2019 Plans, Jits & Wine

     Would this be a crazy schedule? For sure March twentieth to twenty fourth for the Pans in California, May tournament in Chicago then August going to Las Vegas for the Masters. These are the ones I am almost one hundred percent I'm going to grapple in. There are other tournaments that cover the globe and we'll see soon enough if I get to go to any of these. When I sign up i'll post it so you'll know!
     Typically after every jits (short for jiu jitsu) class I'll weigh myself and two days ago I was hovering at 175.5. Meh, I plan to fight in the one hundred and seventy one pound division and that's with the gi (the white pajama outfit judoka and jiu jitsu fighters compete in) on. So I really have to weigh around 165. That's ten pounds I have to drop. Yea... I'll still drink about two glasses of wine a day but everything else will be pretty basic in terms of food for the next few months.
     Question of the day is, "Detail the advantages and disadvantages of the following methods of clarifying a wine: Earth filtration, Pad filtration, Membrane filtration and Crossflow filtration."
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     The first of these four types of filtration is of Earth. Mainly diatomaceous earth (DE), which is naturally occurring remains of diatoms of fossilized aquatic single celled algae. These diatoms come in many sizes and are shaped like honeycombs and made mostly of silica. The shape of these diatoms make filtration in this matter excellent. Typically DE is mixed with wine and pulled through a screen with a suction pump. These screens can be rotated and this is one of the easiest ways to filter wine. The main disadvantage is just purchasing diatomaceous earth, filters and machines.
     Pad filtration consists of a pad made of different materials whether cotton, synthetic fibers, cellulose or even diatomaceous earth. This style of filtration uses screening, inertia, turbulence and adsorption to pull out unwanted material. Depending on the side of molecular mass, filtration can be broken into two ways, Macro and Ultrafiltration. The latter will remove molecules like pigments, tannins and polysaccharides. Disadvantages include pad removal and replacement, the cost of material and the manual labor in changing them.
     The third way of filtration used is the Membrane method. This uses cartridges made of cellulose ester, nylon, polypropylene, polysulfonate or even glass fibers. Screening of this nature is used more microbial stabilization rather than clarification. This is usually done as a last filtration run before the bottling process. Once again the disadvantages are the cost of the pads, mechanisms to hold the pads and the human cost of running equipment.
     Lastly we have the cross flow filtration where wine is run along the surface of a membrane that has porous abilities. The liquid flows through the pores and there are many feeds to prevent clogging in just one area of filtration. When you have the must or wines that are high in extra particle content or contcentration this is a good initial filtration process. If one were to remove more alcohol, cross flow filtration works and can even be changed to where a reverse osmosis version can be used to control the particle concentration.