# What are the Pros and Cons of Filtering?



## Dominick (Sep 26, 2008)

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


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## JimCook (Sep 26, 2008)

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


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## Dominick (Sep 26, 2008)

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 *


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## JimCook (Sep 26, 2008)

What was the timeframe between yeast pitching and bottling?

- Jim


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## Dominick (Sep 26, 2008)

Yeast pitched 15 June 2008
Bottled Sunday Sept 21st.


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

*Edited by: Dominick *


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## SouthernMan (Sep 26, 2008)

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.


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## Dominick (Sep 26, 2008)

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.


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## JimCook (Sep 26, 2008)

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. 


- Jim*Edited by: JimCook *


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## Dominick (Sep 26, 2008)

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 *


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## JimCook (Sep 26, 2008)

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


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## Wade E (Sep 26, 2008)

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.


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## Dominick (Sep 26, 2008)

*Edited by: Dominick *


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## Wade E (Sep 26, 2008)

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 *


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## Dominick (Sep 26, 2008)

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.


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## Wade E (Sep 26, 2008)

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


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## Dominick (Sep 26, 2008)

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 *


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## Wade E (Sep 26, 2008)

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


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## Dominick (Sep 26, 2008)

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 *


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## Wade E (Sep 26, 2008)

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.


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## uavwmn (Sep 27, 2008)

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


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## PolishWineP (Sep 27, 2008)

Time can be very good for settling your wines, maybe even an extra racking after some extra time in the carboy. I don't think we've ever filtered a red; we don't seem to mind the sediment in the reds like we do the whites. 
We use a gravity filter, low cost, low stress, no noise. But really, time in the carboy can be your best friend.


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## Dean (Sep 27, 2008)

What was the temperature of the wine when you were degassing? If the wine was below 74F, then you will have a much harder time degassing the wine. You need to measure the liquid temperature and not the ambient temperature to get an accurate temperature. I usually degass all my wines at closer to 78F.


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## Dominick (Sep 27, 2008)

I tried something lastnight.

Around midnight I grabbed a bottle off the rack and put it in the refrigerator
just checked the bottle now after racking the Lambrusco, and it has no sediment marks, nothing on the sides of the bottle like the earlier pics on this post. 

It is still laying down in the fridge so im gonna let it sit there too see if any sediment appears to stick to the bottle or if it floats in the wine.


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## Dominick (Sep 27, 2008)

Dean i did not take temp when i degassed. Ill make sure to give that a try next time. - My cellar temp was around 73-74 at the time. - Didnt temp the juice though. I remember degassing before & after the liquigel & siligel, i followed directions that were in the MM booklet. I try to go exact to those directions. 

The only thing different i done was 

1. added yeast nutrients into the must right before the 1st racking
2. added 4-5 camdem tablets along with the Sorbate before bottling

I think, I should of never added the liquigel and siligel, 
It says too bottle about 8days after adding that, but i didnt i let it sit in the carboy longer. -- what i should of done was not add the fining agents. --- and right before bottling added them. Thats what I'm thinking.


*Edited by: Dominick *


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## Wade E (Sep 27, 2008)

Another good thing to do is rack off the sediment from clearing and let it sit in that carboy for awhile and then bottle from there or from a bottling bucket with spigot. this way lets you bottle from a vessel with much less sediment in there so as not to get as much or any in your bottles. I always do this!!!!!!!Even if its only a few days between you will get much less sediment this way!
*Edited by: wade *


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## JimCook (Sep 27, 2008)

Dominick,


On the new Mosti instructions, I believe it states that if you are planning on bulk aging the wine to delay adding the liquigel and siligel until 8-10 days before bottling. Based on Wade's excellent advice about degassing before clarifying, I would personally let it sit a bit longer than 8-10 days. Time is your friend here, to the point where you may actually not need the clarifiers at all. Worst case scenario, you can pop the bottlesand put the wine back into a carboy to let the sediment drop out before bottling again. 


Uavwmn - I think a lot of people bottle early, so who knows what the 'norm' really is. I try to emulate the scale of a production winery's timeframes, so I'd rather have stuff aging en masse, but that's just me. 


- Jim


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## Dominick (Sep 27, 2008)

My last racking I left the sediment behind. 

