Primary to Secondary Filter

[Greydog]

I currently have 9 gallons of blueberry wine in two primary fermenters. At this stage there are what seem to be literally millions of tiny seeds floating on top of the wine along with a bunch of other lees which escaped the mesh bags.

I fabricated this filter to prevent the vast majority of this stuff from reaching the secondary when I do the first racking. It is made from an ice cream bucket, a cork, and about 3 inches of siphon tubing. All held together with hot glue. Pretty self explanatory by looking at the pictures.

I plan on putting a couple layers of sanitized cheese cloth in the strainer and draining the primary through the filter straight into the secondary.

 

[DoctorCAD]

Strainer, not filter. Huge difference.

 

[Greydog]

Strainer, not filter. Huge difference.

You are correct..... However after spending a 50 year career in Fluid Mechanics (hydraulics) and Electronics I'm not going to get very anal in describing a Jerry Rigged device for removing visible solids from a fluid.

 

[Deezil]

Only thing I would have done differently was use a food grade silicone over the hot glue

 

[Greydog]

Only thing I would have done differently was use a food grade silicone over the hot glue

Good thinking. Thanx for the suggestion. It's not too late as I won't need to use it for several more days. My basement dropped to around 60 degrees the past couple days and that combined with the relatively high OG has made the primary fermentation sluggish. I lit my little wall heater down there and am confident the EC-1118 will pick back up shortly.

 

[rendezvous]

Gray dog Do you have a way to let the air out of the carboy as you fill it ?

Greg

 

[Greydog]

No I do not. I will need to cut a "V" shaped groove in the side of the cork so the air can vent as the carboy fills. Big oversight on my part for not considering that. All I need is the air to compress as the carboy fills and burp wine all over my floor!!! Thank you for the heads up!! My old 70 year old brain doesn't work as fast as it once did!!

 

[vacuumpumpman]

This is what I usually use use from primary to secondary -It will strain out anything to the secondary

 

[Greydog]

Yep....looks like that will certainly gitter done Steve!! I just went down and cut four grooves spaced 90 degrees apart in that cork and tested it with water. Works fine now.
I have not done any fruit wines from scratch. I made my must from blueberry concentrate and added 3lbs of fresh blueberries in mesh bags. Don't know why other than blueberries were on sale at Kroger's. The first time I squeezed the bags a bazillion little seeds shot all over the top and through of my fermenting wine....thus the need for a rapidly fabricated sieve, strainer, filter seed keeper outer!!

 

[calvin]

Couldn't you just zip tie a strainer bag to the end of your racking cane tubing?

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

Corks not strong, going to break up especially now that you put groove in it? Do you have a bottling bucket? From primary to secondary we scoop the cap off into a bottling bucket lined with a cheapo paint strainer bag, tube running from outlet noozle to carboy, no stress points, if your clogs up you are going to have to take the whole thing off, if you put a bag in a bucket just lift bag and squeeze, cheesecloth doesnt squeeze well. VPM, does that device have a bottom or do you just suck up all the sediment under it? Looks a lot like a pond strainer WVMJ

 

[Rocky]

Couldn't you just zip tie a strainer bag to the end of your racking cane tubing?

...or do a "belt and suspenders" thing and do both?