Hi,
When is the best time to filter a wine? I have a wine that is about 4 months old and I'am wondering if it is to early to filter it.
Don
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Hello Don,
When first learning how to make your own wine it is important that you don't become too impatient, however since the wine has been bulk aging for 4 months, I would say you've been patient enough. It would be fine to filter your wine at this time.
One of the more common wine making tips I share with beginning winemakers is:
"Only filter your wine after the fermentation has completed and all the visible sediment has had plenty of time to settled out. Never filter a cloudy wine".
You can verify that the wine is done fermenting by testing it with a wine hydrometer. You should be getting a test reading of .998 or less. For more information about this you may want to take a look at the article, "Getting To Know Your Hydrometer" listed on our website.
A wine filter is not designed to remove visible particles in the wine. A wine filter is designed to take out very fine particles, smaller than the human eye can see. This gives the wine a beautiful, polished appearance.
With this in mind it is important to make sure that all the sediment that can fall out of the wine on its own has done so, otherwise the extremely fine filter pads that are used in the wine filter will clog up very quickly.
If you are making wine from wine concentrates, the sediment will fall out very easily if given some time, but if you are making a homemade grape wine from fresh grapes, getting all the sediment to drop out can be a challenge. For this reason, it is suggest that you treat the wine with one of our wine making products called Speedy Bentonite before filtering.
Speedy Bentonite along with several other wine making products we offer are wine fining agents. These fining agents will help to speed up the natural falling-out of the sediment so you can filter your wine sooner and more efficiently. To learn more about fining agents you may want to reading the article, "Using Finings To Improve Your Wine".
Happy Wine Making,
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