Super Transfer Pump

[wineview]

Super transfer pump arrived today. I was playing around with water to make sure I understood the operation before using wine. One thing that puzzles me are their directions for sanitizing. They say, pump sanitizer into the unit and let it stand for a few minutes. Then pump water through to clean out the sanitizer and it’s ready for use. Isn’t the water defeating the sanitizing in the first place? I was thinking of pumping in the sanitizer then start to pump out of my wine carboy or bucket into a waste bucket until I see wine coming through the hose. In other words pump the sanitizer solution out with wine. Make sense?

 

[BarrelMonkey]

I think it depends on what your sanitizer is? If I sanitize with Saniclean (low foam Starsan) I generally just drain the tubes and try to get as much of the cleaning solution out as posssible (it helps to invert the pump and drain out of the inlet filter by gravity). But if a little gets in my wine, it's unlikely to have an impact. For peroxy I always rinse with tartaric acid solution to neutralize any residual peroxy, and again I don't worry too much if a little tartaric acid gets in the wine. But as long as the water is relatively clean I don't think an extra rinse will matter either way in most cases. The exception might be final racking/blending before bottling, particularly if you have some residual sugar you will want the final product to be as squeaky clean as possible.

Personally I also run the pump for a few minutes rather than just let it sit in sanitizer.

 

[winemaker81]

I agree with @BarrelMonkey, the concern is pumping too much of any sanitizer into the wine.

You're not going to use the pump until the wine is wine, e.g., the ABV is > 10% and the pH < 3.9. As @Rice_Guy frequently (and rightly) says, wine is a preservation system, and that combination of characteristics is hostile to most microbial life.

I pump a gallon of K-meta solution through my pump prior to use, holding the input hose high at the end to ensure the solution in the hose drains into the pump, with the output low so anything in it also drains.

There may be half an ounce in the pump, which becomes part of a 10 to 20 US gallon batch, so it's not a problem.

However, pumping plain water through is not likely to be a problem.

 

[ChuckD]

I just don’t like the idea of sanitizer in my wine so I sanitize all tubing then run a little distilled water through them to clear it out.

I should note that I don’t have a pump (yet) and I really don’t like the thought of manually priming a tube with sanitizer residue in it.

 

[wood1954]

I sanitize my pump to kill anything in it, then rinse with my well water which is biologically safe.

 

[wineview]

These are all good points but do you understand what I was trying to describe. Use wine to push out the sanitizing solution into a waste bucket until you see wine coming out of the hose. At that point quickly put the hose into your carboy or bottling bucket. Actually as soon as you see wine you could turn the pump off then place the hose into your carboy. This is a trick I used when I brewed beer and didn’t have an auto siphon. I would fill the hose with sanitizing solution to start the siphon. I’m not suggesting pumping sanitizer into your wine.

 

[Rice_Guy]

Metal reacts with metabisulphite so when cleaning always rinse. The pump on the BonVino is not self priming. I can put water in the tube with a wash bottle then pump meta solution. Transitioning to wine is a guess. It comes out watery then eventually I taste to decide when to save.

 

[wineview]

Metal reacts with metabisulphite so when cleaning always rinse. The pump on the BonVino is not self priming. I can put water in the tube with a wash bottle then pump meta solution. Transitioning to wine is a guess. It comes out watery then eventually I taste to decide when to save.

I use StarSan

 

[BarrelMonkey]

These are all good points but do you understand what I was trying to describe. Use wine to push out the sanitizing solution into a waste bucket until you see wine coming out of the hose. At that point quickly put the hose into your carboy or bottling bucket. Actually as soon as you see wine you could turn the pump off then place the hose into your carboy. This is a trick I used when I brewed beer and didn’t have an auto siphon. I would fill the hose with sanitizing solution to start the siphon. I’m not suggesting pumping sanitizer into your wine.

The only time I do this is when (commercially) filtering wine prior to bottling. In that case, there is always some water soaked into the filter medium so what comes out first is plain water. We use the taste test to decide when it's 'winey' enough to switch to the destination tank. It's maybe up to 2 gal water; any remaining water in the first few gallons of diluted wine won't be noticeable when mixed into, say, a 450 gallon batch of wine.

For the super transfer pump it can be almost completely drained and is also self priming. It doesn't bother me if a tiny amount of water makes it into my wine - we're talking maybe 1 fl oz in however many gallons you're making? But if you really don't like the idea of even that dilution, I'd do as @Rice_Guy suggests and taste at intervals as you get started.

 

[wineview]

The only time I do this is when (commercially) filtering wine prior to bottling. In that case, there is always some water soaked into the filter medium so what comes out first is plain water. We use the taste test to decide when it's 'winey' enough to switch to the destination tank. It's maybe up to 2 gal water; any remaining water in the first few gallons of diluted wine won't be noticeable when mixed into, say, a 450 gallon batch of wine.

For the super transfer pump it can be almost completely drained and is also self priming. It doesn't bother me if a tiny amount of water makes it into my wine - we're talking maybe 1 fl oz in however many gallons you're making? But if you really don't like the idea of even that dilution, I'd do as @Rice_Guy suggests and taste at intervals as you get started.

A little water does not bother me. I was specifically talking about StarSan.