What are the Pros and Cons of Filtering?

[Dominick]

What are the Pros and Cons of Filtering from your experiences?

 

[JimCook]

On a basic level, fining and filtering are similar - they both take out something from the wine to try and improve another facet. In most cases, it's a matter of removing some kind of solids that may sediment out or are causing the wine to be cloudy. While the advantage of a potentially cleaner looking wine may be offset by the stripping out of potentially valuable flavor components in a wine, I think the end question comes down to why do you want to filter?


If you need to get a carboy emptied quickly because you're out of space and want to make more wine, filtering can help to prevent 'fallout' in the bottle and still get your carboy emptied. But if you have the time, many of these items may settle out on their own with bulk aging and you may avoid taking the positives out of the wine.


Filtering also requires more equipment (pads, pumps, etc.). I personally do not filter my wines asI let gravity work for me over time. While other people here do filter there wines, it would take a blind side-by-side comparison of the same kit with part filtered and part not filtered to experience the true effect, if any, on the wine.


- Jim

 

[Dominick]

When I rearranged my bottles on the rack I seen a few of the bottles had some sediment deposit on the bottom of the bottle as there laying down.


I was wondering if the filtering would help that problem for future wines or would it go away naturally as it ages?


It looked white but when i turned the bottle it looked purplish if that makes any sense. I have a feeling it is Tartaric Acid.

Edited by: Dominick

 

[JimCook]

What was the timeframe between yeast pitching and bottling?

- Jim

 

[Dominick]

Yeast pitched 15 June 2008
Bottled Sunday Sept 21st.


The cellar is still kinda warm with temps between 65F- 70F

Edited by: Dominick

 

[SouthernMan]

I've never used a filter on any of the wines that I've made in the past nor do I plan on purchasing one, because I use a fining agent (Kitsol 40) and I carefully rack and I've never had any issues to make me go out and purchase a filter.

 

[Dominick]

Yes Im not wanting to filter, but i also dont want white patchs in my bottles. I will take a picture of the bottle when I get home from work.


When I transfered back to the fermenting bucket to get ready to bottle, there wasno sediment on the bottom of the carboy at all. Looked perfect.

 

[JimCook]

Dominick,


I don't know if I'm the norm or not, but my wine doesn't hit a bottle for an absolute minimum of six months. Many of the kit instructions say you can have a wine in the bottle in four to six weeks and some of them also note to filter and I believe that the short time frame to bottle is the reason.


Your wine was at 13 weeksbefore bottling - did you add already dissolved K-meta to the wine before bottling or pour it in dry?


My basement wine area is between 63-68 F depending on the season, by the way, so I wouldn't sweat the temperature.


- JimEdited by: JimCook

 

[Dominick]

Yes I added the Sorbate that came with the kit, and I crushed up 4 camdem tabletsboth dissolved (seperate)in 2oz of water and then added to carboy, then degassed for around 10mins or so on high.








I put a light on the other side of the bottles and looked through and the red color is really nice and clear, i made sure i didnt bottle cloudy wine.


I will get a picture of it when i get home.
Leaving work here in like 40mins.Edited by: Dominick

 

[JimCook]

Dominick,


What kit was it? Personally, I'm a fan of letting things settle before I bottle, the only exception being the bit of K-Meta that I add before bottling. Perhaps there was just a little too much going on immediately before bottle for the wine to be stable in terms of sediment. I'm curious to see the picture.


- Jim

 

[Wade E]

13 weeks is a little short for bottling. If bottling that quick then you will need a filter. A Vinbrite gravity filter is cheap and the pads are cheap too. I have used my gravity filter and tasted side by side and have not noticed a difference but must also say that some people have stronger taste senses too. I do not use my filter all the time and never on reds as I feel that they should be bulk aged long enough that they should not drop anything but diamonds and that is only with very high end kits. I will sometimes filter my whites just to make them pristine and it does work great.

 

[Dominick]

Edited by: Dominick

 

[Wade E]

Being that that is a red wine and the stuff is white it is most likely
the fining agent that had not settled out. SuperKleer will settle out
very fast but some of the others like Chitosan will take some time. Question, did you degas well before fining cause if mot this may be the reason as a gassy wine will not clear properly and will settle later with time as did.I learned this with my first 2 wines.
Edited by: wade

 

[Dominick]

After degassing in the carboy, i let it sit for few days then transfered to the fermenting bucket to bottle. So the wine was in the fermenting bucket i added the sorbate and the camden tablets at the same time, then degasses to mix up the sorbate and camden then i bottled.

Hopefully it will just disappear and now i know for my next batches to slow down the process and be more patient. The thing that bugs me out is there wasn't a drop of sediment in the carboy after i transfered it to the fermenter to bottle.

 

[Wade E]

But did you degas bfore adding the fining agent or did you not use fining agent?

 

[Dominick]

i have not added anything, just used whatever came with the kit and the camden tablets i added with the Sorbate(that came with the kit) in the end. That was it.


Edited by: Dominick

 

[Wade E]

Every kit comes with a clarifying agent! Maybe you added this right before bottling.

 

[Dominick]

if the siligel and liquigel is the finning agent then yes, it was added, after it was added it was degassed a lot, plus that was added many weeks before bottling maybe a month or so.

if your talking about the Bentonite, this was added at fermentation along with the yeast into the must to kick off the fermentation.Edited by: Dominick

 

[Wade E]

The siligel and liquigel are the fining agents and degassing should be done before adding a fining agent as gas in the wine will prevent the wine from clearing well. That might be why your wine dropped sediment in your bottles as you got the gas out right before bottling and then it finally dropped the rest.

 

[uavwmn]

Jim, I think I may be one of these people "out of the norm". I usually bottle a month after the last racking. I take the auto thief and pour some in a glass to see if the wine is clear. All of my wines to date are not cloudy or have sediment in the bottles.
Either I am incredibly lucky or the wine wizards shine upon my wines in my rack!! hahaha