Hazy Wine

[SouthernVino]

Need a little advice. I have a four gallon batch of Strawberry wine and two gallon batch of Chardonnay that I have in clearing. Both have generally cleared, but they have a little haze still left. Generally, I would just wait it out, but I need the carboys. I have a feeling it may be a pectic haze. I was wondering if dropping in a little pectic enzyme might speed the clearing. Or, does anyone else have any other suggestions or comments?

 

[garymc]

The first thing I would go to is pectic enzyme.

 

[Arne]

I can almost guarantee if you bottle a hazy strawberry, you are going to have at least a dusting fall out when it is in the bottle, maybe a bit more. Don't know about the Chardonnay. Good luck withe it, Arne.

 

[jgmann67]

There is a four step process to solving this problem:

1. Search craigslist for carboys.

2. Buy more carboys.

3. Dose your strawberry and chard with pectin enzyme (I recommend doing 2x the suggested dosage).

4. Wait until your wine is ready for bottling.

 

[Jal5]

The pectin enzyme really saved me on several batches of fruit wine this last year. I used 2x the recommended dose with no ill effects.

 

[SouthernVino]

Thanks to all. Looks like my assessment seem to be correct based on everyone's comments. I dropped some more pectic enzyme this morning. Now, the wait.

Arne, you are probably correct. That is why I want the haze gone.

jgmann67, buying more carboys is not the problem. Having a space to store all the carboys is. I have an entire room I use for winemaking and there is currently carboys, FastFermenters, buckets, corkers, boxes of bottles, etc. everywhere. Don't need more equipment, just fellow winemakers helping me to improve my skills, problem solving and process.

Will update with results soon.

 

[jgmann67]

Thanks to all. Looks like my assessment seem to be correct based on everyone's comments. I dropped some more pectic enzyme this morning. Now, the wait.

Arne, you are probably correct. That is why I want the haze gone.

jgmann67, buying more carboys is not the problem. Having a space to store all the carboys is. I have an entire room I use for winemaking and there is currently carboys, FastFermenters, buckets, corkers, boxes of bottles, etc. everywhere. Don't need more equipment, just fellow winemakers helping me to improve my skills, problem solving and process.

Will update with results soon.

Ahhh, yours is a storage issue. I’m lucky to have a storage room across the hall from my wine room to store bottles and carboys.

 

[Michael Alspaugh]

Thanks to all. Looks like my assessment seem to be correct based on everyone's comments. I dropped some more pectic enzyme this morning. Now, the wait.

Arne, you are probably correct. That is why I want the haze gone.

jgmann67, buying more carboys is not the problem. Having a space to store all the carboys is. I have an entire room I use for winemaking and there is currently carboys, FastFermenters, buckets, corkers, boxes of bottles, etc. everywhere. Don't need more equipment, just fellow winemakers helping me to improve my skills, problem solving and process.

Will update with results soon.

I had that problem "STORAGE" then I went to Costco and got a few racks to store my equipment and some milk crates for empty bottles things are look-in up!

 

[Ct Winemaker]

Hello,

Interested in thoughts on this wine / haze. It’s Riesling made last fall, been through “the ringer” trying to eliminate the haze you can see in the photo showing the light beam. This wine has had bentonite (twice) colds stabilized (1 month at 32 deg. F), and pectin enzyme treatment.

Is this as clear as white gets before filtering or is this haze something we should continue to try to eliminate? What do you all think?

Thank you.

 

[Johnd]

View attachment 55881 View attachment 55880 Hello,

Interested in thoughts on this wine / haze. It’s Riesling made last fall, been through “the ringer” trying to eliminate the haze you can see in the photo showing the light beam. This wine has had bentonite (twice) colds stabilized (1 month at 32 deg. F), and pectin enzyme treatment.

Is this as clear as white gets before filtering or is this haze something we should continue to try to eliminate? What do you all think?

Thank you.

The regimen for most finings has two additives, one to attract + particles, one to attract - particles, chitosan is often used after bentonite, as it handles the particles bentonite doesn’t. Just an observation of your process to date.

Picture of the flashlight beam notwithstanding, that wine looks pretty darn clear to me. Maybe the light beam is showing something other than haze, maybe some freaky, little known light refraction law of science ( @sour_grapes ?) is responsible.

At any rate, you can certainly filter before bottling if you like, it appears to me to be ready.

 

[jgmann67]

View attachment 55881 View attachment 55880 Hello,

Interested in thoughts on this wine / haze. It’s Riesling made last fall, been through “the ringer” trying to eliminate the haze you can see in the photo showing the light beam. This wine has had bentonite (twice) colds stabilized (1 month at 32 deg. F), and pectin enzyme treatment.

Is this as clear as white gets before filtering or is this haze something we should continue to try to eliminate? What do you all think?

Thank you.

If your wine tastes to your liking, I’d say bottle it. It looks great.

 

[sour_grapes]

I don't know of any subtle optical effects. I would be thrilled with wine that is as clear as yours!

 

[stickman]

I think what @Johnd is referring to is the Tyndall effect. Because wine is colloidal and not a true solution, even when "clear" it can scatter light when viewed from the side. I suspect there is some particulate present, but the blue color in the light beam is probably from the Tyndall effect.

Obviously I'm just throwing out some trivia; I agree with the other comments, the wine looks clear to me.

 

[sour_grapes]

I think what @Johnd is referring to is the Tyndall effect. Because wine is colloidal and not a true solution, even when "clear" it can scatter light when viewed from the side. I suspect there is some particulate present, but the blue color in the light beam is probably from the Tyndall effect.

Obviously I'm just throwing out some trivia; I agree with the other comments, the wine looks clear to me.

Nice work! I think you nailed it.

To be honest, I was unfamiliar with the term "Tyndall effect." In my corner of the universe, we usually call that "Mie scattering." (Mie scattering theory is only strictly applicable for spherical particles, but we sloppily generalize the term to non-spherical particles.) Glad to have learned something.

 

[Ct Winemaker]

Thanks All, OK, stop messing with it, filter and bottle!

 

[SouthernVino]

As promised. I said I would provide an update after implementing your suggestions to my pectic haze. As you can see, turned out perfect. Thanks to all.