Pectic haze

I posted this in the wine of the month thread that I made this wine for but I figured I'd get more exposure here.

Just got around to doing the first racking on my grapefruit wine. I have a haze that just won't drop out. I put a little more than normal dosage of pectic enzyme in the primary. I'm not sure if this is pectic haze or not, hopefully someone can help me out and point me in the right direction. If it is pectic haze would just adding some more pectic enzyme drop it out or will I need a clarifier to take care of it?

Pectic enzyme would have taken care of it in the first place (unless you added it together with bentonite, in which case the latter would have bound up the former). It seems to me that it's just small particles that need more time to settle. Either that, or since your wine is not red, meticulous color preservation does not really matter, so I would use something like Sparkolloid and you will have a crystal clear wine in the matter of days. Then just rack off, add K-meta, as needed, and bottle, if you wish.

I would splash rack and then stir to rule out gas.

Then you can either give it more time to clear - or use superkleer/sparkaloid if you don't wish to wait.

Pectic enzyme also is deactivated by fermentation, so if you added yeast shortly after the enzyme it didn't have time to work completely. Also can't work in heavy Kmeta. I recently went thru the same thing with several carboys and found what works best for me is to stir in a double dose of PE that was dissolved in hot water approx 2-3 weeks before a Kmeta treatment is due. It has time to work and to settle out before racking with Kmeta. All my problem carboys became crystal clear except one that had heavy strawberry and gooseberry. Both are very high in pectin so I'll try PE one more time then move on to sparkelloid.

Pam in cinti

I added the pectic enzyme to start and after a slow sluggish start of the fermentation I added the bentonite. 3rd day of active ferm I think it was. I was trying to hold off on clearing agents as I'm aging this for atleast a year and probably longer.
Definitely not gas. I splash racked twice with the allinone and then held a strong vacuum without it pulling anything.
I racked off the sediment then added pectic enzyme with the dosage the bottle said to use and then a little extra. I'll see if a few weeks like that helps and if not I'll try a double dose. If it's not clear when the wine is coming up on the 1 year mark then I'll probably use a clarifier at that point.

Patience is the winemaker's friend. I once made a batch of apple that would not clear for anything. It was opaque and smelled yeasty and impervious to multiple attempts to clear it. Finally, we pushed it in the corner of the basement under a tarp and didn't touch it for a year.

After that year, it was crystal clear and one of the best batches we ever made.

Just wait it out. It will likely drop clear in a few months.

heatherd said:

I would splash rack and then stir to rule out gas.

Then you can either give it more time to clear - or use superkleer/sparkaloid if you don't wish to wait.

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Generally you want to avoid splash racking since it can introduce too much oxygen and promote oxidation. Which is something that sticks out pretty strongly in a white styled wine. Same thing for stirring.

I would go with your latter suggestion which would be to wait or add a fining agent.

BTW, how old is this wine?

The wine was started on 1-18 and was aging in the carboy since 2-1. So 5 months old. I did all my racking and degassing under vacuum with the allinone so oxidation shouldn't be an issue. This is my January wine of the month entry so I'm aging it til atleast jan to put a full year on it.

spaniel said:

Patience is the winemaker's friend. I once made a batch of apple that would not clear for anything. It was opaque and smelled yeasty and impervious to multiple attempts to clear it. Finally, we pushed it in the corner of the basement under a tarp and didn't touch it for a year.

After that year, it was crystal clear and one of the best batches we ever made.

Just wait it out. It will likely drop clear in a few months.

Click to expand...

So you never added any kmeta, etc. along the way? just let it sit for a year and all was well?

If you are planning on letting it age for a year in the carboy, I won't worry too much about clearing it right now. Just rack every 3 months, add a dose of k-meta and see how it goes.