Degassing Wine using a Vacuum Pump

[joewino]

I heard you can use a Vacuum Pump for degassing wine.

Can anyone give me some good advice on degassing with a vacuum pump?

It seems to me that caution must be used when doing this so that the carboy does not implode.

How deep of a vacuum, and for how long?

 

[PCharles]

Degass With Vacume Pump

I heard you can use a Vacuum Pump for degassing wine.

Can anyone give me some good advice on degassing with a vacuum pump?

It seems to me that caution must be used when doing this so that the carboy does not implode.

How deep of a vacuum, and for how long?

Hi Joey,

I use a medical vacume pump that I picked up for $90 from a local medical supply shop. I'm attaching a photo from my gallery. I've had very good results with the pump. I make sure the carboy is well filled with little air space. I operate it at the max pressure setting of 22 mm mercury. I hit the wine with my drill gun degasser first followed by the vacume. The vacume deffinetly does the job. I feel much more comfortable bottling. Of course I use a glass carboy, no plastic. It is improtant to use air filters to avoid any liquid from getting into the pump. I now use a filter atop the vacume trap and another filter just before the pump inlet. Also, I use what is called a christmas tree adapter to plug into the carboy. This is a variable sized adapter that conects different tube sizes. It plugs right into the bung without trouble.

I hope this helps.

Paul

I see the photo is not displaying. If you go to my gallery you can see a photo of my vacume pump.

 

[SpoiledRotten]

Since the subject is degassing (eventhough it's degassing with a V-pump), I didn't see a tutorial in the stickies about degassing with a manual instument. I only saw the one about using the V-P.

 

[winemaker_3352]

I don't like to go over 20mm of mercury when degassing or racking.

A glass carboy can withstand more the fuller it gets.

I generally run about 18mm.

Make sure you have a reservoir tank for it - that way you don't suck any wine into the pump and ruin it.

 

[Arne]

Think I might of asked this before, but does anybody know at how many inches of mercury and at what temp. does alcohol boil?? I know you all try and keep the vac. at about 22 in. merc. but I also know my pump will draw past 29. No big problem keeping it lower, just wondering. Arne.

 

[Wade E]

Arne, I dont know the answer to your question but make sure you never exceed 22" or you may need a doctor!!! Joewine, I and many others have been using thedse medical grade vacuum aspirators for years. You can rack, degas, filter, and even bottle your wine without ever having to lift up a carboy with wine in it again and for thise of us with bad backs or just getting old this is very important so as to keep playing around with this hobby/addiction! Unless you have a cracked carboy or try to degass a carboy that isnt at least almost 7/8 full you will be fine putting it under a 22' vacuum. There are 2 trains of thoiught here with vacuums. One is if you can crank your unit up and shut it off and it holds a vauum like not many do it will be extremely easy to know if your wine is degassed or not. Basically you will need to run your pump for a few minutes raising it up slowly until you can get the vacuum up around 18" - 22" of vacuum and then **** it off and if it holds fpor 1/2 an hour and doesnt drop below say 16" your wine is degassed or if your pump doesnt hold a vacuum like most dont then you do as stated above and just keep turning it up until you can get it around 22" without it flooding your vacuum hose, Whne first starting the vacuum youll see lots of little tiny bubbles, this is C0 coming out of suspension. After awhile the bubbles will become much larger type and this is when you should be nearly done as that is vacuum being pulled through your wine. Hope that helps.

 

[Minnesotamaker]

The carboy implosion question comes up often, and of the thousands and thousands of posts I've read, you almost never hear of failure due to vacuum. My guess is that if you did have failure, the carboy was flawed in some way. I use a hand vac and I take full carboys over 25" frequently. I even use vacuum on my green demijohns which have the thinner glass and they don't implode, I take them to 20" without trouble. I even agitate my carboys while under pressure to pull bubbles out and no

yet.

Some brave soul needs to do a scientific study to see exactly at what vac level a carboy in good condition will tolerate before fail. Who knows? Maybe they'll take way more vacuum than we would believe.

Keep in mind that you should use safe procedures anytime you are dealing with potential energy. A carboy under vac could break along a stress line that isn't easily visible. You never know when a temperature crack, chip, or bump could cause a catastrophe.

 

[roblloyd]

Some brave soul needs to do a scientific study to see exactly at what vac level a carboy in good condition will tolerate before fail. Who knows? Maybe they'll take way more vacuum than we would believe.

Keep in mind that you should use safe procedures anytime you are dealing with potential energy. A carboy under vac could break along a stress line that isn't easily visible. You never know when a temperature crack, chip, or bump could cause a catastrophe.

Sounds like a job for Mythbusters to explore.

 

[joewino]

Thank you for all the useful information.

Maybe I will perform the implosion experiment. I have a vacuum pump used for evacuating refrigeration systems. It can pull down to a few hundred microns of vacuum.

Interesting idea about the boiling point of ethyl alcohol (172.6 DegF) changing along with pressure changes. I will have to research the thermodynamic properties on this subject.

 

[joeswine]

vacume pumps

joewino you can pull down to 500 microns with a standard hvac pump ,yes I have had a enplousion,had to be a flaw in the bottle how ever if you use a lower vacume for a longer period of time it will be better for the wine and help concentrate the flavors as it goes with out any bad side affects which can happen............. at least thats been my time with vacumes

 

[robie]

Since the subject is degassing (eventhough it's degassing with a V-pump), I didn't see a tutorial in the stickies about degassing with a manual instument. I only saw the one about using the V-P.

Hi Randy,

Sorry none of us got back to your question. If you go to finevinewines.com, George has several videos about wine making. At least one shows you how to degas with a drill and stirring rod. He also talks about using a small VacuVin, which is made for removing much of the air from a partial bottle of wine. it also works well for degassing.

There are also some examples on YouTube.

 

[SpoiledRotten]

Thank you, robie. Surely wasn't trying to divert attention on someone else's thread, but thought the info could be used by other newbies too.

 

[joewino]

Kewl! Thak you for the info.

Don't know if I want to risk pulling it down as low as 500 microns. Think I will opt for a longer vacuum time.

 

[Lurker]

If I remember corrrectly, 29 inches of mercury is the max. Once you have a vacumn, there ain't no more. In outer space it is 29 point something. As to degassing, I've been using a vac pump to rack for about 2 years now. The one thing I learned is that you no longer need to degass. I rack usually about 3 times, sometimes 4. But when I bottle, the degassing has been done during racking. It is no longer a seperate operation. My degassing tool (Home made) has done nothing but gather dust.

 

[Deezil]

Just as a side note... if you're degassing something that looks like the picture below, please don't do what i did. ALWAYS stir any lees/sediment back into suspension before degassing.

Otherwise, you're going to degas the liquid on top, then the sediment is gonna rise (very veeeerrry quickly) to the top of the carboy - all at once - and if you're not watching your carboy with your finger on the power button..... You're gonna have a mess.