Oculyze announces stuck fermentation warning product for wine makers
Oculyze, one of the world’s leading platforms for mobile image analysis, today announced that it is launching “fermentation wine Consultant (FW-C)” a product to help wine makers prevent stalled and stuck fermentations.
Oculyze
A study published in Journal of applied microbiology revealed that a shocking 20% of wine fermentations are either sluggish or become stuck, so that is a major concern every season.
Kilian Moser, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Oculyze says that the challenge with the method commonly used for fermentation tracking, density meters, is that density follows the metabolic activity of yeast and if you wait for your sugar content to deviate from your expectations, by the time you realize this, your fermentation is already sluggish if not stuck.
With the Oculyze FW-C warning feature deviations from the ideal fermentation curve can be seen as soon as the yeast runs into trouble. It gives winemaker more time to react, Moser explains.
Developed in partnership with Weincampus Neustadt
The Oculyze FW and the fermentation warning feature (FW-C) were developed jointly with the Weincampus Neustadt University and with support from a grant from the German Federation of Industrial Research Associations (AiF).
We have many years of experience in wine fermentation and strong connection with local winemakers. Together with the engineers at Oculyze we looked at a lot of fermentations over the past 12 months and worked
relentlessly to create the data required for the warning and prediction models. We are very pleased with how well this cooperation has worked. The results of this project, led by microbiologist Dr. Kathrin Diesler, can be
directly transferred to the wine cellar, Professor Dr. Maren Scharfenberger-Schmeer at Weincampus says.
Quick and accurate results
Dr. Ulrich Tillich, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Oculyze is happy that Oculyze was able to solve some of the main challenges during fermentation:
- The cell counting no longer needs to be performed by an expert with expensive bench top cell counters. This is archived by harnessing the power of the cloud-based image recognition algorithms and an affordable, robust mobile microscope connected to an Android device.
- FW-C enables wine makers to quickly interpret the results of their cell counts by means of warnings if something seems to be off. They no longer need 20 years of experience to know what the cell concentration means for them, Tillich says. He points that careful analysis of yeast before and during the fermentation process is critical to the quality and consistency of the wine making process.
- This is where we can make a big difference and ensure consistency in the final deliverable through the use of our innovative technology. I am excited to roll out this product and we hope to prevent a lot of stuck fermentations this year- a problem that seems to become more and more common due to global warming. We can’t control the weather, but we can help the yeast and the vintner to make the best possible wine.
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