Winemaking process engineering: Οn line fermentation monitoring - sensors and equipment

Abstract

Wine production is directly linked with the monitoring of its production by measuring certain critical fermentation parameters. The critical parameters for the monitoring of the wine production are the total sugars concentration, the ethanol concentration and the CO2 production. The CO2 production is linearly yeast growth associated. There are of course some other parameters which although are important to the quality of produced wine they are not measured on a daily basis. In fact a method for on line measurement of the three mentioned parameters can be helpful in many ways. It is less labour intensive as well as it helps in a more accurate and organised industrial process. The present system is using pressure transducers in combination with the CO2 measurement on line through a mass flow meter. The measurements are taken at the same time and the data are logged in a computer programme. The correlation of the on line measurements are compared to the manually measurements. The system has been tested for the production of ethanol and for the production of white wine. The present work has been based on the use of an external system used for the monitoring and measurement of the density as a result of the pressure difference from the two pressure transducers. As well as the measurement of the CO2 concentration with the use of a CO2 mass flow meter. Both set of measurements were combined in a model developed for this process