Americans tap wine over beer50 glbuttes a year? That's less than one per week. I would guess that that's the average for all Americans, not just wine drinkers. "Per capita wine consumption in the United States in 1995 was...
fasteddy999
Accuvin has paper strip, colour change based tests for several variables, including free S)2. They have 2 colour strips for that one - for low range 0-40ppm and for 40ppm and higher. The cost is about S2.50 per test, so more than breastres but less than lab tests. I can't comment on accuracy but heard one good report (no bad).
Vinoferm provides an alternative to breastrets. It's also a Ripper test but it works the opposite way, by adding iodine to 10 ml of wine, so the colour change is reversed. The accuracy of reading seems better because the scale is linear across the range, not like breastrets. I've been using it for whites instead of breastrets, but did only one test so far on reds - I remember the reason was that the result was much lower than what I got by breastrets, so I didn't know which test to believe. Either that or I did the test wrong. I'll give it another try soon as I have some reds close to bottling.
For the Vinoferm test, the iodine solution has a short shelf life, that's the main drawback. On the other hand, it encourages frequent testing as the cost is all up front and the solution life is limited. So I'm finding it's cheaper and safer overall than breastrets.
Iodophor and cross contaminationThe high acid in Baco may be a benefit for "spontaneous" wine as it should inhibit the nasty organisms that like a higher pH environment and can produce...
The "eyeballing" approach of guessing how much sulfite wine needs is too rough in my experience. I tend to do this on whites in the early stages and on reds in general because of the endpoint determination issues, and the result in general is the wines get more sulfite than they need.
For example, I've made some Riesling and Gewurz this year, both cold fermented and stopped with some residual sugar. The only sulfite addition was 40-50 ppm when I was stopping the fermentation. After this the wines were racked once, fined with bentonite and sparkalloid, cold-stabilized outside for 2-3 months, racked again, and filtered with MiniJet through #2 pads once and #3 pads twice. After all this, the sulfite is now between 20-28 ppm now, and it's the first time I can't smell it on the finished wine. The point being that if I didn't test before filtering and retest after, I would have had added at least another 40ppm to each batch and ended with a sulfite plant. The pH on these is 3.1-3.2, that's why the sulfite is so noticeable.
Pp
