Buon Vino filter - advice requested

I don't know. I'll let someone else answer that.

If you were to filter two wines consecutively, you might be able to get away with reuse. BTW, at the very beginning with new pads you should run citric/sulfite through the filter first, then run water through to rinse that out, then the wine. If you can arrange to "push" the water through with inert gas (nitrogen or argon) that'll help prevent dilution of your wine.

Unfortunately, yes. That's why you should always get the wine as clear as possible by natural methods first. The best candidate for filtration is a wine that doesn't look like it needs to be filtered.

Apples and oranges. You should fine and settle the wine prior to filtration. A light bentonite fining is the minimum.

Most that I've seen are. Keep a good supply of extra pads on hand.

Tom S

Two #2 filter pads or two sets of #2 filter pads? The reason I ask is that the MiniJet is designed to use 3 pads. The #1 pads are Coarse; #2 are Polish; #3 are Sterile. The most common pads to use are the #2. For the rest of your questions, see Tom's reply. To reply, remove the obvious.

Ross.

In addition to Tom's post:

There are 3 types - #1, #2, #3 - the bigger the number the finer the filtration. People typically use #1 for reds and #2 for whites.

For minijet, you'll typically use a filter for 1 batch (6 gals) only.

Yes, or if your wine is not clear enough.

Yes, it's not much work.

Pp

I'll add a few observations as well.

This has been answered elsewhere.

The filters are disposable. Use them for one filtration. The manufacturer suggests that you can filter up to 10 gallons with one set of filters. Yesterday I filtered 54L of previously fined chardonnay. It was quite clear already and the filtering (with #2 pads) went fine.

As from above, you should be able to filter up to at least 10 gallons. However, this will partly depend on the clarity of the wine to be filtered, as well as the pore size of the pad.

See Tom's answer.

They are trivial to clean and maintain. I have had mine for a number of years and although I don't use it that often I have never had any problems cleaning it or maintaining it in good running order. Just remember to clean right after use, run some water through the pump as suggested by the manufacturer and you should be fine. I highly recommend them as a small filtering solution.

Your welcome, Tim/Vancouver

And even more. This info is from Buon Vino via email:

"The ratings on the pads are as follows

# 1 pads - 5 micron # 2 pads 1.8 microns # 3 .5 microns

Please note that these are nominal ratings not absolute."

For 3 years, I was a fan of the Buon Vino mini-filter. It's realiable, and easy. But as I got into winemaking more, the fact that the tightest minijet filter pad still won't filter out yeast became a problem. For not much more money, you can get a cartridge style filter system from Presque Isle, and it's far more versatile.

It just depends on how far you want to go with winemaking, and how much money you want to spend.

Lee

At your level you should do what commercial wineries do, except on a smaller scale.

Pad filtration first, followed by a membrane cartridge filter is the way to go. The idea is to absorb most of the particle load in cheap, pad filters, thereby extending the useful life span of the expensive membrane filters.

Tom S

My advice is not to buy too many filters at first. I bought a lot of #2 filters that I never use. I find that I usually let my wine clear for about 8 months to a year, then use the filter to polish the wine. At that point, a #2 filter doesn't do anything. I easily filter 6 gallons with a #3. If you want to filter earlier, in order to bottle sooner, then the #2 or #1 may be what you need.

My wife bought our Buon Vino filter system when we got into making our wines. She said she didn't want 'crap' floating in it. I made a few mistakes with it. One of the things I did was not tighten the hand knobs down enough and got sprayed when I turned it on. Then I filtered a young wine trying to speed up the fining. It ended up loading up the filter and spraying red wine all over the laundry room! I was lucky enough that the laundry was done and it didn't get on anyones clothes. I did have a expert winemaker evaluate some of my wine and he recommended using the .5 micron filter to polish the wine after it had been fined with bentonite and racked and sat for 8 to 12 months and a few days before putting it into bottles. So now my wines are a step up from what they use to be. Nothing floating and crystal clear. It improved the visual effect. Tastes the same.

Hello Kim, I have and use a mini jet filter with #2 pads. Depending on the clarity of the wine, you can get 10 gal. filtered with 1 set of 3 pads. Just remember that filtering will strip out some color and flavor from a wine so I wouldn't recommend using a # 3 (sterile) pad or filtering twice with a # 2. The best way is to let the wine age and rack several times. Also, you should prep the pads according to the instructions (citric acid and sulfite) then run clean water though the filter. Taste the water to make sure that the "cardboard" taste has been removed from the pads. Also, depending upon your technique, you will either lose or water down a small batch of wine due to having run water through the pads. There are pros and cons to everything in life!

Regards, Al