Then I transfered the wine from the carboy to the fermenting bucket. 
When I did that there was no sediment in the carboy. The wine was clear.

Thats why im really surprised to see sediment in the bottles.


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## Wade E (Sep 27, 2008)

Sounds like you did everything right then except giving it more time.


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## Dominick (Sep 27, 2008)

yea gonna start writing down dates and keeping track of the time.
i wanna get this down pat, its good to have have some sediment in the bottle, but not at this early age, if it was aging for 2yrs or more, then i guess it would'nt be that bad. 

So would you consider this wine corked? - Would you drink this wine after it aged some? Can use decanter to leave the sediment in the bottle?

This is the Nero. I really dont want to toss it out.


*Edited by: Dominick *


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## Wade E (Sep 27, 2008)

To be honest I might *consider* putting this back into carboy to let everything settle out if you feel that this is a fining agent and enough in there that might give you an off flavor as a fining agent can do if left on there too long. On the other hand if its not fining agent residue or not that much of it then I would decant as you said and leave the residue behind or just pour carefully out of the bottle.


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## Dominick (Sep 27, 2008)

I just opened 2 bottles.

1 bottle of my Nero that i put in the refridge lastnight
1 bottle of Arancio 2006 Nero D'Avola

Since i put my Nero in the refridge last night the sediment has disappeared, so I pop the cork on the bottle to smell and taste.

Also opened the Arancio 2006 and smell and taste.
Had my dad do the tasting with me.

We both came to conclusion my NERO is 100% better in smell, taste, and everything. So I just grabbed another bottle off my rack one that is showing the sediment and put that one in the refridgerator. Now i want to see if the sediment is gonna disappear like the bottle from lastnight.

No sun out today so i put a flashlight under the glass and looked at the wine. Although not crystal clear it was Clear. 





This is what it looks like with about 2inches of wine in the cup.

and

This is what it looked like with the glass half full. I see maybe 3 dots.





I used a regular glass not a wine glass.
I'm gonna take the shot and keep it in the bottles and take it from there.
Hopefully it will turn out Ok.

After pouring out the wine from the bottle of Arancio, we saw there was alot of sediment on the bottom of that bottle.*Edited by: Dominick *


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## uavwmn (Sep 28, 2008)

Jim, the bulk aging is hard for me!! I seem to have more patience "aging" my wine in a bottle all cozy with the other bottles in my wine rack.


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## rshosted (Oct 14, 2008)

I have a filter and have done it both ways. I, too, have found that white 'stuff' in a bottle, even after filtering. I have done wines since, filtered and unfiltered and found they do not have that 'stuff' in them. Here are a few things I have 'fixed' about my technique. 

I bulk age a LONG time now. Usually a year. But I also barrel now too and use time in a carboy. 

I degas much better. I use a vacuum degasser and turn it on and let it degas.

I stopped using camden tablets and purchased a scale. I use potassium metabisulfite directly. I have no clue what they use as a 'filler in camden tablets. I know it won't hurt you but that extra stuff has to go somewhere if it isn't absorbed. (which it might, but I don't know.) 

I've noticed in fresh grape wines that I've made they also drop a white powder looking stuff. It's pretty cool actually. Also, I would NOT open up any of the bottles if they are already bottled and pour them back into a carboy for fining; just learn from your experiences. Drink the wine and make more. 

As for the wines I have seen drop sediment after filtering... I used the filter primarily with reds. I used a large/coarse filter as I didn't want to take any 'flavor' from the wine. In retrospect I don't believe filtering takes flavor. I do KNOW that filtering shocks wine. And many believe that it alters the flavor. It takes a bit longer after filtering it to get back to where it is happy. Much like bottling, but even more invasive. Filtering can affect the protein chains and polysacharides that may be forming in the wine. But they will reform in the bottle after filtering, it just takes longer. 

Anyway, I know filtering causes many many debates and I've done research on both sides. I personally dont believe it makes a difference, other than you will get a clearer wine. 

I've also cold stabilized a few wines. While I didn't get crystals, I did get a fine layer of white dust on the bottom of my carboy. Seemed to clarify it pretty well. So if you live in a climate like I do, leave your carboy in the garage during the winter months and let it cold stabilize. 

Either way, drink and enjoy. I have no doubt that your wine is perfectly drinkable. 
Cheers,
Ryan


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