Creating Consistent Wine Year After Year
A regular challenge for winemakers is creating consistent wine year after year. The winemaking process and the equipment you use are just as crucial as the ingredients you harvest. We helped one of our customers overcome this challenge by partnering with them to create an enhanced winemaking process that included equipment to monitor and maintain the conditions of the fermentation tanks.
Our solution was scalable and included a crucial piece – components that would monitor the Brix as the sugar content is converted to alcohol throughout the fermentation process. Not only did we provide a means to monitor the sugar content automatically but we also designed and installed a tank jacket, hot and cold utility operation, and sensors to allow monitoring of density change throughout the fermentation process. Placer Process also installed a pump over assembly with a sanitary strainer configuration to allow circulation, aeration, and breaking down the cap.
This is just one example of how Placer Process partnered with a customer to design, fabricate, and install a customized solution that fits our customer’s needs. Working with our customer, we were able to provide them a solution with automatic monitoring of the various phases in winemaking from the beginning of tank filling to fermentation and final storage. Our solution included CIP-able components to keep the system clean while minimizing the risk of operator exposure to chemicals.
In the end, our customer was very satisfied with the equipment and their improved ability to monitor the winemaking process by collecting system data to help them determine optimum timing for each step that further enhances the capability of developing a consistently unique wine flavor for the brand.