In class we had the chance to put a red wine through the worlds tiniest pad/plate filtration system.
The filtration unit can be used for either juice or wine. Pads are made from a mix of diatomaceous earth, perlite and cellulose and go all the way down to 0.45micro! But time and care are needed otherwise you could be left with a cardboard tasting wine. To reduce the taste, running through a cycle of citric acid and then water to remove the citric will wet the pads enough and take away the cardboard taste.
Making sure the pads are all fit the right way and you have tightened the filtration unit enough to prevent massive leaks is time consuming. But being a low-cost machine to operate would be ideal for smaller batches of wine. Also, pads can be washed and reused!
It was very interesting when we put through 25 liter’s of very old red wine that had zero additives (like PMS) and fining agents. It was a very murky dark and high turbidity wine. After filtering it came out a lot clearer and more had a positive impact on the taste and smell.
By Emma Gordon