How to make a sulfur wick at home and sulfit wine

Making wine at home is interesting and exciting. To produce wines, special grape varieties are used and certain technological processes are followed. To improve the quality of the product, wine is sulfitated at home using sulfur dioxide. The product in certain quantities can be added directly to wine or pulp or juice.

What is sulfitation?

First of all, adding sulfur preparations to a wine product is used to destroy foreign bacteria. Thanks to the procedure, several more problems can be solved:

• you can stop the fermentation process;
• various diseases of the wine product are prevented (yeast cloudiness, bloom, bacterial fermentation);
• decomposition enzymes are deactivated, which destroy the original color of the wine, its taste and peculiar aroma.

Sulfitation is a common procedure. Sulfur preparations are completely harmless and are often used to preserve fruit purees for children. Experienced winemakers recommend using sulfur dioxide, since the effectiveness of other types of preservatives is much worse.

How to sulfit wine at home

To carry out the procedure, branded drugs sold in specialized stores are used. Moreover, the substances are not simply poured into the wine product, since they do not dissolve well in an acidic environment and will quickly evaporate when the liquid is stirred. First, the required amount of the product is diluted in a glass of plain water, and then the solution is poured into the product being treated.

Recommended doses of sulfur preparations, taking into account the type of starting product, are shown in the table:

A simple solution is to fumigate containers with sulfur using a special ladle with a long handle (smoker). The procedure for burning sulfur is carried out in stages:

1. The drug is placed in a smoker, set on fire and quickly lowered into a container, covering the neck of the container with a lid.
2. As soon as the drug burns out, the smoker is pulled out and the container is tightly closed with a lid.
3. The wine product being processed is quickly poured into a container and hermetically sealed.

When burning sulfur, do not use metal containers - use glass, wood or enamel containers. To treat vessels, you can use special sulfur strips - wicks.

How to make a sulfur wick for winemaking with your own hands

If there are no branded strips impregnated with sulfur, you can make a special wick yourself, at home:

• cut paper strips 30 cm long and 3-4 cm wide;
• sulfur is poured into a container and heated until it turns into liquid;
• paper strips are dipped in liquid and hung to dry.

To store wicks, use glass, hermetically sealed containers. The procedure is carried out outdoors. Safety precautions include the use of protective rubber gloves, masks, and tweezers. After finishing making the strips, be sure to wash your hands with soap and water.

The requirement for sulfation is compliance with the correct dosage. Since a small amount of sulfur preparations will not produce the desired effect, and an excessive dose can give a bitter taste to the finished wine product.