Stainless Steel Wine Tanks Don't Work
..................Yet!
Use our New Patent and other patents pending.
Stainless steel conducts heat too well ?!
Prematurely freezes the wine to the inside wall.
Ice has nearly the same insulation value as home insulation.
As soon as Ice forms on the inside of the tank, that portion of the tank no longer cools the liquid. It only makes Ice!
Takes the coldness from the jacket coolant before it completes its circuit.
Freezes the wine early where the coolant first enters at the lower part the jacket ,the place it needs it least. There is little cold coolant left near the coolant outlet at the top of the jacket where it needs it most. (a big big stratifying influence!)
Readily absorbs heat into the wine above the jacket and into the unprotected tank lid, from the hot upper levels of the tank room,
Unprotected stainless tanks are not suitable for out door wine applications.
Indoor unprotected tanks are extremely vulnerable.
To any air currents.
To any warmth or coldness nearby,
TO any sunlight.
Partial Jackets:
Cause massive stratification.
Can cause Over 20 deg. F Temperature differences , under some conditions, can develop in as little as 1” depth near the top or bottom of the jacket.
One can boil water on the bottom of a tank and freeze it at the top.
Set up weather systems within the tank which do not include cooling the rest of the tank.
Do not insulate the tank adequately ,causing great stratification, inefficiency and wine degradation.
Dries out the air and wets the floor of the winery causing problems for wooden barrels.
Requires full time operation of very inefficient glycol system.
Difficult to heat.
Sensitive to chaotic environment.
Full Stainless Steel Jackets are:
Very expensive.
Very inefficient.
Dries out the air and wets the floors of the winery, causing problems for wooden barrels.
Requires full time operation of very inefficient glycol system.
Difficult to heat.
Subject to chaotic environment.
Processing problems caused by Partial ss Jackets
Whether storing, or fermenting long-term or short-term, local temperatures are “unknown” and very unpredictable in most metal tanks not fully jacketed
Fermentation differences at different levels in the tank?
As temperatures rise at the walls and the top of the tank, the lighter hot liquid raises to the top with a strong tendency to build a hot strata there. Any yeast in this hot strata reproduces rapidly and builds heat rapidly at the top, and is not growing in the lower cooler parts. Without carbon dioxide agitation in the lower part it is undisturbed and cool, while that yeast in the warmer upper strata begins heating and generating geometric ratio heating rates of up to 20 degrees F in 4 hours. and high temperature gradients in that area, resisting control by the slower monitoring and control measures of today's practices.
From the temperatures I have seen in tanks, there are times when fermentation can run away in the top part of the tank and die(stick) even in between two jackets, and also have very little or no fermentation in the cold lower parts below the upper jacket.
Malolactic fermentation in non-attended tanks, which have developed temperature gradients, will be done in the warm part of the tank and not the lower parts because of the lack of gas agitation in the less active fermentations.
Cold stabilizing and aging differences at different levels of the tank.
Different aging things happen at different levels of the tank because of temperature strata. Different fermentation strata, for instance, develop malolactic or other organism growth differences at different levels.
Oxygen strata of higher oxygen content develop in the colder lower regions of the tank. Because of the cold nature of these regions and the unknown effects on the wine during this period of stratification or after being re-blended, the affects of these possibilities should be considered.
During the calm period of cold stabilization TA and PH strata develop along with and because of temperature strata causing a very non homogenous tank of wine. The more strata the less predictable and successful the cold stabilization is. Note the change of the hose temperature as the wine is being racked of from the cold stabilizing tank. Naturally the sample for the check of cold stabilization is taken from the coldest part of the tank and the top is generally ignored.
Frosted Jacketed stainless tank here
Show frost on the tank
I intended to put a beautiful stainless frosted tank here, as an example of the ineffectiveness and inefficiency of jacketed tanks, but could not find any pictures like that any more. I believe they have been reading the Pasco Poly site and are now embarrassed to show the frost which emphasizes the waste stratification and disfunction of partially jacketed stainless tanks.
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I wish it were not over 30 years since this first hastily built research tank.
It makes cheap white wine