What's going on in your winery today..

[fatbloke]

John,
To truly sterile filter wine, you need a 0.45 micron membrane filter. If you have a vacuum setup, there are cartridges available to filter to this level (though it's a very slooooow process). Anything larger than 0.45µ will allow some types of bacteria to pass through.

Any filter arrangement that uses DE pads is incapable of sterile filtering, including the Buon Vino Mini & Super Jet models. These are called "nominal" filters. Under the best conditions they will remove up to 99.9% of particulate, but are not considered sterile.

As for your last question, commercial wineries (US, European, Australian) routinely sterile filter any wine containing residual sugar and/or malic acid to prevent refermentation in the bottle. Most of us home winemakers use potassium sorbate and high levels of SO2 to accomplish the same thing.

Sterile filtering may remove some color & flavor constituents, but I would argue that any bits the filter catches are bits that would eventually settle out at some point anyway. Filters won't remove particles at the molecular level, which is where most color/flavor lies.

Ah, right. That'd definitely make sense. I seem to recall that the enolmatic has a 0.25 micron element available for it - though it's expensive and I don't routinely use my enolmatic for my 1 gallon batches, as it does tend to be quite a long winded process setting it up and it seems to have greater racking losses.

Actually it's one of the reasons I'm thinking of making more 5 gallon batches, just less of them......

regards

jtfb

p.s. ha! I might even just blend all the batches that are bulk ageing under the stairs...... then start afresh.... dunno yet.....

[koomber]

Made a batch of D. Carnegie and Co. Stark-Porter from Clone Brews.

I got to use Honest Abe today for the first time in anger. Turns out milling grain by hand is made almost entirely of fail. Hooked it up to the battery drill for a more enjoyable experience. It's still pretty slow though I think that was more down to me faffing around that the actual mill.

It didn't seem to make any difference to my brew though. Got about the same efficiency as always, though I could have gotten a little more but I oversparged the grain.

Here Begins a Tale of Woe and Idiocy
So at the end of the brew day I was short a wee bit on the OG so I added a dash of DME. By this point my measuring jug is in the dishwasher so I grab my cafetiere. Dissolved the DME in boiling water and poured it in...
What I completely forgot about was that the cafetiere is in two parts: jug and handle. The handle is basically a plastic cup the jug sits in. So when I turned it upside down, gravity took over and sent the jug into the malty depths of my porter.

Here's hoping it's okay

[NorthernWiner]

I made a second run wine by adding 20 pounds of leftover Petit Verdot skins to a Winexpert Australian Petit Verdot kit. I didn't even have to add yeast. It started right up and formed a cap within 2 hours.

[Former Canuk]

Racked 20 litres of Apple Cider. Initial taste (testers when racking) not that great, but hoping/thinking it will improve. I'll leave it for 6 weeks and expect it should come together by then. It's from a Big Rock Cider kit and they do say to leave for 5 weeks. First time making this kit and making cider from a kit. Will report back either way

[Rich]

Racked my Deuchars IPA clone to keg, then started off a Kenridge port kit. I'll be using my temp controlled cupboard to brew the port in, will be interesting to see how a stable/constant temp effects it.

[mark g]

banana wine

Just started two gallons of banana wine
it's fermenting like crazy
My bananas only cost me 29p for 1lb
from the out door market.

[spritzer]

Banana wine eh ?
I cant decide whether I like the sound of this or not...
Can anyone comment on what like it is ?

[lockwood1956]

I made some.......it isnt very good

bananas are ok if made into a syrup and used as an addition, they add body and aid clearing, but I would only use them in dessert wines as they tend to give the finished wine too much mouthfeel for a table wine.

just my two pennerth


regards
bob

as an aside, i left a gallon of it in a DJ with no bung in it, in an attempt to produce oxidised wine for judge training purposes, it just wouldn't oxidise (it did have a very light sulphite dose at finish ...around 20ppm) it was left that way for around 3 months...I gave up in the end

[Rich]

I too have made some, sweetened it afterwards and it was ok.

[waggoner]

I done two lots of banana wine..

http://www.winesathome.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=4768

The ones using Bobs recipe, fermented out dry and cleared beautifully,,i bottled it on xmas day,,, not very banana tasting,, but its still young, so will leave the bottles for 6 months then try one to see whats its like..

The one from CJJ'S recipe fermented out dry again, but its still in the demijohn as clouldy as the day it was made,,have not tasted that one so can't comment on whats it's like...I'll have to go and take the airlock/bung off and have a sniff...

[spritzer]

I think I will add a banana wine onto my list of things to do, and maybe do a gallon in a couple of months.
And if I dont like it, I am sure someone in the family will

[waggoner]

I guess its a case of trying loads of different types,,you never know till you'll made it and tried it...

[goldseal]

I had a character-building day yesterday.

Woke up to 3 or 4 inches of snow, so I decided to disgorge 5 bottles of sparkling seyval which had been sitting there for over a year - the snow made a free and plentiful supply of ice to freeze the bottle necks.

It turned out to be what is known as a 'partial success' (i.e. a total failure). Three of the five bottles didn't have sufficient gas pressure to blow the sediment plug out, so it just fell back into the bottle . Something fell over on the worktop, triggering a chain-reaction, resulting it kit flying everywhere, and a bottle falling to the floor. When I'd finished ducking for cover and counting fingers I discovered that the bottle survived the fall, but my thermometer was in two pieces, and the floor was coated in an ice-salt mix, which was a real pain to clear up.

So, only two of the five bottles were disgorged even moderately successfully. Switching to the traditional method for the next batch

[Rich]

So, only two of the five bottles were disgorged even moderately successfully. Switching to the traditional method for the next batch

What method had you used for these?

[mrdexter]

Degassed 5 gallon wine #1, and 30 litres of inherited blackberry '08.