Micro-scale fermentation R&D with the WinePod Mini

Some research and development does not lend itself to large winery scale experiments.   For example, testing particular vineyard blocks is not possible if the blocks are combined into a single lot (a large tank for example).   Other designs of experiments that have many factors are difficult to do on a large scale due to limited quantities of tanks and materials.    For example, if a winemaker wants to test many different yeast strains on a single vineyard block, there may not be enough  tanks to complete the experiment in a single vintage.  If there are many researchers or students in a lab or winery, there may not be enough "tank time" for each student or researcher to complete their experiments during the course of  a single vintage. 

 

Furthermore, there is the question of scale up.  What if an experiement is done on a small scale and is successful.  How does one scale it up to a larger fermenter?  What are the variables? To make matters more difficult, winery and university viticultural R&D budgets are notoriously small.  A state-of-the-art research fermenter with process control is up to $10,000 per unit!   How can R&D be done on a smaller budget with process control and repeatability? 

 

The WinePod Mini enables researchers to perform micro-scale fermentations by providing:

 

• Automatic process monitoring of temperature and Brix and automatic data logging

• CurveCopy TM -replication of any temperature profile for scale-up  and repeatability by controlling temperature based on Brix 

• Reduction of experimental cross contamination by eliminating the need to measure Brix manually

• Automatic data logging of temperature and brix vs. time, maceration time and punchdowns