UC Davis

Cold stabilization of potassium bitartrate is a common practice in wine production, however it is time and energy intensive due to the low temperatures required to facilitate crystallization. It has been demonstrated that a fluidized bed crystallizer could perform the same function as cold stabilization while minimizing drawbacks from batch operation. Two bench scale fluidized beds were constructed and tested with several size fractions of potassium bitartrate crystals in a model wine solution to isolate the parameters to determine bed height expansion. It was found that tube diameter and mass of loading showed little difference between scales, and that the crystal shape and size played a larger role. A pilot-scale fluidized bed crystallizer was designed and tested on an unstable wine to remove potassium bitartrate. The crystallizer selectively removed potassium bitartrate, confirmed by a decrease in conductivity, chemical analysis using HPLC, and particle analysis before and after fluidization. These results provide a positive step in designing a more efficient semi-continuous approach to remove potassium bitartrate analogous to cold stabilization.