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Saturday, February 13, 2021

Outfitting a Winery Laboratory

I wrote about Small Winery Investment and Operating Costs taken from a Washington State Extension Bulletin prepared by Le Ann A. Fickle et al. Although this is a very comprehensive and helpful bulletin, I realized that there was no inclusion of a winery laboratory.
For that, I turned to Considerations for Starting a Winery researched by Justin R. Morris and published by the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station.
The publication provided a Table of Equipment that might be a part of a winery laboratory.2 I modified the table to show the year that we purchased that equipment.
Equipment to Outfit a Winery Laboratory
Equipment Year Purchased Equipment Year Purchased
Cash/Markham Still pH Meter 2015
Paper Chromatography Equipment 2017 Ripper Equipment
Ebulliometer Refractometer 2015
Filtration Equipment 2016 Scales 2015
Forceps and other Manipulators Spectrophotometer
Heat Source Test Kit for Residual Sugar 2015
Hydrometers 2020 Titration Equipment 2015
Material Mixing Equipment Assorted Chemicals and Reagents 2015-now
Microscope Misc. glassware including flasks, beakers, sample containers, test tubes, racks and pipettes 2015-now
Our first purchase when we started our small laboratory in our basement was a hand held refractometer. This equipment was necessary to test for sugars in the ripening grapes in the vineyard.
We soon realized that we needed a pH meter, titratable acidity and sulfur dioxide titration equipment which we found could be done using a Vinmetrica SC-300 Pro. This equipment is useful for extremely small quantities of wine that needs to be tested and is ideal for the home winemaker. My husband had to get additional burettes, glass beakers and a magnetic stir plate to modify it for our use.
We initially used Glucose test strips to test for the residual sugar. In 2020, once we had enough grape juice and consequently, wine that we could use, we bought a hydrometer which is much better at testing for the presence/absence of sugars.
I am interested in what the other equipment can do so in the upcoming blogpost I will write about them.
References:
1. Le Ann A. Fickle, Raymond J. Folwell, Trent Ball, and Carter Clary, Small Winery Investment and Operating Costs, Washington State Extension Bulletin.
2. Justin R. Morris, Considerations for Starting a Winery, Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, Division of Agriculture, University of Arkansas System, January 2008, Research Report 983.

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