RO does not remove acetaldehyde. We have found using STARS may have a positive effect, as lowering the ph of the wine will free bound SO2, which may effectively remove some of the oxidative qualities of the wine.
We normally process between 15000 and 25000 liters per day. Higher treatment rates (ph adjustment, highly unstable wines) mean a slightly slower processing rate.
For the majority of wines, we recommend right after filtration and before bottling. For wines targeted for ph reduction, we recommend before aging as the lower ph wines will have more free SO2, and be more protected from VA, oxidizing, and other faults.
STARS has no wine loss. STARS has less oxygen pick up, as cold wines pick up oxygen readily. STARS is much faster and allows wines to be released earlier. STARS has lower energy consumption and doesn’t require extensive chilling capacity.
We recommend picking grapes slightly later, at a higher ph. This has the added benefit of allowing the grapes to reach a higher phenolic ripeness.
We can decrease ph by up to 0.25 per pass for wines that are too high in ph, and this is a common usage of the system.
Cellar Dweller normally does not provide the hoses on the inlet and outlet side of the equipment, but we do provide the drain hoses for equipment (STARS, CROSSFLOW). We also provide the fittings that for hoses connected to our equipment. Crossflow and STARS are tank to tank processes, so a clean receiving tank is needed
We specify a maximum turbidity of 5 NTU, but Crossflow or fine filter pads are recommended. The STARS unit has a 1 um absolute filter installed to protect the membranes, this filter is $125 per changeout.
There is typically a slight decrease in wine ph, the amount depending on the level of treatment needed, but typically about a 0.1 shift.