Chilling Wine Post Ferment

Hello Everyone,
I need to chill wine post ferment in steel barrels. I am looking for cooling snakes which can be inserted into the barrels attached to chillers. But seems that they do not come with 2inch triclover attachments.

Please share your solutions as renting jacketed tanks is an expensive option.

Thank you in advance.
Vamsi

What’s the wine and situation Vamsi? Once off the skins & in a steel bbl, I’ve never found the temp to be the most critical thing in the world. If it’s still fermenting & temp is the issue, rent a steel porta tank 4 to 100 times too large and finish it there. The porta tank will be comparatively cheap & you’ll get the ferm temps down to where you want them (I’d keep the lip off most of the time). Then you can press it to a steel or oak bbl with out stressing. Good Luck!

Hello Eric.
It is Riesling and Gewurztraminer. I have fermented in steel barrels the last 3 vintages and added quite a bit of sulfur to prevent malo. Now I want to change it up with temp controlled slow ferments and drop the temp to 20F to 25F to completely stop ferment and allow little bit of aging on the lees.

There is a bung attachment that slides over the snake for insertion into a barrel, and I think it should fill out a 2" TC. If not, it’s easy enough to attach a 1.5" reducer. Check MoreWine in Concord.

Hi Vamsi - I’m going through the same process with auxerrois which I will ferment in ss barrel(Mueller). The snake with the surface area to cool a 75gal barrel is the 2.4m length that they sell at MoreWine. Since I’m tapping into a winery glycol cooling system I need to not only introduce the cooling snake to the barrel but also a temperature probe which then has the external controller, solenoid valve, and quick disconnects for supply and return to manage the temperature. I’m looking at a Wye or Tee setup with and elbow so that I can add the air lock bubbler. My hope is to have this done in 10days from commercial bits other than to have a thermowell bent to make it stand away from the snake. In the 2inch TC opening there is not much room to play with. One other thing is that if you really want to go to a very low temperature in the barrel you will need to give it some insulation to give a more even distribution of temperature and to maintain that low temperature. Let us know what you end up doing.

BTW - Someone made the suggestion to me to surround the barrel with PEX tubing and hook up the chiller. Also a thermal insulator would be placed around the PEX tubing to maintain cooling.

I use pipe thread home flexible heater pipe plumbed into a chiller line. 15’ of coil will chill a 300-gallon IBC by about 10 degrees per hour. Works in T-bins nicely too…

Thank you everyone for sharing your methods.

I did find a cooling snake at More Wine. I found fittings at Power Industries in Santa Rosa because the portable chillers have 3/4’ fitting but the snake was 1/2’ fitting. I will post the pic once I get it tested today.

Hi Vamsi - Look forward to the pic of your cooling snake setup. Early next week my version should done and will do the same and share the pic.

I’ve got a snake helping chill a VC tank right now. I think it’s the longest one they make. It’s handy to throw at a tank to speed chilling when a plate isn’t getting it done fast enough, but I’d forgotten what a drag they are to wrassle and clean. I’m not sure why they are so particularly aggravating, but I now remember why I hadn’t used mine in a couple years. The silicone bung seals a 2"TC opening well enough but there isn’t that much smooth space on the snake for the bung to mate up with. Fine for settling, but I don’t think I’d trust that connection for longer term storage.
I upgraded from a 1HP Penguin water chiller to a 1HP Penguin glycol chiller this year. It’s only being applied to 3000L, but it takes that down to 32F without much problem. The water chiller would go to about 41F. So, far both Penguin machines have performed reliably, the service has been good, and the price is reasonable.

Here’s a pic of the first iteration of a barrel chilling wand. This allows for cold settling, fermentation, and cold stabilization for whites. I’ve got some additional ideas on how to improve this and streamline it. Now it needs a thermo blanket.
barrel chiller.jpeg