I’m an importer and home winemaker and starting a tiny commercial winery in CA this year.
Thinking particularly in terms of whites (buying about 2.5 tons), I was hoping some of you wouldn’t mind sharing your preferences and thoughts on the myriad of options and suppliers of stainless tanks–primarily curious to hear if you prefer single/fewer larger tanks vs numerous smaller tanks, any indispensable options, and if you have any recommendations for stainless suppliers.
Planning to do full malo and some lees work, as I imagine that may affect answers.
If you doing whites I would ferment it in barrel and/or stainless drum. If you need a settling/racking/bottling tank I would use a flex tank for that they go up to 300 gallons. However if you want to cold stabilize the wine then you will need a chiller and stainless tank with a large surface area covered in cooling jackets. I would shop locally as shipping is very expensive. I would also look for a size that they already produce in small tanks to avoid custom tank fees.
I just went thru this as I am now going to cold stabilize our whites. I received bids on 300-375 gallon jacketed tank ranging from $3,750-$6,500. I did not need any add ons so I went with the cheapest bid. Once in a while used ones show up on some of the websites but I found they are not much if any cheaper than new ones. Stainless seems to hold its value very well.
Speidel is the Mercedes of SS tanks. I’d buy a variable capacity tank to eliminate head-space. You can buy a cheaper Italian tank, but they seem to flex more and don’t seal as tight without some modification. You’ll need another tank or plastic tote to rack into before filtration, but those are cheap.
Thanks, Joe and Bill! Any recommendations for solid stainless brands–maybe not the best of the best (trying to keep costs relatively low for the first year)–but won’t give me trouble?
I’d vote for having a lot of crappy VC stainless tanks. I’ve got 5 of them between 500 and 2000L from Criveller. They are about $1/L and work pretty well. They are flimsy, but I haven’t had a problem with them getting out-of-round, and I haven’t had any gasket failures. You can set them up so that you can hang a cooling plate thru the top. Even if you buy an extra top for that purpose, it’s way cheaper than jacketing a good tank. I don’t have great faith in the plastic breather valves that come with the tops, and I think it’s worth welding a tri-clover attachment on there so you can use a better breather valve.
The main reason to opt for lots of small tanks rather than fewer large ones is that the former configuration gives you more leeway to experiment and advance your learning curve. If, for example, you want to split your vintage of a variety into a skin contact lot, a leesy lot and an aerated lot to see what works best for you, it’s better to have 3 cheap tanks rather than one good one. If you’re further down the road and have settled on a single protocol, better, fewer, larger tanks might make more sense.
With yet another opinion, this thread may not end up helping the OP much. Preferences are no doubt affected by your wine types and processing setup.
I don’t like VC tanks very much for any kind of storage past a month. Its hard to get the lid set without any air under it and not pushing wine out as the gasket is inflated. I prefer fixed capacity tanks with beer kegs for overages. I have 50, 80, 200, and 300 Flextanks now and really like them. They also have 30g and 15g versions. I get the heavy wall version with Dexter lid (18 or 19" round cover). They can be filled and capped without an air vent (assuming stable wine) and I sleep better knowing there’s no air leaks. I just get the tri-clamp connection kit with them and use standard bubblers with small bungs for fermentation. I haven’t tried using a cooling plate for cold stabilization yet but might try that setup next year. I have a couple stainless 55g barrels but they are a pain to clean and get all the way drained out. Maybe the version with removable heads are easier to live with. But it is hard to live without a VC at all. They are great for bottling and blending. TCW is having a sale this month with some great prices.
Although not as pretty stainless why not go with food grade plastic drums and/or poly tanks? Used plastic drums and polys can be found cheep on the secondary market. At 2.5 tons worth of juice you can ferment in two polys and consolidate into one for ageing. Stirring the lees by hand or rolling the tank is pretty easy in either vessel. If you plan on cold stabilizing you can rent a chiller and pates to insert into the tank.
2.5 tons of most whites will yield around 350 gallons of juice so thats a lot of poly drums. Fine for fermentation but not really suited to long term storage.
+1 on Criveller. Nice folks. Good service. Fair prices. Cheap extra gaskets. I have a couple of 2000L and a couple of 1000L along with some heavier ones and I am pretty set. the 2000L is a good size because I guy can tip it over and wash it. The reinforced lip is pretty OK on those too.
For whites, unless you have jackets and chill, I like starting the yeast in the 2000L tank and then fermenting in 55 gallon steel drums. With a fan, you can dissipate heat pretty well and prevent runway train fermentations. Sometimes I have to put burlap on them and hit it with a hose every few hours, but it does work. Then, you can use the 2000L tank for rack, bento and settle or whatever your process will be.
When I said poly tanks I was referring to 275 and 330 gallon containers I have used in the past. If memory serves me correct the winery I worked for purchased a few used polys for less than $300 a piece. Much less cost prohibitive. Buy two ferment in both and consolidate.
At Unified, Flextank was showing a prototype moveable jacket that straps on the outside of unjacketed tanks that could be a good addition to your cheap tank lineup. They were about 5" wide, flat plastic tubes used in the dairy industry. They were plumbed together into pvc inlet and outlet manifolds that were just bungeed to each other to accommodate different diameter tanks. Pretty simple, and, hopefully, pretty cheap.
I would second the Spiedel recommendation. Euromachines sells tanks that are made by Spiedel. Otherwise you can by them from MoreWinePro .You need to figure out what temp you want to maintain on the primary fermentation as that will exclude some choices. Note that some of the lesser expensive poly IBC options are only good for temporary storage as they are prone to oxygen ingress.