Federweisser bottling

Question

Can you bottle Federweisser at the point where you want to drink it and have it not keep fermenting? I have heard that the bottles may explode if you just bottle it normally.

Answer 1

Unless you take steps to kill or disable the yeast, it will continue to ferment. Fermentation produces CO2, which can generate enough pressure to cause bottles to explode.

The correct dose of potassium sorbate and potassium metabisulphite can accomplish this, but may leave a chemical taste in the wine. The simplest thing is to bottle the wine in plastic (PET) bottles, and immediately refrigerate them. The cold temperatures will reduce yeast activity, and the plastic bottles will remove the risk of explosion and injury.

Note that fermentation will continue even in the refrigerated wine -- it will just proceed slowly. You're advised to drink the wine quickly after bottling

A similar question was asked in the context of ginger beer, which suffers from the same challenge: how to keep unfermented sugars in the finished, carbonated product:

Ginger beer that lasts