February 14th – The German company Oculyze GmbH has recently announced that they’re offering free access to anyone interested in testing their Oculyze Fermentation Wine Web App for yeast monitoring. You can therefore, on request, get the login details for a fully functional demo account. From there on, you can upload your own images or use the ones provided for testing purposes and check out all the features of the Oculyze FW Web App (also available in the mobile app), such as:
- Yeast cell concentration & viability
- Fermentation tracking
- Size distribution histogram
- History of analyses
You can see the sample analyses already uploaded for illustration purposes, check out the graphs, and see how results such as yeast viability, yeast concentration, or budding index are displayed. And once you’ve done that you can also upload your own images, provided you have some microscopic images of your yeast, to check the results against your own manual counts or manual viability assessments.
Why would you need to analyze your yeast?
As any experienced vintner will tell you, knowing the yeast cell concentration and viability (the number of alive cells in your population of yeast) is paramount for obtaining product quality and consistency.
It allows you to pitch the right amount of yeast, to begin with, and it optimizes the process of harvesting, propagating, and reusing yeast, which can make a huge difference in terms of cost savings. Additionally, it helps you prevent issues such as longer or stuck fermentations, off flavors, or uncontrolled yeast autolysis (in which the yeast cells rupture, leaking undesirable substances into the must) and it also helps you correct any issues in time to avoid a disastrous outcome.
Fermentation Tracking
In addition to individual analyses, the Oculyze FW App – both the mobile and the desktop version – also comes with the Fermentation Tracking Feature, which provides an overview of all your trackings for a particular fermentation. You can monitor your yeast from the moment you’ve pitched it up until the fermentation has completed. This allows you to notice any sudden drops in viability or yeast growth and you’ll receive notifications in the app as soon as something starts to go wrong.
Last but not least, when trying to fix a sluggish or stuck fermentation, you can, by using the cell size histogram, select a population or larger yeast cells, which have a higher resistance to ethanol, therefore reducing the risk that the added yeast will be immediately killed off by the ethanol present in the tank.
About Oculyze GmbH
Using cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) technology, Oculyze has created a computer vision software that automates tedious manual image analysis and speeds up lab work. This revolutionary approach was proven to be successful with the launching of the automated Yeast Cell Counters, Oculyze FW & Oculyze BB 2.0, hardware/software combinations that are currently used by wineries and breweries from all over the world.
For More Information:
https://www.oculyze.net/yeast-cell-counter/wine-fermentation/how-it-works/
