Is there yeast filtration options for the home winemaker

[Rocktop]

Reading the literature, it appears you need to filter wine through at least 0.45 micron filter to remove all viable yeast. Is there affordable options for the home wine maker to filter at this level?
For context, say it is a white wine that you would like to slightly back-sweeten without using potassium sorbate adn completely remove the chance of re-activation.

Thank you,
RT

 

[Rice_Guy]

Yes cartridge filters are available, roughly $120 each. Used filters can be stored in alcohol, freezing is not recommend because of ice crystal damage to the membrane.

I use sorbate on wines under nine months age. I have good luck back sweetening wines which are a year old and With nine months age I have sometimes have refermentation. When this happens I have salvaged the batch by removing corks, ,, pasteurizing ,,, and recorking.
A filter which isn’t absolute 0.45 micron is useful since it reduces cell population which combined with free SO2 also lowers the risk of refermentation.

 

[Rocktop]

Thank you Rice_Guy, so a bit googling and found one on more beer .com that fits the profile.
The best part is in the question/comment section someone already noted it fits and works with the filtration assembly recommended with the all in one wine pump which was gonna be my next question.
For storing the filter in alcohol, would you use like a vodka or everclear? Or…

Can you tell me a bit about the process you use to pasteurize? Would that not greatly diminish flavours, especially in a white?

Thank you,
RT

 

[Wayne Freeman]

I use this setup from All-in-one Wine Pumps:

Wine Filter SetupRated 5.00 out of 5

It works fabulously. I do save the filters for a couple of re-uses, and store them in the freezer. I haven't had any issues with diminished effectiveness due to the freezing. The filter cartridge replacements are very inexpensive, so it wouldn't break the bank to replace the cartridges every time, but I'm cheap and haven't had any failures from re-using them a time or two.

I am careful to run some sanitizer through the filter, followed by some fresh filtered water, before re-using them.

As an aside and coincidentally, my parents used this exact setup for 50+ years as a whole-house filter to reduce the heavy concentration of iron in the city water in their small town in Indiana, to prevent staining of their laundry whites and drinking glasses.

 

[Rocktop]

Hi Wayne, I have the same setup too and have used the 5 and 1 micron filters, it works great, but I hadn't seen a 0.45 absolute filter that worked with that setup so thought maybe they didn't exist or people weren't using it to filter out yeast for purposes of back sweetening. I had looked at the cwwltd.ca website shown in the link you included and I didn;t see any 0.45 micron filters listed.

Thank you,

RT

 

[Wayne Freeman]

Hi RT

Hi Wayne, I have the same setup too and have used the 5 and 1 micron filters, it works great, but I hadn't seen a 0.45 absolute filter that worked with that setup so thought maybe they didn't exist or people weren't using it to filter out yeast for purposes of back sweetening. I had looked at the cwwltd.ca website shown in the link you included and I didn;t see any 0.45 micron filters listed.

Thank you,

RT

Hi RT, you're right about that. My understanding is, though (and my information could be very old and I don't remember the source) that too fine a filter could diminish the color of the wine. That's the reason for using the 5 micron for reds and 1 micron for whites. Could the 0.45 micron filter also affect the color of whites? I don't know, and I strongly prefer bone-dry wines, so I don't have to filter out yeast. I do know that I get absolutely no sediment in the wines after filtering with the 1- and 5-micron filters. Additional evidence that the filters that I use remove yeast is that my wife has a food sensitivity to yeast and she has no reaction when drinking either commercial wine or the wine I make. She did before I started filtering my wine, though.

Guess you could say she's my "canary in the coal mine".

 

[sour_grapes]

Hi RT


Hi RT, you're right about that. My understanding is, though (and my information could be very old and I don't remember the source) that too fine a filter could diminish the color of the wine. That's the reason for using the 5 micron for reds and 1 micron for whites. Could the 0.45 micron filter also affect the color of whites? I don't know, and I strongly prefer bone-dry wines, so I don't have to filter out yeast. I do know that I get absolutely no sediment in the wines after filtering with the 1- and 5-micron filters. Additional evidence that the filters that I use remove yeast is that my wife has a food sensitivity to yeast and she has no reaction when drinking either commercial wine or the wine I make. She did before I started filtering my wine, though.

Guess you could say she's my "canary in the coal mine".

I would not worry about the color. Molecules are much, much, much smaller than 0.1 micron.

 

[Wayne Freeman]

I would not worry about the color. Molecules are much, much, much smaller than 0.1 micron.

Okay, I guess wherever I read that, many years ago, was just superstition!

