Chapel Down winery in Kent has installed Krohne Optiflux 2100 and is now able to produce a more accurate and less-labour intensive product.
Wine has become increasingly popular in the UK and has largely lost its elitist image. It may still come as a surprise to many, but award winning wine is being produced right here in the UK.
Based in Tenterden in Kent, the Chapel Down winery produces traditional method sparkling wines and a range of still wines, as well as beer and cider. It was looking for a portable measurement device that could provide accurate measurement and volume monitoring of juice and wine during transfer operations.
It decided to have a portable device manufactured that incorporated Krohne’s OPTIFLUX 2100 electromagnetic flowmeter. The device is attached to an inlet and outlet pipe and mounted on wheels so that it can be easily moved around the winery to perform accurate measurement wherever required.
The inlet pipe is attached to a tank and the medium is then pumped through it at a flowrate of 5-10,000 l/hr, passing through the electromagnetic flowmeter and then via the outlet pipe into another vessel.
The OPTIFLUX 2100 accurately measures the volume of the medium and once the desired quantity has been reached the pump is switched off.
Previously Chapel Down used sight glasses running down the side of the tank, which was labour intensive. By automating the process using Krohne’s OPTIFLUX 2100 it has consistently accurate measurement and instead of two people being required, the process can be carried out by one person alone.
Josh Donaghay-Spire, winemaker at Chapel Down commented: “We were keen to automate the transfer process, however we needed a flowmeter that could cope with dissolved Co2 as this makes the more traditional flowmeters ineffective.
“We were aware that Krohne had previous experience with a similar application and that their OPTIFLUX 2100 could easily cope with the process conditions while providing accurate and reliable measurement.
Krohne is a full-service provider for process measuring technology for the measurement of flow, mass flow, level, pressure and temperature as well as analytical tasks.
Founded in 1921 and headquartered in Duisburg, Germany, the company employs more than 3,300 people across the world and is present on all continents.
