Topic: Clarity-and-Filtration
Fine wine
MEMBERS ONLYThe goal for experienced and new winemakers alike is a product that is both pleasant in taste and appearance. Unfortunately for many new winemakers the result is stubborn cloudiness with sediment, or
Get Crystal Clear About Filtration
MEMBERS ONLYIf you want to serve a crystal clear and microbial stable wine, it will require filtration. Explore the “how” and “why” of wine filtration, along with the equipment needed to do it.
Fin(d)ing Clarity in the Five S’s
FREEWhen it comes to clarifying your wine kit, there are five “S’s” that will guide your way: Start, stir, smash, sweep, and suppress.
Fining Red Wines
MEMBERS ONLYRed wines are typically not fined as often as white wines, to which we often add bentonite in order to remove potentially haze-causing proteins. The tannin from the skins of red wines
Natural Fining For White and Rosé Wines
MEMBERS ONLYWell, an old-timer winemaker I used to work with would say, “The most natural fining agent for any wine is time.” What he meant was that with time, solids fall out, proteins
Mellowing A Big Wine
FREEEven my “purist” winemaking friends usually aren’t opposed to doing a little egg white fining when it comes to smoothing out the rough edges on their big reds. It’s an ancient and
Fun With Wine Filtration
MEMBERS ONLYThe fun of filtration! I’ll deliver the bad news to you and my readers first by telling you that really no matter how tight of a pore size you use to filter
Fining Your Way to Clear Wine
MEMBERS ONLYFining of wine is the addition of one substance to remove another. This basic definition often stretches to include adding more than one substance at a time, stabilizing wine without necessarily removing
Year in a Life of a Wine Part V (Cellar Work)
MEMBERS ONLYIn the fifth installment of our year-long series about how homemade wine is made using home-grown grapes in Upstate New York, the wines are put through malolactic fermentation and cold stabilized.
Understanding Bentonite
MEMBERS ONLYWine, as I’ve often written, is a complex chimerical soup. Wine naturally contains lots of different amino acids and some of those amino acids are in long-chain form and actually are proteins.
Year in a Life of a Wine Part XI (Bulk Aging and Bottling)
MEMBERS ONLYIn the final installment of our year-long series, the wines are bulk aged, oaked, and bottled.
Using Enzymes in Country Wines
MEMBERS ONLYBeyond basic pectic enzymes to increase juice yield and improve clarity, I have not seen much mention of enzyme use in country fruit wines. To be sure, most of the commercial enzyme
Fining for Beginners
FREELearn the ins and outs of fining wine and the options to choose from.
Clearing A 23-Year-Old Concord Wine
MEMBERS ONLYSince 1992 (over 20 years) is quite a long time to store bottled wine. If you go to a supermarket or liquor store, you’ll notice that most red wines currently on the
Is the salmonella (commonly associated with eggs) a problem to consider when fining with egg whites?
MEMBERS ONLYEgg whites are an ancient, traditional and natural additive and are sometimes used to pull excessive tannins out of wine in a gentle treatment process known as “fining.” Practiced for centuries all
Egg White Fining, Malolactic Levels: Wine Wizard
MEMBERS ONLYIs the salmonella (commonly associated with eggs) a problem to consider when fining with egg whites? Bob McKee Tucker, Georgia Egg whites are an ancient, traditional and natural additive and are sometimes
Using Eggs Whites To Fine White Wine
FREEFor readers who don’t know, adding a solution of egg whites to wine does a nice job of pulling out excess tannins and phenolics that might cause your wine to be overly
I really want to filter my Chardonnay like the big wineries do. Are there small-scale filters for people who only make a barrel of wine?
MEMBERS ONLYWine Wizard replies: Absolutely. There are an increasing number of filters out there for the small-scale producer. From rough filters that’ll just knock out large, visible particles all the way down to
Cloudy Fruit Wine, Macerating Whites: Wine Wizard
MEMBERS ONLYClarifying elderflower wine I made some elderflower wine last year and have now decanted it into bottles. It is very cloudy. What would you recommend to make it clear, please? Huw M.
Chitosan, dry climate grapes: Wine Wizard
MEMBERS ONLYShellfish and chitosan We’ve all heard of comments about sulfites or phenolic compounds causing headaches, but I use chitosan and kielsosol for clarifying agents. Chitosan is made from shellfish byproducts — could
A Clearer Understanding of Fining Agents
MEMBERS ONLYThe first thing you notice when someone hands you a glass of wine is its color and clarity. We all expect wine to look clear and appealing and there are many ways
How do you sterile filter your wine?
FREEThe short answer to your question is: 0.45 micron nominal filter pads are the industry standard for “sterile” filtration. These pads prevent all yeast and bacteria from getting through. So, if you
Is it possible for a plastic fermenter to impact the effectiveness of isinglass as a fining agent?
MEMBERS ONLYDear Wine Wizard, I used isinglass as a clarifier in my Viognier. I have it in a 55-gallon plastic food-grade barrel. It started to settle out some of the particles but never
Is filtering good or bad for your wine?
FREEDear Wine Wizard: I have read several sources that discourage the filtering (at 0.45 microns or less) of wine prior to bottling. They argue that flavors are stripped away by the filter.
Using Fining Agents
FREEPesky cloudy wines! Sediments in the bottle! There is nothing more frustrating to home winemakers than a wine that will not clear or that continues to throw sediments in the bottle. Making