variety of apple (or mix) did you use for your wine? There are two fruit wines that I have always wanted to make and have yet to try: russet apple and bartlett pear. I'd make each of them dry and think that they'd make pretty good table wines.

I'm not sure what kind they are, I bought my house a year 1/2 ago and the tree was already here. As far as them turning brown, they didn't really have much of a chance too. As I use one of those things you push down around the apple and it cuts the core out and cuts the rest into slices. I discarded any bad looking pieces. From there I froze them immediately. When I took them out of the freezer this fall, I quickly ran them through my wife food processor. Put them in my straining bag and my primary and added all ingredients except the yeast. After a day or so when the temp got 70* or a little above, I stirred it up a bit and add the yeast. But I admit, this is my first time - so who knows. But I can say it looks beautiful right now in the carboy. It's a brilliant gold, and I can see right through like nothing else. I'm excited about the prospect I guess, cross my fingers.

Justin, you are in S Dakota? Coming to do some autumn butterflying this year.

Yes - Pierre, S. Dakota