Isinglass or Bentonite or...?

[Just-a-Guy]

Hi Folks,

I have 3 batches in process - 1: a grape juice concentrate (my first try); 2: a Dragon's Blood (4 berry mixed, with some mixed berry concentrate); 3: a pear (Vintner's Harvest can plus Trader Joe's pear cider plus some fruit in a bag).

1 and 2 are in secondaries. I am about ready to move to next stages, including clearing (1 looks pretty good, 2 is still a bit cloudy). I would like to add some clearing agent (or whatever you call it), to try to get at least one in bottles by Christmas. Wondering what you folks might recommend? I have some Bentonite, and also some Isinglass. I know there's a lot of literature about fining, and I'm trying to learn it, but hoping to get a little guidance here, too.

Thank you!

Mark

 

[heatherd]

If you are sure they are fully degassed you can use isinglas or superkleer. They will clear on their own, given enough time, but a clearing agent will speed things up.


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[cintipam]

Mark, go read this thread about bottling too soon. The biggest problem for a newbie is they just don't get how long it take to really fully degas. If actual fermentation does begin again, the bottles turn into bottle bombs that at best make a mess at worse explode in your hands causing you physical damage. Not good.

http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f5/sediment-issues-47766/#post541341

Pam in cinti

 

[Just-a-Guy]

Thanks Heather and Pam.

I've racked both the DB and the grape with the allineone; I've racked the DB twice with the allinone. In addition, I have pumped one of those silly wine vacs til I thought I was gonna go nuts. I'm getting nothing from the DB - if I pump long enough, I can get a few large bubbles to come up. The grape I am down to a handful of large bubbles when I pump hard -- I don't think it's CO2 in either case. (I have a brake bleeder on order, but I think the vacu vin or whatever it is seems to work ok if you have the patience).

My plan is to rack all the wines again in the next few days (first time for the pear), using the allinone, and in the process add a fining agent. Then let them sit for a week or so, then rack again and add sorbate, wait a week, then back sweeten to taste. Then wait another week and filter using the allineone and whole house setup I bought. Then bottle.

Hey, I'm not making fine cabs here... just some quick fruit wines for fun.

From what I've been able to determine from reading, no one agrees about much of anything when it comes to fining agents. Some say always use bentonite, some say never. Some say use it in the primary, some say use it in the secondary. Etc.

I think since I have some I will use it in this racking, then maybe consider some isinglass when I rack to add the sorbate (in a week or so). Unless someone tells me this is a bad plan....

Mark

Edit: I'll read the bottling thread now, thanks! (OK - I've read that thread before, got it!)

Second Edit: I'm familiar with bottle bombs from brewing. So is my wife, unfortunately....

 

[cintipam]

If it's only going to sit a week don't use sparkolloid. That takes more than a month to fully drop, even then it's soo floaty that it disturbs easily. Stuff looks clerar a lot earlier, but will drop more and it looks ghostly weird in the bottle. I am highly allergic to shellfish so the only other product I use is bentonite. Don't use too much, it will strip flavor, but it will clear pretty quickly. I tend to filter everything I use sparkolloid or bentonite in just to be safe,

Pam in cinti

 

[cintipam]

BTW congrats on the AIO. You'll never regret it. If you got the degassing attmt all you need to do to be certain it is degassed is to rack it back and forth a few times. Don't need to bother with vacuvin or brake bleeder.

Pam in cinti

 

[Just-a-Guy]

Thanks. Yeah, I racked the DB twice with the AIO, and seriously, I thought something was wrong, I couldn't any CO2 to come up with the vacu vin. It's remarkable. I love this thing.

 

[Rodnboro]

Superkleer is the best I've found. Just make sure it's ready first.


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[cdjohnston]

Here's an excellent little paper on the why and what of fining agents. 

http://www.uark.edu/depts/ifse/grapeprog/articles/nmc14wg.pdf

Mildly technical but very helpful. One thing they talk about on the gelatin - be careful with over-fining. If you over-do it, they talk about getting bitter in the wine. well, it can also unbind various hydrogen sulfides from the tannin polyphenols to give you stinky wine.

 

[cdevrard]

I second this. Just used superkleer on my first batch of dragon blood and wow! It has been 7 days and it is the clearest wine I've ever made.

CE

Superkleer is the best I've found. Just make sure it's ready first.


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[Just-a-Guy]

I second this. Just used superkleer on my first batch of dragon blood and wow! It has been 7 days and it is the clearest wine I've ever made.

CE

For the DB, when did you add the Superkleer (I realize it is a two-stage process, just wondering if you did it from the start or somewhere along the way)?

Thanks!

Mark

 

[Just-a-Guy]

Well, I moved the pear from the bucket to a carboy tonight, using gravity from a spigot. Then I racked off the grape from one carboy to another, using the AIO. The latter was about 5 times as fast (how many times I have moved beer from the fermentation bucket with the gravity/spigot method... never again!).

