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cloudy wine

Im an experienced home fruit wine maker and my usual wine is Braeburn apple. I've never had a problem making this and it always turns out exceptional. Recently I decided to move sideways a bit and make wine from Granny Smith apples. All went well until a fews after I bottled it and I noticed that it's started to turn very slightly hazy. I filtered it through Boots fine filters and it brought back its crystal clear clarity. However, a few days on, it's starting to go hazy again. Can anyone help? My procedures are the same as for making Braeburn and I'm very strict on cleanliness, etc.

Thanks in advance.

McKevvy

Reply to
McKevvy
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I think the first thing I'd try, considering that it's apple wine, is to add a little pectic enzyme. You may have a pectin haze.

Reply to
Doug Miller

Sounds plausible Doug...I'll try it out.

Many thanks.

McK.

Reply to
McKevvy

You're right - I've omitted the pectin. I checked the Boots book of Home Wine and Brewing and they use pectin in their recipies. I've been using a recipe for Braeburn apples from elsewhere and it doesn't mention pectin. I learn something every day :)

Many thanks.

McKevvy

Reply to
McKevvy

Pectin and pectic enzyme are two different things. There should be no need to add pectin to an apple wine, since apples have lots of pectin already -- that's why I suggested you might need to add pectic enzyme to get rid of an excess of pectin.

Reply to
Doug Miller

Correct. I should have added PECTOLASE to destroy the PECTIC enzyme.

McK.

Reply to
McKevvy

No.

Pectolase *is* pectic enzyme. You should have added pectolase to destroy the

*pectin*.
Reply to
Doug Miller

Hmm, this doesn't sound right to me.

Pectin in your wine, in my experience, stops the wine from clearing. If the wine has cleared and then become cloudy again I may be wrong, but I doubt it would be pectin. Also I beleive that pectin clogs filters so if the wine ran through the filter... I think it must be some form of instability; acid, tannin or protein maybe, but I have no experience in fault finding these and without knowing your process and all the ingredients in the wine, it would be difficult to work it out. Apples contain malic acid which could be attacked by bacteria causing a cloud, citric acid can also suffer bacterial breakdown. Tannin can also produce hazes but I dont think Granny Smith contains that much tannin.

If it were my wine I would put it all back into a bulk container and keep an eye on it, it may just need more time to re-stabilises and may well drop clear in a few weeks.

Meanwhile post more info on your methods and see if anyone else comes back to you. Denis

Reply to
ddan

Thats what I've just done.

McK

Reply to
McKevvy

Let us know how it comes out.

Reply to
Doug Miller

This morning it's crystal clear. I've just bottled it without having to filter it again.

Many thanks to all.

Im off to buy 2Kgs of peaches now - and I wont forget to add the pectolase this time.

McKevvy

Reply to
McKevvy

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