STS 45 Mobile Centrifuge |

Winery Solids Management
 

Vintech Pacific has introduced a state-of-the-art centrifuge system as part of its mobile services offered to the New Zealand wine industry.

• Reduce fining and settling time, increase filter life and reduce wine lost to lees.
• Remove solids from white juice instantly.
• No cold settling or SO2 needed.
• Remove yeast to arrest fermentations.
• Speed up fining.
• Protein bound to bentonite removed efficiently.

The STS 45 system is claimed to be a superior method for winery solids management and eliminates the need for racking of juices and wines and therefore avoiding consequent product losses and quality-value downgrades.

Central to the system is the STS 45, a disk-type centrifuge with the capability to both process entire tanks of juice and wine, including the lees, and eject solids at such a thickness (e.g. 95% v/v) that no further product recovery is necessary, e.g. lees filter or RDV filter.

The three principal paybacks and quality outcomes with the STS 45 are:

• 1. Reducing juice and wine losses associated with racking or desludge from older or under-performing centrifuges. Losses occur when lees are sent to distillation and through reduced number of lees transfers; both leading to dilution or yield losses.
• 2. Reduced juice and wine quality or value downgrades. This is where existing lees handling processes lead to loss of quality and value by loss of freshness and oxidation, loss of varietal or regional integrity and character, or anoxic/reduction taints from prolonged exposure to high concentration of yeasts and bacteria in lees.
• 3. Eliminating DE filtration, principally the lees filter and rotary drum vacuum (RDV) filtration. The direct hard savings in reduced DE consumption are typically modest in the financial justification of the STS 45 mobile service.

A key advantage of the STS 45 system over older centrifuges is a very low oxygen pick-up, as low as 0.02mg of oxygen per litre of wine. This means the same wine can be centrifuged multiple times during its maturation cycle. The low oxygen pick-up allows New Zealand cellars to maximise the financial benefits of ST 45's broad spectrum of juice and wine solids removal capabilities.

The STS 45 system has been developed to handle a broad range of winery products.

• Whole wine juice
• White wine ex primary ferment (including bentonite lees)
• Bentonite lees
• Arrested ferments, late harvest and botrytis styles
• Red wine ex primary ferment (including gross lees)
• Gross red lees
• Red wine ex malolactic ferment
• Wines ex cold stabilisation
• Coarse polishing (prior to cross-flow)

STS45 Centrifuge