Floating sediment after bottling

[Digger]

I posted this in the recipe forums but maybe I can get some help here. I made a batch of DB as well as strawberry. Both cleared completely before using a vinbrite filter before bottling. All looked good for a couple weeks and drank/gave away half the bottles. I grabbed a bottle of DB and noticed all this in the wine. It’s in pretty much all the bottles of DB and strawberry. I back-sweetened the DB with sugar and the strawberry with wine conditioner. I used Sparkolloid to clear. Taste fine and don’t really notice the floaters in the glass. Any idea what it is and how to prevent it in the future? I’m going to use Super-Kleer next time to see if that helps.

 

[Scooter68]

How long did you age the wine? Filtering will certainly help but sometimes it takes a while come chemical interactions to happen and precipitate out. Also Vinbrite filters aren't going to catch everything, They are great for polishing but....

 

[Digger]

The strawberry I let clear for about 6 weeks. The DB somewhere around 3 weeks.

 

[Rice_Guy]

* a guess, the (Harris) vinbrite is the old gravity filter with what looks like a 5 inch mat pad. This filter is not designed to remove all yeast cells (0.5 micron absolute cut off), ,,, therefore after you filtered you still had a trace of live yeast cells which can metabolize sugar, ,,, and reproduce if the parts per million sorbate is low enough, or if the alcohol percent is low enough that it doesn’t act in synergy with sorbate the keep the yeast from reproducing.
* the white material probably is yeast, ,,, or a small scale version of lees when racking, ,,,,, yeast is a large cell and a kids microscope (100x) would be able to visually identify this material to confirm the guess.
* my experience has been I will always have live yeast under six months of age. ,,, I will have live yeast roughly one out of twenty batches at nine months age, ,,,, and the yeast will have starved by a year so I can safely back sweeten.

YUP I have seen this defect too, learning curve

 

[Val-the-Brew-Gal]

I posted this in the recipe forums but maybe I can get some help here. I made a batch of DB as well as strawberry. Both cleared completely before using a vinbrite filter before bottling. All looked good for a couple weeks and drank/gave away half the bottles. I grabbed a bottle of DB and noticed all this in the wine. It’s in pretty much all the bottles of DB and strawberry. I back-sweetened the DB with sugar and the strawberry with wine conditioner. I used Sparkolloid to clear. Taste fine and don’t really notice the floaters in the glass. Any idea what it is and how to prevent it in the future? I’m going to use Super-Kleer next time to see if that helps.

I've had this happen probably 3-4 times since I began making wine 6 years ago. I once had a wine drop sediment within a couple days of bottling I know I had it happen on a DB made with all green grapes and on a Skeeter Pee.

What I believe happened in my case is that I was rushing the clearing process i.e. I thought it was maybe clear "enough" and would be fine after filtering when I should have been patient and waited a few more days.

And it should be mentioned here, I too always filter my wine with the Vinbrite but it really is more for polishing. From personal experience as I mentioned above, if your wine isn't perfectly clear before using it, you'll end up with sediment.

I always use SuperKleer for clearing. 98% of the time, your wine is clear within a few days but I give it about a week before bottling just to be safe. Occasionally you'll have a wine that for some reason doesn't want to clear even using SuperKleer. I had that happen recently...I don't know if it was user error or something with the fruit or whatever...but I gave it a second dose and it's pretty clear now just a few days later. Of course, I'll let it sit a few more days to be safe.

One other thought, I would think that maybe sediment issues could arise if the wine wasn't fully degassed...but then you would think that the wine wouldn't want to clear either. I don't know, just a thought.

In the end, sediment usually only effects the visual aspect of the wine. It still tastes good enough to drink

 

[Digger]

Thank you guys. I’m gonna use superkleer next time and give it a little longer to clear before bottling and see if that helps. The wine still does its job tho