# Charcoal filters and wine
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charcoal-filters-and-wine/500398
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [June 20, 2009, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charcoal-filters-and-wine/500398 "2009-06-20T15:22:32Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Precambrianmollusc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Precambrianmollusc)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2009, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charcoal-filters-and-wine/500398/1 "2009-06-20T15:22:32Z")
Do charcoal water filters strip out alcohol and compounds associated with taste in wine?
So I was given a bottle of what I was assured was a very pleasant white Burgundy. When I pulled the cork it came apart in many tiny pieces. This is not uncommon around here (hot asian place) as wine is not always stored or shipped in optimum conditions. Generally when the coark comes out in that bad a condition it does not bode well for the quality of the wine. I was left with a bottle with tiny bits of cork floating around in it, however I had a Britta water filter jug, one of those with a carbon filter insert where one pours water in the top and gets filtered water out the bottom.
I figured, what the hell it will get the cork out, so had at it and filtered the wine and drank it. It was very smooth, no acidic bite , but didn’t seam to have the kick (so I won’t pass my Sommelier exams any time soon) I would have expected given the alcohol content (13% FWIW).
Could a carbon water filter strip out alcohol and some of the compounds associated with corked white wine or is it more likely the wine was actually still good and I am a old soak who has numbed his taste buds.
Whilst you are at it - could the same filter help with stripping out nastier elements of red or white wine that is ‘on the turn’.
---
### Author:  [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2009, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charcoal-filters-and-wine/500398/2 "2009-06-20T15:36:20Z")
I would certainly think so.
Activated Charcoal is a molecular filter - it adsorbs many different molecules. I would expected that it would ruin the taste of something as complex as wine.
---
### Author:  [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2009, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charcoal-filters-and-wine/500398/3 "2009-06-20T15:44:56Z")
> **[Does alcohol absorb to activated charcoal? - PubMed](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3710499/)**
>
> Activated charcoal seldom is used in pure-alcohol poisoning since it is absorbed rapidly from the gut. Furthermore in early reports activated charcoal was found to adsorb alcohol poorly. However, in 1981 North et al. \[North, D. S., Thompson, J. D....
---
### Author:  [@Precambrianmollusc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Precambrianmollusc)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2009, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charcoal-filters-and-wine/500398/4 "2009-06-20T16:05:02Z")
> [@Huerta88](#):
>
> [Does alcohol absorb to activated charcoal? - PubMed](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3710499)
If I read that correctly activated charcoal ingested after consumption of alcohol will not reduce BAC. Not sure if the conditions in the stomach are the same as filtering wine through a filter - is there any chemical reaction between ethanol and charcoal that one could suspect leads to a stripping out of alcohol from wine?
On the taste side - what are the chemicals that make wine taste bad - and would they be affected by charcoal filters?
ETA - I suppose you could expand that question into - how the hell does a charcoal filter actually work and what does it filter and not filter?
Ta (again)
---
### Author:  [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2009, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charcoal-filters-and-wine/500398/5 "2009-06-20T16:30:48Z")
> [@NaturalBlondChap](#):
>
> If I read that correctly activated charcoal ingested after consumption of alcohol will not reduce BAC. Not sure if the conditions in the stomach are the same as filtering wine through a filter - is there any chemical reaction between ethanol and charcoal that one could suspect leads to a stripping out of alcohol from wine?
>
> On the taste side - what are the chemicals that make wine taste bad - and would they be affected by charcoal filters?
> ETA - I suppose you could expand that question into - how the hell does a charcoal filter actually work and what does it filter and not filter?
> Ta (again)
Activated charcoal IIRC does not, strictly speaking, “chemically react” with stuff – rather, it has a high surface area and a related affinity for adsorbing certain organic and inorganic impurities. (Adsorption means “having stick to its surface layer” and I lied when I said this wasn’t a chemical reaction; what I should have said is that while chemical (thus ultimately physical) affinities of the respective substances cause them to stick together, the adsorption process doesn’t (again IIRC) amount to a chemical bond as we typically see in what we refer to as “reactions.” Think of adsorption as hmm velcro).
