Joe's advice is good. When you add your sorbate should depend more on the
clarity of the wine now. More specifically is it real clear and will you be
stirring it up to add the Sorbate? If so, then I would filter and then
Sorbate. Another point of view might be that you are not in a great hurry
and dont care if it gets stirred up a bit (it always clears out faster the
second time anyways). If you do this you can put off the filtering and limit
the handling by eliminating one racking theoretically. Either way make sure
your sulphite levels are up before you add the Sorbate so you dont have
another problem. In any case I would not count on a .5 micron eliminating a
fermentation completely especially if you plan to let it sit around in a
carboy before bottling it later.HTH
John Dixon
"Joe Sallustio" > wrote in message
ups.com...
> WD,
> It depends. when you say 0.5 micron filter, that can mean two things.
> If you are going to sterile filter with an 0.5 micron _absolute_ filter
> that should be fine, but it's very difficult to sterile filter.
>
> If you are talking about a Buon Vino plate and frame 'sterile' filter
> it is not an absolute filter. Yeast is pretty creative, it doesn't
> take much to have a fermentation restart. If your wine is good and
> clear chances of refermentation happening are slim, but it is possible.
>
>
> I use the Buon Vino 'sterile' filter on sweet whites, but I add sorbate
> since I do not trust it. 2 or 3 percent RS is enough to create a hand
> grenade if it referments to dry. You would see a yeast layer form in
> the bottle if that occured. Some people can taste sorbate, most can't.
> If you want to use that it's often used to good effect by small scale
> winemakers. I filter and sorbate the end product, wait a few days at
> least to ensure it is still and bottle.
>
> Another option you have is to bottle it and leave it cold. If you are
> not talking about a lot of wine you may want to consider just bottling
> and keeping it at 40F or so; anything under 50F is usually enough to
> keep most yeast strains from restarting. A sweet wine is usually served
> cold, so it may be an option to consider. No filter, no sorbate, just
> keep it cold.
>
> Joe
>
> Kiva wrote:
> > I have a Riesling I started last fall. I stopped the fermentation by
> putting
> > the carboys into a cold refrigerator at about 28-30 degrees F. The
> result is
> > what I wanted, approximately 2%-3% residual sugar. I added bentonite
> along
> > with the cold stabilization. I am now ready to take out of the cold
> and
> > rack.
> >
> > 1) Should I run it through the filter .5 micron and add sorbate?
> >
> > 2) or rack and sorbate now and then filter later?
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks in advance for any help
> >
> > WD
>