Pectin haze?

[Val-the-Brew-Gal]

I made a Dragon Blood variety with grapes as my fruit. I followed the recipe, adding pectic enzyme as suggested. The wine fermented, I racked it multiple times with my AIO, treated, backsweetened and added SuperKleer. A week later, the wine has only dropped a small amount of sediment and it is super cloudy yet. I racked it again, thinking maybe it wasn't degassed enough and though it's dropped a tiny bit more sediment since, it is still very cloudy. There may be a bit of clearing right at the top of the carboy but the rest has really wispy looking suspended particles.

So could it be pectin haze even though I added the standard dose of enzyme before fermentation? I read about testing for it using methylated spirits? Can you do that with rubbing alcohol instead? Or should I just add more enzyme, and/or re-dose with SuperKleer?

 

[Rice_Guy]

a few times when reading in this forum I noted the word patience

There may be a bit of clearing right at the top of the carboy but the rest has really wispy looking suspended particles

pectic enzyme will not hurt, it is basically transparent on the finished product.

 

[salcoco]

super kleer needs an ambient temp of 70deg f or more

 

[Val-the-Brew-Gal]

super kleer needs an ambient temp of 70deg f or more

The thermostat in my wine room is set at 72° and another wine treated with SuperKleer at the same time (different fruit mix though) cleared within a week.

 

[winemaker81]

Since you added pectic enzyme earlier in the process, that's not likely the problem. My first 2 guesses are the wine is not degassed and/or the kieselsol/chitosan was added in the wrong order.

#1 is easy to check -- rack the wine into a primary (don't worry about sucking up sediment) and give it a good stir. If it foams a lot, that's likely the problem. Rack back into the carboy and give it a week. [do NOT stir in a full carboy, you'll get first hand knowledge of what a volcano is like]

If #1 is negative, you can try another dose of superKleer, making sure you use them in the correct order.

 

[salcoco]

I would use a double dose of pectic enzyme before using super kleer again.

 

[Val-the-Brew-Gal]

Since you added pectic enzyme earlier in the process, that's not likely the problem. My first 2 guesses are the wine is not degassed and/or the kieselsol/chitosan was added in the wrong order.

#1 is easy to check -- rack the wine into a primary (don't worry about sucking up sediment) and give it a good stir. If it foams a lot, that's likely the problem. Rack back into the carboy and give it a week. [do NOT stir in a full carboy, you'll get first hand knowledge of what a volcano is like]

If #1 is negative, you can try another dose of superKleer, making sure you use them in the correct order.

Thanks for the ideas but I racked the wine at least 5 times with my All In One and I've used SuperKleer easily 50 times in the past so I'm almost positive that I didn't reverse the order. Normally I would be more patient and give it time but I'm making this for a friend's party the first week of December and so I'm hoping to come up with some sort of solution.

 

[winemaker81]

Gotcha.

Follow @salcoco's advice and hit it hard with pectic enzyme. If that is the problem, you'll know within a couple of days. If it doesn't start to clear, either hit it with SuperKleeer again, or try a different fining agent. Nothing else is coming to mind.

 

[Val-the-Brew-Gal]

Gotcha.

Follow @salcoco's advice and hit it hard with pectic enzyme. If that is the problem, you'll know within a couple of days. If it doesn't start to clear, either hit it with SuperKleeer again, or try a different fining agent. Nothing else is coming to mind.

Thanks, I'll give it a go!

 

[WBW61]

The typical answer is to give it time. But it seems you are running out of time to meet your December party. While not a cheap solution you may want to borrow or purchase a filtration system. I use a Buon Vista Minijet (around $200) with a #2 pad for polishing. A #1 coarse pad may get you past your dilemma!

 

[cmason1957]

Never filter a cloudy wine, it will just clog up the filter. Filtering is to polish, not clear your wine.

 

[WBW61]

Yes, I've read over and over to not filter cloudy wine. But being in the same situation as Val-the-Brew-Gal I decided what the heck. Using a #1 coarse 5.0 micron filter I was able to remove a pectic haze without clogging the filter. I would not try this with a #2 polish 1.8 micron as it would surely clog. See attached photos.

 

[montanarick]

tried bentonite?

 

[WBW61]

This is a Winexpert kit wine where I added the bentonite at the startup. I've made 20 or so kits this year and only had this problem twice.

 

[montanarick]

from the pics you attached it looks like normal sediment in the bottom of the carboy and not cloudy wine - maybe i missed something. if that's the case then don't try to get every little bit of wine out when you rack otherwise you'll just keep getting the sediment. hope this helps

 

[Val-the-Brew-Gal]

Thanks for all the replies and suggestions! I added a dose of pectic enzyme, waited a day and then re-treated it with SuperKleer. It's clearing beautifully now