Built for red wine, not repurposed from beer

A 50,000 L closed top vessel is a different animal from a conical fermenter. Red wine ferments on skins, and the cap floats. With no cone to dump through, the tank relies on pump-over or punch-down, and the headspace above the wine is where CO2 collects during the most active 5–8 days of primary fermentation. We build the shell with a shallow dished top and a 450–500 mm manway sized so a person in a harness can get in for post-vintage cleaning without removing the whole lid assembly.

Volume matters at this scale. A 50,000 L tank usually pairs with 30–60 tonne fruit lots, and wineries often want two or three of them rather than one oversized vessel, because blending flexibility disappears once you commit to a single tank. Worth deciding before you order, since shipping a 50,000 L shell in one piece needs a lowboy and route permits.

Material and fabrication

316L (S31603) is our default for red wine because of the lower pH, the tartaric and malic acid load, and the sulfur dioxide that sits in the headspace. Where free SO2 is kept low and the water chemistry is benign, 304 works fine and costs less — we tell customers that instead of upselling. Shell thickness runs 3–4 mm with dished ends; dimple plate jackets are resistance-welded to the outside of the shell, then pressure tested at 1.5× design. Interior welds are ground flush and pickled, with an Ra ≤0.8 µm polish on request. Every tank gets passivated and a ferroxyl test report before it leaves the shop.

Cooling and temperature control

Red fermentations generate a lot of heat — 1.3–1.8 °C rise per hour during peak, depending on must temperature and cap management. Dimple plate jackets give a high heat-transfer coefficient against a 50 mm insulated shell, and we typically split the jacket into 2–4 zones so a glycol set point of −2 to 2 °C holds the must at 26–30 °C without shocking it. Undersized jackets are the most common mistake we see in quotes from other suppliers.

Specifications

FAQ

Can I use it for white wine too? Yes, with a racking arm and juice settling, though the closed top limits lees stirring access.

Do I need a pressure relief valve? Any vessel with a sealed top and CO2 generation does. We supply a sanitary relief and a vent sized to your fermentation rate.

How is CIP handled? Rotating spray ball on the top, drain at the lowest point of the dish, and a caustic cycle at 60–70 °C. Sloped floors help.

What do you need to quote? Fruit tonnage, target fermentation temperature, glycol supply temperature, available floor space and door height, plus your local pressure vessel rules.

Send us your lot size, wine style, number of tanks and the space you have. We can size the jackets, zones and fittings for the configuration that actually fits your cellar.