An award-winning wine manufacturer based in the UK are using flanged Pinch Valves from AKO UK’s VF range on their grape press machines. A control panel operates the valve. The company makes wine from fresh grapes, which are crushed and pumped into the press via the axial feed shown in the pictures below.
The grapes are pumped into the press via a pipe and once the press is full the Pinch Valve is closed for the press to then press the grapes out of the press. There is one valve per press. Pinch Valves have been in use for 4 years here and the winemaker has not needed to replace the rubber sleeves as of yet.
VF model, air operated, aluminium body, aluminium flanges PN10/16, white food quality flanged natural rubber sleeve, FDA approved.
The temperature of the grapes inside the press is between 10-20°C, and the pressure of the grapes/wine passing through the pinch valve is up to 1 bar.
The pinch valve is normally closed, and opens 6 times a day. 3.5 bar air pressure is used to close the pinch valve off fully. On average the company performs 100 press cycles a year during the month of October only.
The wine manufacturing company are very happy with their experience of the AKO Pinch Valves on their grape press, which have been installed for approximately 4 years.
The company previously used giant 120mm stainless steel ball valves, but confirmed that the last ball valve they had was actually not very hygienic and in harvest would be difficult to keep clean. They found that there was always a gap in the liner. In addition to this, they realised that ball valves are also very expensive. They had only replaced the ball valve once after it started leaking and could not be put back together once it was dismantled. The winemaker told us at AKO UK that the stainless ball valve was horrifically expensive when he last checked. This cost was over-kill for their presses when the valve is only to be shut for a shorter period. This left the wine manufacturer no choice but to look at alternative valve options.
Once the Pinch Valves from AKO were installed, there was an instant comparison – the wine manufacturer finds the AKO Pinch Valve to be a much more hygienic solution, being a self cleaning unit and because of the fact that you will not find any problems with clogging since the Pinch Valve has a full and true bore.
The wine manufacturer finds that AKO Pinch Valves are a lot more cost effective, saving the company £6-7K in total, since the ball valves were replaced. The Pinch Valves are much more hygienic for their situation as there are no bug traps as with the ball valves. Pinch Valves are much less effort and faster to use with the simplicity of opening an air valve and the Pinch Valve is shut immediately.
In addition, the AKO Pinch Valve has saved the company approximately 3 minutes in maintenance time per cycle. With the valve performing around 100 cycles per year, this equates to 300 minutes, totaling 5 hours of maintenance time saved per year.
The winemaker told us:
“The pinch valve only needs a rinse and we are good to go. Saving time but more importantly being easy to maintain sterility. The key factor is how happy everyone is with the Pinch Valve when opening and closing it at the end of a long shift.”
The company has just ordered a new press and will be requiring more pinch valves. The same unit is also going to be used with a pressure sensor on it.
The winemaker has also removed a level of automation that the presses normally come with. They normally have a second valve which is just a pressure monitor. This is then set for the valve to close when a certain pressure is reached. The press will then shut off the grape pump to stop it filling. Again, this is another big saving as an air solenoid is much cheaper than a valve solenoid.
