In this message I described the setup to do cold fermentation using a small chest freezer:
We made about 60 gallons and it has ended up being three distinct batches. About 5 gallons was from juice that settled on the dregs of other rackings early in the process. This picked up some off odors and we ran it across a copper sheet, and it cleaned it up and did take out some muscat aroma. It is dry.
We had 7 gallons of dry muscat which fermented in a cool cellar (but without refrigeration), and it is clean and floral. The bulk is what we were aiming at: a low alcohol (10.5%) cold fermented white with about 2-3% residual sugar. It is stable and very nice, though it would have been filtered if it were made commercially. In the glass it looks very clear. It was a lot of trouble, but we feel we succeeded, and the vineyard owner (the largest in Amador County) gave it thumbs up last weekend.
Steve Cisler