Wine still cloudy after Kieselsol & Chitosan...

Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum

Help Support Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Dec 28, 2017
Messages
29
Reaction score
4
Hello everyone from Ireland,

I'm brand new on here, so this is probably the first of many beginner questions coming your way! :)
I've just started with a basic wine kit and my first was a Beaverdale Cabernet Sauv.
It fermented fine, got to SG of .990 was racked once and stabilized/degassed before adding the kieselsol when it was left for 24hrs before adding the chitosan.
It's now about 5 to 6 days into the chitosan fining and if I tap a small bit off into a glass, it's still very cloudy. If I let it sit in the glass for a while and then swirl it, you can see the white deposit on the glass as it's settled.
Am I just being impatient because the instructions said 3-7 days to clear after adding the chitosan, or should I have started to see some more clarity by now?
Thanks!
Bren.
 
When I have used the Kieselsol/Chitosan combination, I generally see some clearing in about 24-48 hours. More than likely, you still have an excessive amount of CO2 trapped in your wine and that will keep it from clearing. To test if that is the case or not, put some into your hydrometer test jar (or any somewhat tall) container. Cover with your thumb or hand, what ever it takes and shake, like you are shaking a full soda. When you remove your hand/thumb, if you hear a noticeable pop sound, you got CO2 issues. You can try to remove it by stirring (good luck, never worked for me), using a drill mounted device (again never had much luck with these), time and occasional hard stirring, using vacuum. The last is what I use, combined with time.
 
Thanks for the reply.
If I have to write this one off as a cloudy mess if it turns out to be excessive CO2, is it still ok to bottle? I can live with the cloudiness as a first timers mistake if it's just aesthetics!
Bren
 
I just got home from work and did the shake test as you recommended in the hydrometer tube.
There was a small pop after a vigorous shake when I released my hand.
There is no 'fizziness'/ carbonated taste when sampling.
It sounds like from what you say though that I have trapped CO2, so given the limited success you reckon I'll have removing it at this stage, what are my options?
Cheers
Bren
 
Ok.. I've actually stuck the heating pad under the FV to see if an increased temp helps. The room is definitely no more than 70deg the past few days.
 
Now, I'm just a newbie like yourself, but I had a cloudy Chardonnay and I whipped the devil out of it for ten minutes by a timer with a drill motor. It did finally clear up nicely.IMG_0447.JPG
 
Cool... well i reckon I'll give it 24hrs at the increased temperature from the heating pad and if no change, I'll whip the bejayziz out of it with a drill.
I'm not using a glass DJ but a plastic 30 litre fermenter with an airlock hole that is off to the side, so I can't really put the degassing bit through the hole, anyone know if its ok to do this with the lid off or does that introduce too big a risk of contamination through falling particles or oxygenation?
 

Latest posts

Back
Top