For each batch, I heated up a TS of bentonite. What a pain in the aspirin that stuff is! Me and The Boy spent a good 20 minutes trying to get two sauce pans with 1 c each of water to dissolve that crap. Finally got it done, and added it to the carboys prior to transfer, along with 2 ts each of k-meta (dissolved separately). I filled the hydrometer tube from each batch (SG around 1.000, I thought it would be lower, but ok). Then poured that off into a couple of glasses to drink. Not bad! (I have low ambitions.)

Less than an hour later, you can already see sediment and some clearing in each of the grape and pear.

About to mix up a fourth batch, probably a pear/apple. Maybe a strawberry or blueberry (so many choices!). Whatever it is, it will ferment in a ss conical for the first time in this house. We're moving up in the world (even if it's just hardware-wise).

 

[heatherd]

Looks good! If you are not allergic to shellfish, superkleer kc is the way to go. Directions are on the package but you degas and stabilize, then add the first packet. You can add the second packet in an hour. It will be amazingly clear in about a day. Only downside is that you need to be sure that nobody who drinks the wine has a shellfish allergy (like Pam) because that could actually be lethal depending on the severity of the person's sensitivity. Hence the warning stickers people put on their bottles...

 

[cdevrard]

I just followed the DB directions and the super kleer instructions. After no SG change for three days I K meta-ed, and Sorbated. Then degassed. Next I did the super kleer (both steps/phases) and finally racked into carboys. I've never done it all in one afternoon like that but it was simple and seems to have worked well. Guess I'll know for sure when I go to back sweeten.

For the DB, when did you add the Superkleer (I realize it is a two-stage process, just wondering if you did it from the start or somewhere along the way)?

Thanks!

Mark

 

[Rodnboro]

From what I understand, SuperKleer is safe due to the derivative coming from sucrose in the shellfish and not the protein. The protein is what causes the allergic reactions. Then again, I'm not a chemist or scientist either.


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[calvin]

I found this with a quick google search. Supposedly it is a quote from web md

Shellfish allergy: Chitosan is taken from the outer skeleton of shellfish. There is a concern that people with allergies to shellfish might also be allergic to chitosan. However, people who are allergic to shellfish are allergic to the meat, not the shell. So some experts believe that chitosan may not be a problem for people with shellfish allergy."

If I had a serious shellfish allergy I would do some of my own research

 

[Just-a-Guy]

This is the pear 24 hours after racking onto the bentonite. I'm new at this, so I don't know how normal this is (whether it would have happened with or without the bentonite). But this wine was very cloudy, and it seems to be rapidly clearing out now.

Also, just a passing note -- although I had "de-gassed" the grape wine with the Vacu-Vin till I was blue in the face (and The Boy did, too), over a period of two days, when I racked it into a second carboy using the AIO (first time with the AIO on that wine), I got a ton of foam. Probably 8 inches of foam when the receiving carboy was 2/3 full. Remarkable.

 

[cintipam]

Hi

racking onto bentonite? My directions say to mix with very hot water, let sit, stir again then stir hard into the wine. If all you did was rack onto it I'm impressed it is working. I do know there are a couple diff versions of bentonite with very different instructions, so follow whatever your pkg said. But I googled for instructions and learned a few things from it. Here is the link if you are interested.

http://www.eckraus.com/wine-making-bentonite/

Some fruits are much harder to clear than others. Peach, pear, strawberry, niagara grape are a couple tough to clear that come to mind. That's why most folks go ahead and add bentonite about day 3 into fermentation on them.

Pam in cinti

 

[Just-a-Guy]

Hi

racking onto bentonite? My directions say to mix with very hot water, let sit, stir again then stir hard into the wine. If all you did was rack onto it I'm impressed it is working. I do know there are a couple diff versions of bentonite with very different instructions, so follow whatever your pkg said. But I googled for instructions and learned a few things from it. Here is the link if you are interested.

http://www.eckraus.com/wine-making-bentonite/

Some fruits are much harder to clear than others. Peach, pear, strawberry, niagara grape are a couple tough to clear that come to mind. That's why most folks go ahead and add bentonite about day 3 into fermentation on them.

Pam in cinti

Thanks, Pam, I'll have a look at that.

It's kind of funny, actually, I've scoured the internet (and this site) for info about how/when/where etc to use bentonite (and other fining agents). Reminds me of the old saying about economists, "If you line them up in a line long enough to go around the world, they wouldn't reach a conclusion."

I don't know if the pear is clearing out "on its own", or if the bentonite is helping. FWIW, the grape, which had been in the secondary longer, and which I did the same way on the same night, also has about an inch of sludge on the bottom now. I'm not gonna stir either one at this point.

 

[cintipam]

Just reread your note about how you did the bentonite. sounds like that was good but did I read you put 2 t (teaspoons) in EACH carboy of Kmeta? normal dose is 1/4 tsp per each 5 or 6 gallon carboy. I just wanted to be sure since you are kinda new to wine.

Pam in cinti