FILTERING YOUR WINES

One way you can raise your wines to a higher level of perfection
is by employing the use of filtration. There are many
improvements that can be made to a wine through filtration. You
can enhance its appearance, shorten its aging time, lighten its
body and color if so desired, or make the wine more stable,
reducing the chance of re-fermentation while in the bottle.

Adding "polish" to a wine's appearance is the number one reason
home winemakers elect to filter their wines. Any wine can have
its appearance remarkably improved with even the coarsest level
of filtration.

Coarse filtration can make a wine that already looks clear,
become even more radiant and brilliant than one would suspect. It
can take a particular wine one step beyond what is already
visually okay. It adds a glassy and pure look to the wine that is
simply appealing.

Performing filtrations with finer filters can shorten the time
required for the wine to become fully mature. It does so by
reducing the excess levels of tannic acid and other proteins.
These elements are one of major root causes of harshness in
younger wines.

This finer filtration can also lighten the wine's color and body
slightly. This type of filtration would be appropriate for all
white wines, many roses, blushes and most red wines such a
Beaujolais.

There are also filtrations that can be performed on wines that
are so fine as to render them almost sterile. This type of
filtration can take a significant portion of the residual yeast
out of the wine, making an accidental re-fermentation much less
likely to occur.


- Limitations Of Filtrations

It is also important to understand that there are some
limitations to what filtration can achieve. Filtration will not
make a cloudy wine become clear. That is not its purpose.

Filtering devices that are designed for winemaking, perform
filtrations that are so fine that they would become clogged very
quickly with a wine that was visibly cloudy. Even wines that are
just slightly murky can pose quite a challenge for most wine
filters.

For stubbornly cloudy wines it is recommended that these wines
first be treated with a "fining" or clearing agent instead of
filtration. The fining agents will collect and drag particles to
the bottom of the vessel, getting the bulk of the cloudiness out
of the way before a filtration is performed.

Once the wine has been successfully cleared with a fining agent,
only then is it ready for filtration. The fining process should
be done about 1 to 2 weeks before the wine is to be filtered.

For more information about the fining agents we offer go to the
following link on our web site.

Fining Agents

-Types Of Wine Filters

There are two major categories of home wine filters: "Gravity
Feed" and "Pressurized" systems.

Gravity Feed Filtration:
Just as the name implies, these types of filter systems are
performed with gravity as the only pressure. A gravity feed
filter system only requires the winemaker to start a siphon from
the wine into the filtering unit.

These types of filter systems are very handy when filtering 1 or
2 gallons of wine at a time. They will perform a coarse
filtration with the same quality and perfection as bigger more
elaborate filtration systems--and they do so for less money.

The negatives are that gravity feed systems are slower than
pressurized systems taking an average of 30 to 45 minutes to
filter 1 gallon of wine. They are also unable to perform finer
filtrations if need be. Only coarse filtrations can be
accomplished with these types of systems.

To see the gravity feed filtering system we offer go to the
following link on our web site:

Vinebrite Wine Filter Kit

Pressurized Filtering Systems:
These types of systems filter a wine by forcing it through filter
pads under pressure. Some apply pressure through motorized pumps.
Others apply pressure manually through hand pumps. Almost all
wineries will employ this type of system on their wines.

While pressurized systems are more expensive than the gravity
feed, they are capable of performing much finer filtrations if
necessary, and do so at a higher rate of speed.

All pressurized filtering systems perform filtrations equally
well. Even the finest filtration is no problem for any of these
units. The main difference between them is speed. Simply put, the
more money you are willing to spend, the faster your filter
system will be.

We offer three different styles of pressurized filtering systems,
all the way from 1 gallon per 10 minutes to 1 gallon per minute.
They are listed as follows:

Pressure Pump Filter System

MiniJet Filter System

SuperJet filter System

-Types Of Filter Pads

There are three different grades of filter pads that are
available to the home winemaker: Coarse, Polish (medium) and
Sterile (fine). They are rated by microns, a very fine unit of
measurement based on the metric system.

To help put the micron into better perspective, here are a few
comparisons: It takes 25,400 microns to equal 1 inch. That means
1/16 of an inch is still 1,587.5 microns. The dot of an "i" in
your local newspaper is still about 200 microns across. And, the
finest particle the human eye can see, with 20/20 vision, is
about 10 microns.

A "Coarse" filter pad is normally rated at 6 microns. What this
means is that for a particle to be able to go through this filter
pad it must be 6 microns or less in size. The "Polish" filter is
normally rated at 1 micron and the "Sterile" filter is normally
rated at 0.5 microns.

Each of these filter pads have a different purpose as well as an
appropriate time they should be used. To jump into filtration
with the attitude that the finest pad is always the best would be
incorrect.

Coarse (6 microns):
This filter pad should be used if you want to add a polish to the
wine without loosing any body or color. An example of this would
be when you are filtering a heavy red such as Pinot Noir, where a
heavy body is key to the wine's character.

Polish/Medium (1 micron):
This is the grade of filter that most winemaker's use. It adds
the best polish possible to a wine while taking out only an
insignificant amount of color and body.

A pass through this filter pad should also be considered a
requirement before attempting to run a wine through any Sterile
or Fine filter pad.

Sterile/Fine (0.5 microns):
This pad is capable of removing at least 80% of the left-over
yeast that may still be lingering in a wine. It is also helpful
in reducing the effects of oxidation that may have overcome a
wine.

It is important to remember that a wine should first be passed
through a Polish filter before using the Sterile or Fine pads--
the issue being the wine may otherwise have more particles to
take out than these extremely fine pads can handle.

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E. C. Kraus

Home Wine & Beer Making Supplies

Address: 733 S. Northern Blvd. - P. O. Box 7850 - Independence, MO  64053

Phone:(816) 254-7448  Fax:(816) 254-7051  Toll Free: (800) 353-1906

Email: customerservice@eckraus.com

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