 

[Cap Puncher]

Morewine sells “absolute” filters that filters out 99.8%. They have them in 1 and 3 micron for much cheaper “$12.99”. The 1 micron (and probably 3 micron) absolute should take out yeast cells. Yeast cells are generally 5-7 micron in size. The 0.45 micron are made to remove yeast and most bacteria and considered sterile. However the larger size should take out the yeast. Now, I haven’t tried it but I was looking for a new filter set up. morewine calls them “absolute “ but I’m not sure is 99.8% is considered “absolute” or not.

 

[Rocktop]

Thank you Cap puncher, I can personally attest that the 1 micron doesn’t take out all or enough yeast.
I had a beauty Pinot noir rose I made last year from grapes that had just a touch of residual sweetness that made it perfect, I tried cold crashing and filtering through a 1 micron then bottling. I lost about 10 bottles to blowing corks and was able to catch the rest and chill quickly, meant having rose champagne every night for a while, so not all was lost, but I would have preferred the rose I tasted in the carboy before bottling. I was looking forward to that this summer. That is why I am looking for filtering solution that could avoid this in the future.
Surprised more home wine makers aren’t going the filtration route. I noted in some of the other threads about crossflow filtration, that the flavour of whites was enhanced after filtration. Almost all wineries do it, and we generally pursue their techniques and technology to better our home wines.

To that end, does anyone know if there is a crossflow filtration unit yet that is affordable to very small winery or large wine making association. ?

Thank you,
RT

 

[Cap Puncher]

Hi RT, I guess was the 1 micron filter you used a nominal or absolute filter. A lot of nominal filters only filter out 60-90% at the size they are rated. If it were a 1 micron absolute, maybe it’d be okay?

 

[cmason1957]

If I used a 1 micron, even absolute, I would still adder potassium sorbate and of course metabisulphite to ensure no refermentation.

 

[Rice_Guy]

If a filter was $12.99 I would not trust it to be an absolute filter

Morewine sells “absolute” filters that filters out 99.8%. They have them in 1 and 3 micron for much cheaper “$12.99”. The 1 micron (and probably 3 micron) absolute should take out yeast cells. Yeast cells are generally 5-7 micron in size. The 0.45 micron are made to remove yeast and most bacteria and considered sterile. However the larger size should take out the yeast. Now, I haven’t tried it but I was looking for a new filter set up. morewine calls them “absolute “ but I’m not sure is 99.8% is considered “absolute” or not.

@Rocktop
* 99.8% is not absolute if you have a 10,000 gallon tank you are filtering into, the bigger the volume the bigger the risk
* filter efficiency/ tightness improves as the filter gets dirty (flux rate decreases).
* killing cells is a numbers game, each barrier takes some out so if one combines pH 3 with 13% alcohol, and removing nitrogen (cell material) and filtration (most live cells) and a free SO2 treatment and carbonation you could accomplish a condition where it is stable to refermentation. As a test I dropped a cider carboy to pH 2.8 after primary last year and it appears stable
* some yeast are more sensitive to free SO2 , ,,, switch to a weaker yeast. some yeast are more sensitive to alcohol, use a beer yeast
* a cider (home) pasturizer will run 45 minutes 60C, a beer pasteurizer will do 30 seconds 85C , and if you had live steam milk pasteurizers are half a second 105C

! opinion it is worth filtering with a cheap filter to remove nitrogen sources and adding other barriers as at least 50ppm free SO2, ,,,, most of the time it will work, ,,, you are not doing 10,000 gallon batches

 

[Rocktop]

Excellent advice thank you @Rice_Guy.

Yes, for sure it wasn’t a 1 micron absolute filter , only nominal.


RT

 

[dmw_chef]

How well do the ‘sterile’ filters on the Buon Vino mini work for the purposes of preventing re fermentation? I presume they’re not absolute.

I recently inherited one (and a box full of pads) from my father that I can only assume he had from a business he had a decade ago selling wine from kits (licensed and above board, as an aside it was interesting reading the TDS on the concentrates he used to buy, they’d list YAN, SO2, acid, and turbidity levels among other things; so much more than we get with consumer kits).

I never would have bought one in favor of building a gas pushed cartridge system, but it’s hard to argue with free

 

[Rice_Guy]

@dmw_chef BonVino is currently calling their 0.5 micron pads a sterile filter. The appearance is that they are a cellulose fiber pad so ,,,, my opinion is they are stretching their capability,, , , , however I have not looked for any articles which confirm the guess. The tight filters which I have used were polysulphone plastic with fairly sharp pore size cut off.