"jeff" > wrote in message
news
> Now there's a cool idea. It's a bit late for me to get into it this
> season, but a 4, 6, or 12 bottle centrifuge would be an interesting
> concept--although, even though the concept is easy to visualize, I'm
> wondering about the logistics of engineering such a thing withouth
> creating an imbalance at high rpm. The bottles would have to be filled
> exactly or there would be severe speed wobble. Or there would need to be
> an adjustable balance on the arms to fine tune it.
>
> I'm visualizing something that holds 4 bottles on gimbals, with an
> electric motor (small), so that the centrifuge allows the bottles to
> adjust into the horizontal position as the rpm increases. As the motor
> slows, the gimbals allow the bottls to settle. When rpm is zero, the
> bottls hang vertical.

That'd be great, but what works for me is an old washing machine. The tub
holds twelve 2 liter bottles, standing upright. The G force compacts the
lees against a vertical wall of the bottle, but the solids tend to stay in
place even after turning off the machine, allowing the relatively clear wine
or juice to be decanted fairly cleanly.

BTW, balance isn't all that critical. Washing machines are built to be
pretty forgiving of eccentric loading. Still, it's not a bad idea to
balance full bottles opposite bottles appropriately weighted with water.

This centrifuge works better on lees from finished wine than it does on
juice lees, but it's still good on juice. My yield from either juice or
wine lees is usually about 50%. The lees that remain are often too thick to
pour, so I throw away the bottles because they're too hard to clean out.

Tom S