Topic: Clarity-and-Filtration

Filtering isn’t glamorous, but it is often a necessary step toward brilliantly clear and microbially stable wine in the bottle. Learn the options home winemakers have when it comes to filtration, from plate to cartridge filters and various size pads, each has its own purpose.

Pectic enzymes are often used in fruit and other high-pectin wines to aid in clarity, but also serve as a useful tool post-crush to aid in juice, color, and aroma extraction for many grape wines.

Manufacturers have recently released many plant-based or microbial-sourced products. Learn about these products, even if vegan isn’t your primary goal.

Chitosan is a product every home winemaker should be familiar with, and likely has around their cellar. It is used to help clarify wine, but its benefits go well beyond that. Newer chitosan-based products are also beneficial for microbial stability as well as malolactic and acetic bacteria suppression.

There are many different types of fining agents available to home winemakers that fall into these four groupings: Mineral, polysaccharide, synthetic polymer, and protein agents. Learn what each is best used for and when you may be better to employ one vs. another.

Though I’m no medical doctor (and certainly don’t play one on TV), from what research I was able to pull together, if I personally had a shellfish allergy I would feel comfortable

While haze can sometimes just be aesthetically off-putting and not a true flaw, it’s something many winemakers like to avoid. Get the scoop on reducing haze and other benefits, as well as drawbacks, that come with the use of fining agents.

Indeed, after using most fining agents there will be a layer of sediment generated and you’ll need to rack the wine off of it accordingly. Fining agents, by definition, are introduced into

The 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

If 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.

When it comes to clarifying your wine kit, there are five “S’s” that will guide your way: Start, stir, smash, sweep, and suppress.

Red 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

Well, 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

Even 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

The 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 of wine is the addition of one substance to remove another. It is a diverse subject with several classes of materials involved in its use and lots of different intended outcomes.

In 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.

Wine, 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.

In the final installment of our year-long series, the wines are bulk aged, oaked, and bottled.

Country fruit wines can be quite difficult to achieve the desired color, aroma, and clarity levels. Here is a look at the various enzymes typically used in grape winemaking that can also be used in fruit wines.

Learn the ins and outs of fining wine and the options to choose from.

Since 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

Egg 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

Is 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

For 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