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Medhurst Wines 2011
vintage will be the first in its new winery. Winemaker Matt Steel
shares the design concepts and process, with a particular focus on
the new refrigeration system.
Key Features For
the Refrigeration
Steel said he
and the architects investigated using geothermal refrigeration for
the project but it couldn't meet the capacity required for the
ultimate winery design size, which is for 250 tonnes of fruit.
In the end,
the refrigeration system was designed with consultation from Linney
Engineering, who are winery design engineers and ISECO,
refrigeration engineers with wine industry expertise.
Steel
said the key elements of the refrigeration design include the barrel
hall design, which provide low temperature differential and low air
speed air handling units to maximise ambient
humidity.
"There's
also a cool room that can chill hand picked fruit from 28degC
to 10degC in 18 hours," he said.
"This
is a key requirement for quality of Medhurst wines ,
particularly with harvest dates moving forward into February,causing
harvest fruit temperatures to be warmer than ideal."
"The main
Chiller set has a heat recovery circuit that will be used to
pre-heat water to 50degC for use in the winery."
The system has a large
brine capacity which acts as a heat store and its control is linked
to the VinWizard system so that any components (cool Room, barrel
hall, individual tanks, chiller set) or the whole system can be
programmed to run during off-peak, reducing power costs and
increasing exchange efficiency, he said. The refrigeration system
utilizes an aircooled Australian Fluid Chillers chiller set with
R507 refrigerant.
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