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Bentonite - for clearing wine
onepopper
Member Posts: 1,825 ✭✭✭✭✭
To: jwb267
Here in Arkansas we use bentonite for drilling gas wells and to seal farm ponds. Put bentonite in wine to clear it? Not in my wine. I use only fruit, sugar, water, and yeast. Nothing else, period. Are you sure your parents didn't come from New York City?
Here in Arkansas we use bentonite for drilling gas wells and to seal farm ponds. Put bentonite in wine to clear it? Not in my wine. I use only fruit, sugar, water, and yeast. Nothing else, period. Are you sure your parents didn't come from New York City?
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I know that some people use sodium metabisulfite to clean utensils and to kill wild yeast. However, if you are precise and clean in your winemaking, not sloppy, you do not need anything but fruit, sugar, yeast, and water. Many people are highly allergic to some of the additives used in wine making, that's why I don't use them.
there are other methods of clearing your wine, but i'm sure you know them also[;)]
You are correct. I hope that you don't take my jibes seriously. Unfortunately, plum, peach, appricot, and pineapple are very difficult to clear. I live so far out in the National Forest, that I have to have sunlight pumped in. It's an 80 mile trip to buy wine supplies. Some years back, I did an extensive study of the ancient wine makers and as you can imagine they didn't have any of the chemicals we have now. They used their breath to cap the settling wine with co2 after fermentation ceased. Anyway the commercial wineries in the area use expensive multilayered filters to clear their commercial wines. No way can I afford that equipment. So time is my clearing agent. The trouble is you have to have a lot of patience. The trick is to plan ahead and keep a batch going all the time.
It can be used as a filter aid in place of DE. Its main use is in oil water seperation and drilling mud, but there are LOTS of other uses as well from kitty litter on.
I use DE...
How do you use it? Strain things through it, or what?
I'd love to make some wine. My FIL (apparently) used to make some fine wines out of all kinds of stuff (dandelions, blackberry, mulberry, etc), but he doesn't do it any longer (and the rascal won't tell me how).
I've made a lot of beer in my life, but never wine. Now I've got the perfect place to do both (aging wise)...and I don't have a clue (outside of beer).
edit...I've even got most of the stuff to do it too (not all, but most).
As a home brewer as well, sanitation is the same, most of the equipment is the same. different yeast and perhaps temp control...
monitor sugar levels a bit more closely with perhaps a refractometer instead of a hydrometer.
Different recipe, still lots of fun.
There are many instructional web sites. Just google "home made wine". Complete instructions are given.