Straining fruit puree from wine

[cmodglin]

Hello,
I have previously made wine with whole fruit, which I contained in a paint strainer bag and was able to remove easily. This time I tried puree. I am doing 5 gal of blackberry wine. I am not having success straining out the puree. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[lumpher]

About the only way I know to strain puree is several layers of cheesecloth.

 

[D the Catastrophist]

I use a fine mesh brew bag, but even with that you still get an pretty impressive the amount of particulates that make it through into secondary.

Some people use a pour over coffee maker and coffee filter to strain out more, but with a 5 gallon batch that seems pretty time consuming to do the full amount with.

A larger scale version is you line a colander with layers of cheesecloth, held in place with a rubber band, and have that sitting in a bowl. Do it in batches. Pour through, put filtered wine into secondary, repeat as needed.

Or, wait, and once in secondary and it has settled out, rack it again off the worst of the lees, and then run the lees through a few filters to save as much of the liquid as possible.

 

[Maylar]

Paint strainer bags.

 

[amber-ale]

What about cold crashing and decanting/siphoning off the clear liquid in batches

 

[Erik the Awful]

Some people use a pour over coffee maker and coffee filter to strain out more, but with a 5 gallon batch that seems pretty time consuming to do the full amount with.

Doesn't work. The filter clogs up. You can fill the filter up and check back in a couple hours and it won't have gone down any.

I've done quite a few wines with pureed fruit. You'll need to start with about 8 gallons. I simmer it before starting, then cool, put it into my primary buckets, and add the campden tablets. Twenty hours later I add pectic enzyme and four hours later the yeast. After a week or so the cap will drop, but with puree you still can't rack it. Get a screen colander - and not a fine mesh screen. Use it to screen the wine to secondary. Plan on at least one extra racking to get rid of sediment. You'll need to use clarifiers - I prefer bentonite on the front end and sparkolloid two weeks before bottling.