How to Size a Wine Filter

Sizing a wine filter for your winery is the first step on the road to enhanced stability and clarity in the wines you produce. The basic idea behind sizing a wine filter is to be able to filter the largest single lot of wine that you are likely to produce without clogging the filter media and having to stop the filtration process – this will always lead to the loss of whatever wine you have in the filter body and the hoses leading to and from the filter.

A good rule of thumb for 20x20cm filters is that you will be able to run between 10 and 15 gallons of wine per pad in the filter. So, a 10 plate wine filter will run between 100 and 150 gallons before clogging, provided that the wine is well settled and/or has been filtered already through a rougher pad. Again, this is a general rule and it is very important to understand that a wide range of factors can influence this. That said, this general rule of thumb tends to hold pretty true.