Common Use of fermentation chillers
Wine making chillers are commonly used for three distinct
processes.
- Initial pull down of the processed grapes. Depending on
where harvested, grapes can come in from the field as warm as
100F. Once they are crushed its necessary to cool the juice in
preparation for the fermentation process.
- Fermentation control: Once the initial pulldown is
complete, the wine maker will start the process of fermenting
the juice. Fermentation is the process where the sugar within
the juice is converted to alcohol. Wine makers commonly used
yeast to do this. As the yeast consumes sugars, it generates
heat. Without cooling the temperature of the fermenting juice
quickly gets to the point where it will begging to kill off
the yeast. When this happens the wine maker can potentially
have a real problem on their hands to restart the fermentation
process. During this critical step, chillers are used to
remove the exact amount of heat from the juice to keep the
fermentation stable.
- Lastly for white wines there is a process called " cold
stabilization". This is a process where the finished wine,
just before bottling gets cooled down to just below freezing.
During this process dissolved solids fall out of suspension
and drop to the bottom of the tank. Without this process, the
first time you where to chill a bottle of white you would see
unsightly solids form on the bottom of the bottle.
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