[http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistryfaqs/f/charcoal.htm](http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistryfaqs/f/charcoal.htm)
Wiki has some conflicting statements, some needing citation: it supports the notion that carbon reduces blood alcohol levels, but then notes that carbon filters can be used to filter raw liquor to produce liquor of identical proof with fewer nasty-tasting impurities:
> **[Activated carbon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activated_carbon)**
>
> Activated carbon, also called activated charcoal, is a form of carbon commonly used to filter contaminants from water and air, among many other uses. It is processed (activated) to have small, low-volume pores that greatly increase the surface area available for adsorption or chemical reactions. (Adsorption, not to be confused with absorption, is a process where atoms or molecules adhere to a surface). The pores can be thought of as a microscopic "sponge" structure. Activation is analo Becaus...
We know that carbon doesn’t leech all the alcohol out of a alcoholic solution because various whiskies are traditionally filtered through ricks of charcoal and/or stored in barrels that have had the inside thoroughly charred. Again the aim is taste improvement.
> [@](#):
>
> Step 5. Charcoal Mellowing
> The process of charcoal mellowing is the difference between Tennessee whiskey and bourbon whiskey. In this process, the double-distilled whiskey is filtered through sugar maple charcoal.
>
> Dickel’s mellowing process is unique in that it is chilled prior to the filtration process. This process of chilling the whiskey resulted from George discovering that the batches of whiskey he tasted during the winter were noticeably smoother than those he tasted during warmer weather. He called this process chill mellowing, and today every drop of George Dickel is chilled to exacting specifications.
>
> The first step in the mellowing process is selecting and cutting sugar maple trees. Trees are cut in the winter months when the sugar maple’s rich flavour is stored in the trunk of the tree.
>
> The trunks are allowed to season and cut into2" x 4’ strips at the George Dickel sawmill. These strips are hand-stacked and set ablaze in the open air. The Dickel distillery, because of its small size, is the only Tennessee whiskey distillery allowed to burn sugar maple in the open air. This process allows the smoke’s impurities to escape from the resulting hard charcoal.
>
> The hard maple charcoal is crushed by hand and packed into one of six mellowing vats located at the Dickel distillery. Ten feet of charcoal is packed into each vat. Two virgin wool blankets are placed on the top and bottom of the charcoal. The top blanket ensures that the newly chilled whiskey uniformly reaches into the vat, while the bottom blanket keeps the charcoal from escaping as the whiskey leaves the vat.
>
> The entire chill charcoal mellowing process takes seven to ten days to complete, and though this extra process is time-consuming and expensive, the result is the smoothest, driest, most mellow Tennessee whiskey made.
from [http://www.whiskymerchants.co.uk/#/george-dickel/4533242748](http://www.whiskymerchants.co.uk/#/george-dickel/4533242748)
Finally, what are you removing when you try to filter an alcoholic beverage? In the case of whiskies, it is mainly to eliminate cogeners such as methanol:
> **[Cogeners in Wine - Cheap Wine Headaches](https://wineintro.com/glossary/c/cogener.html)**
>
> Wine Glossary - Cogener, from Lisa Shea. Learn more about any wine term.
(I know, it mentions wine, but wine is not usually charcoal filtered and some whiskey is).
However, in the case of your iffy wine, I would imagine what you are trying to eliminate is some byproduct of decomposition of the wine (probably of the remaining fruit components, maybe of the ethanol itself) – basically I think you’d be dealing with some range of undesired and smelly acids (acetic acid/vinegar?), maybe ketones, esters? All WAGs, and I have no idea what those respective compounds’ affinity for activated charcoal would be.
---
### Author:  [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2009, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charcoal-filters-and-wine/500398/6 "2009-06-20T16:36:30Z")
[How do charcoal filters work](http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/h2oqual/watsys/ae1029w.htm)
There can be many things that make wine taste bad. Acaetic acid from an alcohol + oxygen reaction. Sometimes the [cork is bad](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cork_taint).
Here’s a rundown of all the other [various problems](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_fault) wine can have.
---
### Author:  [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2009, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charcoal-filters-and-wine/500398/7 "2009-06-21T00:25:33Z")
I don’t think you are likely to remove a lot of alcohol witha charcoal filter. Alcohol makes a significant portion of the wine so if it did, you would see a reduction in volume. Charcoal isn’t really very good at removing large quantities of things. It probably absorbs some ethanol, but ethanol is a pretty small molecule so I don’t expect that it would get trapped up easily. You might help prevent ethanol absorption by first running vodka through the filter.
What charcoal will remove with ease are the condensed tannins and large flat molecules that account for some of the more bitter notes in wine. I certainly expect that it makes a wine more smooth.