Did you know your filtration system is a critical part of FSMA compliance? 

From air and steam to final packaging, unfiltered utilities can introduce contamination at any step in your food or beverage process.

Learn where filtration matters most and how to choose the right filters: https://www.donaldson.com/en-be/compressed-air-process/technical-articles/filter-basics-food-beverage-processors/

Sterile air plays a critical role in protecting food and beverage products from contamination. 

Our new Sterile Air Manifold is a comprehensive, plug-and-play solution designed for clean, compliant compressed air. This fully integrated system includes sterile filter housings, gauges, valves and an optional steam inlet for SIP, helping to reduce complexity and contamination risk in your facility.

✅ Helps enable ISO 8573-compliant air quality
✅ Ready to install and ship
✅ Low pressure drop and high flow
✅ Optional steam sterilization
✅ Built with our proven P-SRF sterile filter technology

Support product quality, regulatory compliance and process integrity with Donaldson. 

👉 Discover the Donaldson Sterile Air Manifold and see how it fits into your sterile air system.

Available exclusively in North America. 

Problem: Without a careful double-filtering process, a series of bacteria can negatively affect the quality, flavor, character, and aroma of the bottled wine.

Solution: Donaldson's LifeTec™ filter elements have 20% more media than comparable filters and have a sturdy triangular design to withstand twisting and to stay intact under high flow rates.

Wineries Advised to Use Two-Step Process

In the art of winemaking, it’s not only what’s in the bottle that matters. It’s what isn’t. Winemaking consultants say the wrong micro-organisms can be disastrous if they sneak into final bottling. For example, acetobacter will convert wine to vinegar, and any residual yeast that remains after fermentation can cause re-fermentation in wines with residual sugar, producing unintended carbonation.

“If a volume of wine has any residual sugar—and you’re not very diligent about removing all of the bacteria, and more importantly, the yeast cells—the wine can re-ferment in the bottle,” says Drew Horton, Enology Specialist at the University of Minnesota, and a consultant to wineries across the Upper Midwest. “It’s a disaster because it causes the wine to get bubbly or cloudy, or the cork pushes up, or in the worst scenario, the bottles start exploding in the bottle shop.”

Horton strongly recommends vintners learn proper filtration techniques. Unless a wine contains no residual sugar and the winery is absolutely sterile, he advocates a double-filtering process. The wineries that don’t conduct this practice, he says, are very rare.

“If a wine label says it’s unfiltered, the winery is guaranteeing they’re using the best clean fruit, their processing standards are extremely high, there’s no residual sugar in the wine, and most of the malic acid has been converted to lactic acid,” says Horton. “Then the winemaker may choose to bottle the wine without any filtration.”

Established wineries are veterans in filtering. But in regions where the industry is younger, the learning curve for small operators with less experience can be steep. Horton says many vintners use only “nominal” filtering, and are unaware of the need for the second “absolute” step.

“If the wine is not properly prepared and filtered when it goes into the bottle,” he says, “there are a series of bacteria that can negatively affect the quality, the flavor, the character, the aroma of the bottled wine.”

Dry or off-dry white varietals of most respected wineries have less than two percent residual sugar— many have less than one percent, the industry’s definition of “dry.” By contrast, wines with three to five percent residual sugar are common in many northern states with large rural populations, where people tend to prefer sweeter wines, and where vintners need to compensate for high acid in shortseason grapes. 

"That's why wineries tend to be sticklers about filtration."

The residual sugar is a very important blend component, but any yeast that lingers after it’s done its job will have a chance of interacting with the product even after six or nine months after bottling.

That’s why wineries need to be sticklers about filtration. Periodically throughout the production year—after the wine has been oak-aged and cold stabilized—many vintners practice the two-step method Horton recommends. First, they batchfilter the wine through a nominal “depth” filter to remove 95 to 98 percent of all yeast and other target organisms, which range between 0.6 and 0.8 microns in size. Then, if they add balancing sugar, they batchfilter the wine once more through a final absolute “membrane” filter. Its pores are also 0.45 micron, but its thin, PES (polyethersulfone) membrane captures the last two to five percent of any remaining contaminant that a nominal filter sheet can miss.

Join us for our exclusive LIVE webinar! Juergen is looking forward to sharing with you best practices for food and beverage manufacturers to optimize filtration performance while ensuring food safety. 

Explore why compressed air and process filtration are key to maintaining process and product integrity in food and beverage production. 

Follow the link below to secure your spot today!

Register here.  

Donaldson will be at the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in Sacramento, CA, from January 28-30!

Join us at Booth 2032 to discover how our filtration solutions can help you enhance wine quality and optimize operations.

Don’t miss the chance to connect with our specialists! See you there!
https://ow.ly/bwsw50UF6Or

Donaldson is proud to share that we have been named one of the Best Companies to Work For by U.S. News & World Report. This industry recognition reflects our commitment to quality of pay, work-life balance and opportunities for professional development and advancement.

Donaldson continuously evolves to meet our changing world’s filtration needs. We make cool things. And we look for the best people to help us succeed, offering opportunities to learn, effect change, and make meaningful contributions at work and in our communities.

Donaldson Company. Innovation + Collaboration that matters. Learn more: https://ow.ly/C12F50PXSAk

We are excited to be joining the WIN Expo event again this year! Join Donaldson at the Wine Industry Network Expo, Booth #503 to see how our extensive product portfolio makes us a strong partner that can help wineries and mobile bottlers protect and maintain your product integrity. Thursday, December 1, 2022 (9:00am — 4:00pm)

We are Donaldson.

Donaldson helps solve some of the world’s most complex filtration challenges. We are one of the largest global providers of unique filtration technologies and high-quality filters and parts. Wine processors face growing regulations, increasing production demands, and limited resources. To navigate these demands, processors and process engineers are turning to knowledgeable specialists. Donaldson's extensive product portfolio makes us a strong partner that can help wineries and distributors maintain process integrity and quality of your wine.

Key to our success, our 13,000+ employees support customers at sales, manufacturing, and distribution centers from over 140 locations on six continents. The filtration market continues to grow. Customers' needs for filtration solutions continue to evolve. To learn more about Donaldson's wine filtration solutions Click Here!