Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/480754
34 WINES&VINES April 2015 OAK BARREL ALTERNATIVES At the 2015 Unified Wine & Grape Sympo- sium in Sacramento, Calif., World Cooperage touted the new oak-extraction tank that it developed with Custom Metalcraft for the cooper's Oak Solutions Group line of barrel alternatives. The extractor tank is a TranStore portable unit modified to withstand pressure of 14.7 psi. Dr. David Llodrá, World Cooper- age's research and development director, said when chips or staves are suspended in wine, the extrac- tion process proceeds to a certain point before essentially stopping. By running wine through an ex- traction tank, the oak and wine interface is constantly changing, and more flavor and aroma compounds are drawn from the oak. "It's like mixing your tea," Llodrá said. The strengthened 350-gallon tank is designed to withstand the pressure of a large volume of wine getting pulled through, and it can hold 400 pounds of oak chips. Llodrá said the tank is designed for wine to flow from the tank with gravity and then get pumped out via the outlet valve. He added that a winery could connect sev- eral of the extractor tanks together or use one to provide a final boost of oak to hit a certain style before bottling. Llodrá said optimal extraction depends on how much oak is in the tank and the flow rate of a pump, but he added that a typical applica- tion would be to run eight volumes of the tank through the extraction tank in a day. Tanks for wine aging with staves Australian supplier Flexcube went through an extensive, two-year redesign process to im- prove its signature cube aging tank, which the company's managing director Peter Steer says The redesigned Flexcube can hold 265 to 530 gallons and can be stacked to provide up to 1,060 gallons of storage. World Cooperage and Custom Metalcraft worked on enhancing a 350-gallon tank to provide maximum extraction from oak bar- rel alternatives. —continued from page 32