Hopper or Belt? Or Both?
There are two ways to feed your crush pad a steady, gentle flow of fruit, and many wineries use both:
| 6' Horizontal Receiving Hopper | Incline Belt Conveyor | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Dumping half-ton bins on the fly | Fruit that's raked or dropped in, and changing the height of incoming fruit |
| How it moves fruit | Oversized, flight-edged, seamless auger | Variable-speed belt with cupped cleats that hold juice |
| Height | Discharge adjusts about 65" to 105" with a forklift | Manual hydraulic ram raises or lowers the discharge |
| Use both | Receive with the hopper, then lift with the belt, for example from a sorting table or destemmer to the press or fermentor. | |
The Carlsen 6' Horizontal Receiving Hopper
The most valuable piece of crush equipment on the planet.
How would you like to see 90% of the result of sorting simply by supplying your destemmer with a constant, regulated flow of grapes? Designed for dumping half-ton bins into on the fly, the Carlsen 6-foot horizontal receiving hopper is the key to the best results from your destemmer.
By supplying the destemmer with a specific flow rate of grapes, the operator can dial in the perfect speed at the destemmer. With hand-picked fruit, this can minimize the need for sorting. It saves labor and increases the quality of the destemmed fruit.
This Hopper Can Deliver
- Whole cluster fruit to the press
- Fermented red must to the press
- Fruit to the destemmer crusher
- Fruit to a sorting table
Height adjustments are made easily with the supplied forklift pockets, so the hopper works with your other crush equipment. Discharge height adjusts from 65 to 105 inches on average.
Is It Gentle on Grapes?
A horizontal, tight-fitting, flight-edged, polished, oversized, continuously welded, seamless shaft auger is not harming the fruit. There is no pinch zone between the hopper floor and the screw, and negligible, if any, increase in solids. The bunches slide easily on the polished stainless interior, so the energy used to move the fruit isn't wasted.
This design is gentler than hand-raking fruit out of a bin into the destemmer. It is also much more efficient, and that saves labor. The grapes don't know they weren't dropped into the destemmer or press by hand.
The Carlsen Incline Belt Conveyor
An alternative to the horizontal hopper, or a partner to it.
The last word in gentle mechanical movement of grapes. The American-made incline belt conveyor is variable speed with single- or three-phase power, which makes it very versatile anywhere you need to change the height of incoming fruit. A manual hydraulic ram raises or lowers the discharge height.
- Feed a destemmer or press
- Receive from a sorting table
- Receive from a destemmer
- Feed a fermentor
- Cupped belt cleats hold juice
- Metered, variable-speed feed
This is not automated crush equipment or a labor-less system. There will be some care required to drop the correct amount of fruit into the intake.