76 Wines & Vines MARCH 2012

Improved Hose Passes Winery TestsPVC-coated Glidetech slides and cleans more easilyBy Richard Carey

F ancy tanks, high-tech presses and other innovative winery technolo-gies get lots of press. One item of great importance in any winery,

large or small, is often neglected: the lowly hose. No winery can do without them, as hoses transfer wine from place to place, from truck to winery, from one tank to another, from tank to bottling. During the many years I have been a winemaker, I have used a wide range of hoses to transfer wines throughout many aspects of winemaking.

One of the advantages of traveling to Eu-ropean wine trade shows is to see first-hand the many products for the wine industry that are often superior to those available in the United States. The wine industry in Eu-rope has a large number of hose companies servicing the industry, and I first saw Glide-

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The shape of Tüdertechnica’s Glidetech hose is noticeably different from conventional hoses.

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Wines & Vines MARCH 2012 77

tech hoses made by Tüdertechnica at one of those trade shows. Initially this company was not exporting its products to this coun-try, but when I found out that Glidetech was at last being imported into the U.S., I jumped at the chance to review it.

I have been using and reviewing this hose at Tamanend Winery for two years to deter-mine its strengths and weaknesses, evaluating whether it could meet the expectations I had after seeing it at the European trade shows.

Equipment features

There are many features of the Glidetech hose that I like. One of the top attributes is the outer skin of the hose. The photo on page 76 shows a Glidetech hose next to a competitor’s hose. The outer skin of the Glidetech hose has a bright red UHMW (ultra-high molecular weight) thermoplastic coating. This coating has prevented much of the wear that shows on the adjacent hose, even though both hoses have been used for a similar amount of time.

Additionally, the thermoplastic coating makes the hose slide in and around winery surfaces more easily. There are times when the rougher surface of the competitor’s hose is valuable, such as when the hose is coated in slippery liquids. In those situations, the rougher surface is easier to hold.

However, the biggest asset of the UHMW coating on the Glidetech hose is its clean-ability. After two years of hard winery use, this hose cleans up to look as good as new.

The Glidetech hose has a unique cor-rugated outer shape. This design gives the hose greater flexibility without losing any strength. The inner construction of this hose is multi-layered. Its rigid structure is formed by steel wire encased in a polymer rope-like wound material, and the unique wrapping of these steel supports creates the corrugated outer façade that allows the flexibility of the hose to be enhanced (see photo on this page). The hose pictured here is a factory prepared hose with 2-inch tri-clamp fittings. The hose bending diameter is 6 inches for a 2-inch hose. Other Glide-tech hoses have similar bending diameters.

Another feature of the Glidetech hose is its relative weight per foot. The weight of the 3- and 4-inch hoses are as much as 60% less than that of other equivalent food and beverage hoses. The weight difference is not as large for the 1- and 2-inch hoses.

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For wineries using air diaphragm or peristaltic pumps, the pulsations can weaken the hose lining near its hose barb fitting. The 250 psi-rated hose solves this problem.

78 Wines & Vines MARCH 2012

Comparison with other hoses

One of the popular types of hose in many wineries is the rigid-ribbed translucent PVC hose. Staffers at many wineries, including mine, have liked this hose because you can see the color of the wine and possibly avoid the harrowing possibility of topping off a Chardonnay tank with Cabernet that was left in a hose you thought was clean. Other than cost, this is about the only other advantage. A sight glass at the discharge of the pump will protect against an accidental transfer of an unintended wine into another wine.

When the weather turns frigid, the PVC hose becomes brittle. On the East Coast, I have stepped on this type of hose and had

it shatter under foot. While wineries on the West Coast don’t have many problems with this issue, the PVC hose is much more brittle at colder temperatures than any of the other hose materials I tested. This type of hose also gets progressively more brittle with each heat cycle it is exposed to dur-ing sanitation.

Glidetech comes in two different pressure ratings. The standard is the 150 psi hose and the second is 250 psi. Wineries do not raise pressures to the level of 150 psi, so why should a winery consider the upgrade?

Extraordinary stress can be put on hoses if you have positive displacement pumps. Acci-dentally closing a valve can logarithmically in-

crease the internal pressure on the hose, even if only for a brief time period. Such repeated actions can strain the hose materials, result-ing in a significantly shorter life expectancy.

For wineries using air diaphragm (pri-marily West Coast wineries) or peristaltic pumps, one of the potential problems of this hose—or any other similarly con-structed hoses used with these pumps—is the possibility that the pulsations of the pumps can weaken the hose lining near its hose barb fitting. I have found that if the hose clamp projects beyond the shank of the ferrule, it exacerbates the problem by weakening the inner hose lining much as you would when bending a paper clip.

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Shorter ferrule shanks seem to have more problems than the longer “beer” fittings, because the placement of the hose clamp does not have as much room to be clamped without extending beyond the edge of the barb. The ex-tension beyond the barb causes the most prob-lems. In addition, shorter hose lengths seem to have more of a tendency for this problem due to the greater transfer of the pulsation intensity to the respective ends of the hose. To solve this issue completely, use the 250 psi-rated hose and the problem seems to disappear.

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The wine in the Glidetech hose was the only wine for which tasters could not tell the difference between wine in the hose and the same wine in the tank.

Even though the Glidetech hose seems to be indestructible, it would not be worth the powder to blow it up if there were any pos-sibility for flavor transfer in the hose. To de-termine if this is a possibility, I took two foot sections of the PVC hose, a hose type equiva-lent to Glidetech, and the Glidetech hoses, plugged them at one end and then filled them to the top with wine. After seven days, the wine in the Glidetech hose was the only wine for which astute tasters could not tell the difference between wine in the hose and the same wine in the tank. While this is an unrealistic amount of contact time of hose with wine, it is emblematic of the soundness of this hose’s materials and design.

In summary, Glidetech combines the utilities of many other brands of hoses into one hose. It is relatively light, tough and does not impart any off flavors to the wine. Glidetech hoses are distributed by CRP Industries. For more information, visit crpindustries.com. WE

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