"monkeybug" > wrote in message
...
> Hi, Im hoping somebody can point me in the right direction.
>
> I am looking for a floating lid fermenter to store wine after most
> of the lee's has been racked. Does anyone have any experience with
> these? What should I look for? What is the pros and cons?
>
> I am really looking for something simpler than a kegging system to
> draw wine from over time (less than 6 months).
>
I have experience in a commercial winery with floating lids up to 15000
litre tanks.
These things are very heavy and a real bother to set up. You need a whinch
to raise and lower the lids and either an arch over the tank or a bolt in
the ceiling to hold the weight of the lid ( the membrane on the lid cannot
support the lid weight alone). The lids are usually sealed to the sides of
the tanks using a rubber membrane that looks like bike tube and inflates in
much the same manner. They work well when being installed clean and fresh
on a newly filled tanks but on active tanks with sticky sides or dirty
membranes the tube sticks to the tank walls and never pulls cleanly up or
down. While in theory it sounds nice it's a lot easier effort wise just to
use N2/CO2 gas to purge the head space of O2 and refresh it every so often.

I never found that floating is the correct term as the lid works best if
suspended just above the liquid by a 1/4 inch or so. It's very hard to get
inflate the membrane and not ooze juice on top of the lid if you have
contact.

For these large tanks thinkof the fiasco of having some tank gas pressure
causing the membrane to ooze wine on top of the lid where fruit flies are
gathering and mold is starting to grow and it's 6 feet down the side of the
tank! You have to clean the mess off before it breaches the membrane and you
can't raise the lid to do it.