Filling wine bottles

By the time you fill the keg and then refill the bottles you could have had the bottles filled from the carboy, I would think.

Perhaps you could look here if you want to buy something:

John,

Heap of questions on your Enolmatic filler.

Where did you buy your filler? Did you buy two filter units or are you passing only one? Are the filters washable? and how long do the filters last?

Thanks a bunch!

I looked through the web:

I got mine from Presque isle, but lots of places sell them. Regards, Joe

An inexpensive method to bottle quickly is to change all your tubing and filler to 1/2" OD. I really blast through the wine now. It is no longer a leisure experience. Tim

John, are you using the enolmatic filter unit, or are you drawing through a different filter? Does the enolmatic 0.5 micron filter assure a sterile filtration? I thought you needed a filter with at least 0.4 micron rating to insure no yeast.

"Tom" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com...

I bought mine from a display at the Midwest Wine and Grape show from a vendor, but they are readily available.

Did you buy two filter units or are you

What I have is 1 clear water cartridge 10 inch housing that I bought from a plumbing store.($25) I'm still thinking about putting 2 inline but haven't yet. ( like a 1 micron in front of a .45micron) I then buy the filter cartridges from Presque Isles. This cartridge set up is mounted on a wood frame set up similar to what you can see on Presque Isles website with the addition of a on/off switch. What I do is filter all the different wines using a Procon pump( $110.) I also bought from Presque Isles that is attached to what is called a carbonator motor by means of a v-band clamp that cost about $1.85 from Presque Isles (it is needed to couple them). The 1/4 hp GE motor was purchased from Granger for about $60.

Are the filters washable? and how long do the filters

It depends on what you define washing is. Before I use the filter cartridges I put fresh water in a pail and add sulphite and citric acid. I run this through the pump and filters and the bottle filler if I am using it recycling it for a minute or so. I then run some more fresh water without sulphite through it tasting the water until I cannot detect any off tastes. Take out the water and start filtering the wine. When I am done I rinse in reverse until I am satisfied it is clear of wine. I then store the cartridges in a strong sulphite/ citric acid water in tupperware spagetti containers labeling which filter is which and how much wine has been through the filter. I have also heard of people using vodka and pvc tubing for storage. As to how long they last it depends on which filters you get (type,brand, how fine) and the biggest factor is the clarity of your wine. I only filter a wine if I think it is ready to go in a bottle without filtering. I tried to filter a cloudy Rhubarb wine once with a cheaper 1 micron wound filter and it was plugged by the end of 5 gallons. Had that been a $35. filter you can see how expensive it could get in a hurry. Presque Isles has some notes as to what amount of wine you can expect to get through their filters, but 200 gallons plus is not out of line. Now if the wine has already been filtered, or I am only going to put it through 1 filter I have put the filter cartridge in line between the carboy and the Enolmatic filler and vacuumed the wine through the filter as it is going in the bottle. This is as close to sterile filtering I can get in my basement. Doing this I have eliminated using Sorbate on almost all of my wines and knock on wood I have only had a couple bottles carbonate on me out of a few hundred. Those that did I suspect it was from pushing the filter past it's lifetime causing the wine to go around the filter cartridge. A good way to tell if the filter is at deaths door is to install a pressure gauge on the pressure side between the pump and filter. Usually the needle barely moves off 0- 1psi in my setup. As soon as it gets up around 5 psi it is trash. An exception seems to be the wound filters which have backpressure when new. Just note when you get the cartridge new what if any pressure there is when you are filtering just water as a baseline. Note that other than seeing the speed of filling decline there is no way to tell that the filter is clogging in line with the Enolmatic as it is using Vacuum. I suppose something could be rigged up, but I haven't bothered. HTH John Dixon

Pressurizing the wine with gas will render your wines gassy in the bottle. If you need to fill faster either raise the level of the feed container so you get a higher pressure head or buy a multi-spout bottle filler.

Tom S