HEED® Wine stabilization, pH and tartrate reduction

HEED®Wine System EET Corporation, is now offering wine treatment systems based on electrodialysis technology with Mega Ralex® food grade ion exchange membranes for the stabilization, flavor enhancement, improved preservation, and conductivity/pH adjustment of red and white wines.

The HEED® treatment system provides winemakers with a cost effective ability to rapidly reduce the potassium bitartrate (cream of tartar) and other dissolved salts from wines, effectively controlling pH and conductivity, improving flavor and resale value, enabling the effectiveness of common preservatives, and, if desired, providing cold stability of the wine. Typically, tartrate removal is accomplished by refrigerating the wine to promote crystallization and precipitation of potassium bitartrate, a time consuming and energy intensive process. The energy requirement for electrodialysis can be more than 80% less than traditional cold stabilization methods¹.

Key Features of the HEED® wine treatment system include:

Accurately reduce conductivity, pH, and/or dissolved salts to desired levels for stabilization and/or flavor enhancement, without the need to add chemicals to the wine;
Able to treat red or white wines with only a slight/no change in wine temperature and very little/no wine process losses;
Improved wine flavor, more effective preservation with bisulfites, and increased wine value through acid/salt reductions and/or pH adjustment;
Ability to process wines with elevated levels of hardness (calcium and or magnesium);
Over 80% energy savings compared with traditional tartrate reduction methods at a fraction of the processing time compared to wine refrigeration methods;
Small equipment footprint, with minimal operator training and attention required;
Approved for use by regulations in the EU, USA, S. Africa and other countries;
Standard system sizes as small as a nominal² 400 liters per hour and up to 12,500 liters per hour - custom larger systems available;
Wine feed batch sizes variable to suit user needs, with both batch recirculation processing mode (preferred) or one pass continuous processing mode available;
Easy to use: just set the desired set point of pH or conductivity and the programmable logic controller will turn off the system automatically when the batch of wine is completed.
1. Pacific Gas and Electric Company, one of the USA’s largest utilities, established the energy saving potential afforded by using electrodialysis for tartrate removal from wines in 2007, noting the energy usage and potential for energy savings with electrodialysis varies with different wine varieties, cold stabilization method and hardware, and processing and test conditions used at the different wineries; see http://www.etcc-ca.com/images/stories/pdf/ETCC_Report_441.pdf for the PG&E 2007 report.

2. Production capacity of a fixed electrodialysis system for wine processing depends on the starting and finish chemistry of the wine, wine and concentrate stream temperature, age and history of membranes, process parameters, and other variables; capacities stated are nominal based on a 30% conductivity drop at 20 °C for a particular red wine with an initial conductivity of approximately 4100 microsiemens/cm.

EET may arrange for testing your specific wine type(s) at laboratory scale for sizing an appropriate system to meet your treatment needs and also establish flavor enhancing processing protocols in conjunction with your master winemaker’s trained palate. EET may also propose pilot scale testing at your plant to demonstrate at scale the process flexibility and economic benefits that HEED® electrodialysis systems offer.