We occassionally get calls from home based wine makers asking about an ozone system. Ozone is an excellent tool for winery sanitation. Unfortunately is not economical for producers making less thanfifty barrels of wine.
Commercial wineries produce degassed ozonated water to rinse tanks, barrels, drains, etc. The primary application is disinfection of surfaces that come in contact with the ozone dissolved in the water. After acting on the micro organisms or oxidizable organic molecules ozone breaks down to oxygen. This makes it a very clean disinfectant.
For the home wine maker, the cost of the ozone machines outweighs the benefits. Since there are many good sanitizers available to the small-scale winemaker, it is difficult to justify the cost of an ozone generator. You can try mimicking ozone’s oxidizing power by using a hydrogen-peroxide producing powder, sometimes sold in the laundry section of supermarkets or increasingly through winemaking supply retailers. When dissolved in water, these powders form a strong base so you’ll have to make sure you do a citric acid wash and then clean water rinse after applying.