Hi Everyone,
This is my first year in winemaking and I am having some problems with minimal leaking in my variable capacity lid.
After racking everything went ok except setting up with the variable capacity lid, so I would like to explain how I did things in details so you can understand better. after cleaning and sanitizing the lid I installed the gasket aligning it perfectly, than I inserted the gasket to the dry airlock and installed it to the lid from the top so the gasket remained at the top, this is what I was told, then from underneath I screwed in the nut until it was fixed, then I made all the connections to the pump and I left the lid floating on top of the wine, I started to inflate it until there was minimal gap and aligned it 1 cm above the wine, then I started to pump it until it reached 0.8 - 0.9 bar shut the valve on the stem and locked the nut in pump, I saw a minimal bubbling where the vinyl gasket joins or stitched together, you can see that in the pictures, first I thought there was a leak but then it stopped, so my problem is there is a minimal leak actually I should not call it leak but rather wine moist on the vinyl gasket also at the base of the dry airlock gasket, they get wet slightly but not to the point of a leak, also I am checking the pressure, there is no loss of pressure, as the wine will rest for 2 months I am worried that it could create an oxidation problem, so what should I do at this stage ? should I leave it alone as is or is there something to be done to fix this problem, I asked a few people they told me to leave it alone as long as there is no pressure loss in the gasket they said no problem but I really want to be sure so can you guys please comment on this problem. Thanks a lot.
This is my first year in winemaking and I am having some problems with minimal leaking in my variable capacity lid.
After racking everything went ok except setting up with the variable capacity lid, so I would like to explain how I did things in details so you can understand better. after cleaning and sanitizing the lid I installed the gasket aligning it perfectly, than I inserted the gasket to the dry airlock and installed it to the lid from the top so the gasket remained at the top, this is what I was told, then from underneath I screwed in the nut until it was fixed, then I made all the connections to the pump and I left the lid floating on top of the wine, I started to inflate it until there was minimal gap and aligned it 1 cm above the wine, then I started to pump it until it reached 0.8 - 0.9 bar shut the valve on the stem and locked the nut in pump, I saw a minimal bubbling where the vinyl gasket joins or stitched together, you can see that in the pictures, first I thought there was a leak but then it stopped, so my problem is there is a minimal leak actually I should not call it leak but rather wine moist on the vinyl gasket also at the base of the dry airlock gasket, they get wet slightly but not to the point of a leak, also I am checking the pressure, there is no loss of pressure, as the wine will rest for 2 months I am worried that it could create an oxidation problem, so what should I do at this stage ? should I leave it alone as is or is there something to be done to fix this problem, I asked a few people they told me to leave it alone as long as there is no pressure loss in the gasket they said no problem but I really want to be sure so can you guys please comment on this problem. Thanks a lot.