What You Need to Know
Campden tablets are a sulfur-based product that are used primarily to stabilize wine, cider and in beer making to kill bacteria and to inhibit the growth of most wild yeast. They are also used to eliminate both free chlorine and the more stable form, chloramine, from water solutions. Campden tablets allow the amateur brewer to easily measure small quantities of sodium metabisulfite, so they can be used to protect against wild yeast and bacteria without affecting flavour. Untreated cider must frequently suffers from acetobacter contamination causing vinegar spoilage. Yeasts are resistant to the tablets but the acetobacter are easily killed off, hence treatment is important in cider production.
Steps
- 1.
English Farmhouse Cider (United Kingdom): Prevents vinegar formation during fermentation
- 2.
Homebrewed Fruit Wines (Global): Sanitizes fruit must before fermentation
- 3.
Small Batch Mead (Scandinavia): Controls wild yeast in honey must