Campden tablets are small white tablets of sodium metabisulphite or potassium metabisulphite, and home winemakers use them for three separate jobs: sterilising equipment, knocking back the wild yeast and bacteria that arrive on fruit skins, and protecting a finished wine from oxidation before it goes into the bottle. If you are making a gallon with our Hedgerow Wine Making Kit, you do not need to buy any. The kit already contains a steriliser, which is sodium metabisulphite, and a stabiliser tablet, and between them they cover the jobs a packet of campden tablets would be doing. Here is what the tablets actually are, what each of those jobs involves, and where the confusion comes from.
What is actually in a campden tablet?
One chemical, pressed into tablet form so that you do not have to weigh out a powder. Sodium metabisulphite and potassium metabisulphite both release sulphur dioxide when they meet water, and the sulphur dioxide is the part that does the work. It is antimicrobial, so it discourages the organisms that would otherwise spoil a wine, and it is an antioxidant, so it slows the browning and the flattening of flavour that contact with air causes.
The tablet exists for convenience, nothing more. Home winemaking has always been a hobby of small quantities and ordinary kitchens, and a tablet is much easier to count out than a pinch of powder. That is genuinely the whole innovation. There is nothing in a campden tablet that is not in the loose powder sold for the same purpose.
What do winemakers use them for?
Three things, and they are worth separating, because a lot of advice online runs them together and leaves beginners convinced they have missed a vital step.
- Sterilising equipment. Dissolved in water, the solution is used to rinse buckets, demijohns, airlocks, siphon tubing, spoons and bottles, so that the only yeast working on your fruit is the yeast you chose.
- Treating the fruit before the yeast goes in. Fruit arrives carrying its own wild yeast and bacteria. Some winemakers add a dose to the crushed fruit, leave it a day, then pitch their cultured yeast into a much quieter field.
- Stabilising before bottling. Once a wine is clear and finished, a dose protects it from oxidation and helps stop stray yeast waking up in a sealed bottle.
Same chemical, three different moments. So whenever you read "add a campden tablet", the useful question is which of the three the writer means.
So do you need campden tablets for a hedgerow wine kit batch?
No. This is worth saying plainly, because it is probably the most common unnecessary purchase a new country winemaker makes.
The kit contains wine yeast, yeast nutrient, pectolase, finings (a very fine bentonite clay, with nothing animal derived in it), citric acid, a stabiliser tablet and a steriliser, along with the recipe table. The steriliser is sodium metabisulphite, so the equipment job is covered. The stabiliser tablet covers the pre-bottling job. You supply the fruit, the sugar, the water, a five litre food grade bucket with a lid, a five litre demijohn or second bucket with an airlock, a siphon and some bottles, and that really is the shopping list.
Follow the recipe book in the order it gives you rather than bolting on steps from elsewhere. Country wine recipes are balanced as a whole, and adding extra sulphite at the wrong moment is a good way to stun the yeast you have just paid for.
What about sulphites, and who should think twice?
Sulphites are present in the great majority of commercial wine, which is why so many bottles carry a sulphites declaration. The kit does too: the allergen line is contains sulphur dioxide and sulphites. Some people are sensitive to sulphites, and asthmatics in particular are often advised to be cautious with them, so it is worth knowing that they are there rather than discovering it later.
Every ingredient is listed on the pack. If you have an allergy question, email hello@sandyleaffarm.com before ordering. And the obvious one: this is a kit for adults aged 18 and over, and the finished wine is alcoholic.
How do you actually sterilise everything?
Make up the steriliser as the booklet directs and then be systematic. Rinse or soak every surface that will touch the wine or the fruit: the first fermentation bucket and its lid, the demijohn or second bucket, the bung or grommet, the airlock, the long spoon, the funnel, the straining bag or sieve, and later the siphon tube and the bottles. It is easier to do one big session before you start than to keep making up fresh solution.
The siphon tube is the piece people forget, and it is the one that spends the longest in contact with a finished wine you have waited two months for. The other is the airlock, which sits in warm, damp air for weeks.
Treat the steriliser and the stabiliser tablet with respect. Keep them away from children and out of the way of anything you might mistake them for. If either is swallowed, even diluted in water, seek medical advice immediately and take the packet with you so that the active chemical, sodium metabisulphite, can be identified.
Does sterilising really make that much difference?
It does, and it is the least glamorous part of the whole hobby. A batch of hedgerow wine takes eight to twelve weeks from picking to pouring, which is a long time to give an unwanted organism to establish itself. The classic failure is a wine that smells faintly of vinegar or nail varnish, and it almost always traces back to something that was rinsed rather than sterilised.
The second reason is more subtle. Wild yeasts from the fruit will ferment, after a fashion, but they stop at low alcohol, they throw odd flavours, and they make results wildly inconsistent from batch to batch. Cultured wine yeast, given a clean start and a steady temperature between 22 and 27 degrees Celsius, does the same job predictably every time. That predictability is most of what you are buying.
Campden tablet FAQs
Are campden tablets the same as the steriliser in the kit?
They are the same family. The kit's steriliser is sodium metabisulphite, which is one of the two chemicals campden tablets are made from. The tablet is simply a pre-measured version of the same thing.
Can I use campden tablets instead of the kit steriliser?
You can sterilise with either, but there is no need to buy tablets when the kit includes a steriliser and a stabiliser tablet. Use what is in the box and follow the recipe book.
How long after adding sulphite can I add the yeast?
If you are treating crushed fruit with sulphite, winemakers traditionally leave it around a day so the sulphur dioxide can disperse before the yeast goes in. Pitching straight away risks stunning the yeast.
Does the finished wine still contain sulphites?
Yes, which is why the kit carries a contains sulphur dioxide and sulphites declaration, just as most commercial wine does. Anyone sensitive to sulphites should take that into account.
Can I make country wine without any sulphite at all?
People do, but they accept a much higher risk of spoilage and oxidation and a shorter life in the bottle. Our hedgerow wine kit is built around using the steriliser and stabiliser it contains, so that is the method we would point you to.
Fancy turning a hedgerow harvest into six bottles? Have a look at our wine making kits.
