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Welcome to WineComputer.com!
Development Staff
Wine Computer's Java software is designed and written by staff with professional qualifications in mathematics and engineering (BSc and professional engineering certification). In addition, our experience developing large professional, internationally known, modeling and simulation software applications combined with our relevant experience in small scale wine making have made it possible to develop the tools suitable for amateur winemakers. The Internet makes it possible to make these tools available for use on-line at an affordable price. We also like a bit of fun. So we have developed some animated components that will soon appear in training tools (and when time allows perhaps a game or two to break the tension of waiting for your wine to age).
Economic Approach
Our experience in engineering has produced a approach consistent with the economics of small scale production with its focus on the best quality that can be obtained at a low price. Sadly, small volume producers seldom control the production of the grapes they use. They also typically do not have big budgets for testing or high-tech hardware such as membrane presses, centrifuges etc. that are so dominant today in commercial wine production. On the other hand, those producing wine only for private consumption are not legally restricted as to the adjustments they can make to their wine musts. This, along with small lot production and blending, makes it possible for small producers to make delicious wines from the grapes or fruit available to them for two dollars (or less) per bottle. And only a few simple and inexpensive tests are required! If you know your own wine making goals and are willing to make a few simple measurements, Wine Computer's tool kit will make it easier to optimize your results.
Scientific Approach
We started with the assumption that the wine maker should never have to make manual calculations, temperature corrections, units conversions or interpolate values from tables (such as for potential alcohol). All of these activities are annoying and often lead to considerable error. Many books containing tables are very misleading (or even wrong) as the reader can not be sure what system of units is being used (unless the reader is already advanced or has professional experience). So we have broken completely with the traditional approach of using tables and adopted one which is based on a combination of basic scientific laws and published international standards.
In several cases we have developed new computer algorithms to solve the (sometimes complex) equations that arise from the basic chemistry, physics, heat transfer etc. principles involved in the biological activity of yeast. The result is a set of tools that simulate the final (and sometime intermediate) properties of a wine depending on the measured properties of the must(s) produced by the fruit(s) and the type and amount of added materials.
In order prevent the frustration and error caused by units conversion, the tools typically permit input in the preferred user units and usually show the equivalents in other units systems. This is a required feature because several million amateur wine makers in North America typically still use mixed units (partly metric and partly non-metric). This also permits "checking" materials that may be found in older recipe books, simple units conversions, etc.
Example: Instead of asking "How much sugar should I add to a must to produce 12.5 percent potential alcohol?" the winecomputer.com site has a tool with a "sugar addition slider". This tool predicts the wine's final percent alcohol for any reasonable amount of addition. Not only this, but the user also is presented with a prediction of the total final amount of wine produced and any likely residual sweetness for this sugar addition. Changing one component of a wine typically modifies all its other properties and in a non-linear way! Since a balance of properties is the wine maker's goal, only an integrated simulation process such as this will produce something close to the desired trade-off of properties peculiar to each individual wine maker.
Approach to Tradition and Recipes
Most serious makers of fruit wines will have a large collection of recipe oriented wine making books. A typical recipe gives a specific amount of fruit that is required to make a "standard" (often unspecified volume) batch of wine.
This is awkward as the winemaker often has either a mixture of fruit or an amount different for that in the recipe. We provide a tool that encapsulates most of the traditions of recipes with the flexibility of using the actual types and amounts of fruit on hand. It predicts the required additions of sugar, water etc. and the final volume. Using this tool and a bit of trial and error it becomes easy to compose your own recipes either for the amounts of fruit available or for the amount of wine desired.
We hope that our tools will permit you to more easily and accurately reach your wine making goals and to better appreciate and guide the amazing process of wine fermentation.
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