Particles in my wine

[Eric336]

I made some mango and plum wine, filtered it with my buon filtering machine. It was so clear and delicious. Now it has these particles floating in the bottles. I'm so confused. Does anyone know what this is or why it's happening?

 

[Jovimaple]

Welcome to WMT!

What was the final SG of the wine?

How long has it aged?

 

[Eric336]

It was 1.000. It has been aging since june

 

[winemaker81]

Is the SG still 1.000? It's very possible that the wine was not entirely done. I had one a few years ago that quit at 1.000, and resisted all efforts to restart it. Three months later it restarted while bulk aging.

How old was the wine at bottling time?

 

[ratflinger]

If it's complete then treat it like Mr Carson does on Downton Abbey - decant each bottle through a fine sieve into a decanter.

Especially at dinner, a fine decanter of wine is always a pleasant sight.

 

[Rice_Guy]

The BuonVino filter pad does not create a sterile media. The likely answer is that you had free floating yeast cells which clumped into aggregates large enough to see.
* other, plum has significant pectin. Pectin forms a white haze, small particles which you can not identify as individuals. Did you treat the must with pectase.
* more other, proteins in an alcoholic solution can clump when the temperature changes. At first this is a haze and in a year should clump into a film. Was tannin added to the wine? In reds the tannin removes proteins.

 

[Eric336]

The BuonVino filter pad does not create a sterile media. The likely answer is that you had free floating yeast cells which clumped into aggregates large enough to see.
* other, plum has significant pectin. Pectin forms a white haze, small particles which you can not identify as individuals. Did you treat the must with pectase.
* more other, proteins in an alcoholic solution can clump when the temperature changes. At first this is a haze and in a year should clump into a film. Was tannin added to the wine? In reds the tannin removes proteins.

Yes, I added pectase and tannin. Should I have more pectase in the second fermentation as well? I only added it in the first.

 

[Hazelemere]

I made some mango and plum wine, filtered it with my buon filtering machine. It was so clear and delicious. Now it has these particles floating in the bottles. I'm so confused. Does anyone know what this is or why it's happening?

protein haze caused by wine warming up. Protein was dissolved when you used the filter. Bentonite will get rid of it if you use it mid ferment e.g. 6 days into an active ferment. We bentonite all of our white wines at about 2 tbsp bentonite to 2 cups boiling hot water stirred for a couple of minutes with a hand blender and then pour it into 5 Imperial gallons of white wine re-stirring with a plastic stirrer attached to a power drill to get it uniformly mixed. Bentonite takes out all of the sulphite so we always resulphite white wines after they stop fermenting and need to be racked at about 3/8 tsp potassium metabisulphite per 5 Imperial gallons. This gives above 30 ppm free sulphite on addition which can drop to 20-25 after 3 months or so. We try to bottle at about 25 ppm free sulphite.

 

[Eric336]

protein haze caused by wine warming up. Protein was dissolved when you used the filter. Bentonite will get rid of it if you use it mid ferment e.g. 6 days into an active ferment. We bentonite all of our white wines at about 2 tbsp bentonite to 2 cups boiling hot water stirred for a couple of minutes with a hand blender and then pour it into 5 Imperial gallons of white wine re-stirring with a plastic stirrer attached to a power drill to get it uniformly mixed. Bentonite takes out all of the sulphite so we always resulphite white wines after they stop fermenting and need to be racked at about 3/8 tsp potassium metabisulphite per 5 Imperial gallons. This gives above 30 ppm free sulphite on addition which can drop to 20-25 after 3 months or so. We try to bottle at about 25 ppm free sulphite.

Do you use the bentonite in the first fermentation or second or right before bottling.?

 

[winemaker81]

Do you use the bentonite in the first fermentation or second or right before bottling.?

I use all fining agents early in the process, to ensure the wine has cleared. Adding a fining agent near bottling time can produce unsightly results.

It's a slightly different situation, but I'm going to backsweetening a metheglin with frozen apple juice concentrate, adding pectic enzyme (just in case), then hitting it with Bentonite, planning to rack ~2 weeks later. This will bulk age a minimum of 3 months after that, so if there's any late falling sediment, it will be precipitated by that time.

 

[Hazelemere]

Do you use the bentonite in the first fermentation or second or right before bottling.?

first fermentation right in the middle e.g. 6 days active SG is typically 1.020 to 1.050

 

[Eric336]

This i

first fermentation right in the middle e.g. 6 days active SG is typically 1.020 to 1.050

S some information. Thank you

 

[Eric336]

This is good information

 

[Hazelemere]

Do you use the bentonite in the first fermentation or second or right before bottling.?

This is what bentonite did in 16 hours added at 2 tbsp per 2 cups of almost boiling water with stirring and then adding with restirring off of a power drill in a primary and then racked back into carboys in the middle of fermentation e.g. SG above 1.010. This is a Chardonnay from fresh grapes as 1st and 2nd run both at SG 1.092 at start of ferment. We used a whole lb of bentonite to do all of the carboys you see here ~275 bottles of Chardonnay from 900 lbs of grapes. We'll rack and sulphite after the end of ferment (probably a couple of weeks) after we hit SG 0.992-0.994. The mistake that most people make with bentonite is to make it as a cold slurry. This doesn't work. You have to add it as hot slurry with no lumps i.e. use enough hot water.