chemicals

[Brewcat]

>my wife said she does not like the headache after affect from drinking red wines. So in most of my fermentation activities I do not use the sulfites. For the kit wines (my grapes are too immature) I never even add the sulfites. None of the wines seem to have suffered from it, including those that have been aged over a year.

That's a good point about sorbate too... you have to ferment dry and then stabilize. Most folks who react to red wines, which are sulfited to a lesser degree than whites, are reacting to an aspect of the tannins(anthocyanins?) and folks who react to whites are sulfite-sensitive. I'll post this into a new discussion "chemicals" in case we want to kick this around more... thanks Barry!

[ScottS]

Ick. I avoid sorbates and sulfites like the plague. I haven't yet figured out if every commerical mead is oversulfited, or if I am just super sensitive, but I can taste them and I don't like them.

The way I avoid using them is to always either ferment dry or to exhaust the yeast, and then to bulk age for 9-12 months before bottling. Never had a bottle bomb.