There is a growing propensity today for companies in the winemaking sector to implement production cycles that are increasingly automated and ensure a lower environmental impact, meeting the need to reduce production costs while preserving all the typical features of the wine being treated. That is why Della Toffola has chosen to develop a highly innovative crossflow filtering system that – for the first time in the winemaking sector – uses ceramic membranes instead of the usual organic materials. Della Toffola has chosen this type of membrane for its unbeatable features of durability, capacity and hygiene, which would be impossible to achieve with the organic alternatives.
The many qualities of ceramic membranes can be summarized as follows:
• they allow for completely automatic working cycles demanding no monitoring by an operator;
• they retain all the typical characteristics of the wine being treated, including the substances that are important for its stability, e.g. mannoproteins and protective colloids;
• the resulting wines are ready for bottling, with a filterability index < 10°S, starting from a product before or after clarification;
• the resulting wines have a turbidity of 0.00 NTU, starting from fluids values varying between 25 and 1,000 NTU;
• there is absolutely no need for filter aids of any kind;
• the membranes can be washed at very high temperatures (70-80°C; 158-176°F) for their easy and effective regeneration;
• the filter elements are up to five times more durable than the average organic membranes.
Thanks to these features, ceramic membranes are now used in Della Toffola crossflow filters for filtering lees as well. The need to filter these byproducts of the winemaking process is increasingly felt in order to retrieve the maximum quantity of wine, especially in the case of top-quality aromatic wines. Using ceramic membranes virtually overcomes all the problems of filtering the lees, ensuring the recovery of an unprecedented quantity of wine. Today Della Toffola is presenting a renewed, complete range of models capable of satisfying any type of need with ease, starting with the CFKM 20 model and working right up to the CFKA and CFKI models with a capacity of 1.000 m². Even larger models can be made to customer’s orders.