Filtering

Winemaking Wine Filters

Just before you decide to bottle your hand crafted wine, you may want to filter it. Most home winemakers do not filter their wine but those wines will likely throw some sediment as the wine ages in the bottle (regardless of how clear the wine is when you bottle it.) You can just decant it off of any sediment upon opening the bottle.

A coffee filter will not do the trick as you must pass the wine through a filter pad that can remove yeast cells which are about the same size as a red blood cell. If you do want to filter your wine, You must use a Wine Filter System . Filtration helps to insure that as the wine matures in the bottle, a sediment does not form. Filtration also creates a professional looking 'polish' to the wine. In wine made from fresh grapes or grape juice, the filter will also remove unstable tartaric acid (wine diamonds) and tannins. Filtration is most effective when the wine is chilled prior to filtration. If possible, allow the wine to sit in spare fridge or out doors at 45 deg F. for a week or so prior to filtering. Then, pass the wine through the wine filter while the wine is still cold. Allow the wine to warm to room temp before bottling it.

The type of wine filter you choose will largely depend on the volume of wine to be filtered. For the average winemaker making only a few gallons of wine to as much as 10 gallons at a time, we recommend both the Vintage Shop Pressure Filter System and the Buon Vino Mini-Jet System.

The Vintage shop pressure filter does an excellent job of filtration but requires the winemaker to siphon the wine to a pressure tank prior to filtering. The MiniJet also does an excellent job of filtration and uses a motorized pump to pull the wine up out of the bulk tank and push it through the filter pad. For the winemaker producing or filtering more than 25 gallons at a time, we recommend the Buon Vino Super Jet. The Superjet also utilizes a pump to pull the wine from the bulk tank and pass it through filter pads of various sizes. It also uses a guage which allows the user to monitor the filter pad usage and change filter pads at the proper time.