How To: Force Gravity Filtering

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MedPretzel

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Well, here we go. I promised you a step-by-step guide of "force" gravity filtering. Thanks to Bill_B for his inspiration.


His photo to me (I annotated it):


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Please add and comment on anything in this "How To" topic:





Step 1: Make sure everything is clean. Sanitize all equipment.


Step 2: The basic equipment:


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Attach the handle:


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I cut off a bit of tubing from another racking tube to make it easier on myself and have less "tube-contact." You will see that there's a lever: You need to press this so that there is wine-flow thru the filter. Note: I tried it once without the lever, and it didn't work as well. If you try this out, please let me know how you changed this. I'd be very interested.


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Step 3: Add Campden tablets to your empty primary (filtering is known to strip your wine of free sulfites, so it's important to do this. I didn't mention this in my previous filtering How To) The red arrow shows the crushed campden tablets (5 added, 1 per gallon)


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Step 4: Assess the wine, if you haven't done it before. You will notice the orange cord behind the wine. It looks pretty clear, but is it really?


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Step 5: Rack the first 2 gallons into the weed-killer container.


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Step 6: Pump the handle up and down (red arrow) until you feel a resistance. Men, you might have an easier time with this.


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Step 7: Enjoy the company!


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Step 8: Make sure the "air-tube" (refer to How To: Gravity Filters) is locked, and start filtering. Shown here is the first 2 gallons filtered.


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Step 9: I noticed that the filtering went better when I held the racking "tubette" this way.





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Step 10: I finished racking! The pump is still attached.


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Step 11: Tobi wanted to steal the show for a second. He's a little blurry, but he likes it that way. He says he looks thinner that way.
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We all agree with him, right?
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By the way, there is no contact with cats with this method. So if you have nosey critters in the house, this is a very good method to keep all "critter blah" (hair, dander) out of your wines. For all those who don't have critters at home, you'll appreciate this. For all those who do, our animals are clean anyway!
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Step 12: The last gallon-and-a-half:


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Step 13: The wine is filtered!





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Step 14: Notice the orange cord. This is the compare-test to the beginning wine in step 4. A big difference.


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Step 15: The filter pad. Now this is a great pic, but it looked worse in real-time than it does on the pic.





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Assessment: Okay, now for the time restraints on this wine. From start to finish, with a quick phonecall in between, it took roughly 50 minutes, with taking pictures. Yes, you'll say, "The gravity filter alone took only what? 35 minutes?" Yes, you are right in that assessment.


But....


This wine was cloudier. This wine had more gas in it (for some reason... This is the "degassing-it's a gas" wine). That might have played a factor. In my experience, a 5-gallon wine of this cloudiness would probably have taken about an hour orlonger to filter with the setup in the "How To: Gravity Filter" way - without camera and without phone call. Now, I had a few hinderances (camera, phone-call), so I would say, total time without the "riff-raff"? roughly 35-40 minutes.


The up-side to this way is that it's definitely quicker to filter.


The down-side is that you have to be by your wine constantly, pressing the lever to let the wine through. The (almost) second you stop the lever, you're stopping the flow. Unless you can figure out a way to change this, I think this is one of the main downsides to this way of filtering.


Another down-side is that you have to pump quite a bit to get the resistance to get the flow moving. Not for someone who doesn't feel like working a little for their wines.
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Without the lever, however, It would be great.


To answer a few questions in advance.
<UL>
<LI>I don't know if the weed-killer container is food-grade. I doubt it, but I haven't had problems with it. I fully sanitize it before and after filterings. It has never seen weed-killer in it in its life.
<LI>The wine tastes normal afterwards.
<LI>The time spent filtering is roughly reduced by 20%.</LI>[/list]


So there you have it. I hope this can help someone.


Edited by: MedPretzel
 
Martina,


Great post. I have one of these gravity filters, also. I lift my carboy up to the kitchen counter and just siphon it to the filter, which sits on the receiving carboy.


One concern I have is that the wine just drips into the receiving carboy. I'm concerned this will oxygenate my wine, so I plan to rig some kind of tube to it. Hopefully that will solve the problem. Other than that, it does a good job, just very slow, but clear wine is worth the wait.Thanks.


Archer
 
One of my locals just brought his force gravity filter to me to sell for him. He wants to upgrade to the Super Jet and will accept any reasonable offer. It has only been used twice. Let me know if you are interested.
 
Martina


Thank you so much for the posts, as a newbie this really gives me some more advanced ways of producing wines. As for now I have to stick to the old fashion way of force gravity filtering a wine...............Through My LIVER
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Cheers....Now I can't figure how to turn the BOLD off.


earl
 
hahaha, the "liver filter" isn't too bad either. ;)





Just press the bold button again, and the BOLD will be turned off.
 

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