And I remeber telling your friend to be careful not to do that as he was using a big a unit designed for air conditioning and was using much more vacuum then suggested. This is why I use the gauge on my unit and and dont leave it running like other people sometimes do. I run it a little and then shut it down under acuum to see if it will hold about 16" for 1/2 an hour, if it does then its done, if it dosnt then I crank it up till it reaches 20" and shut it off and check again in another 1/2 and hour. With the drill you can oxidize your wine and with the pump you can pull out too much flavor. You really dont want to pull every bit of C02 out of your wine people, if you do it will make your wine actually very flat. I do not believe in the shake a bottle with a finger over the top method as I can almost guaranty that youll never ever be able to do this and not get a poof. You can pull any commercial bottle off a shelf and do this and get a poof. I will add that with the pump you can filter, rack and bottle your wine also without ever lifting a full carboy up which makes the glass vrs. better bottle subject null and void except for if you drop an empty carboy on the floor. I have a bad back so racking 6 gallons of wine down to the floor and picking that carboy up full almost made me slip a disc and drop the carboy about a year ago and my back was hurting from that for about 1 1/2 months after that. I have 3 bad discs in my back so even sitting there for 45 minutes with the bottling wand does a # on my back with this unit plus the Boun Vino gravity filler hooked up I can bottle and cork a 6 gallon batch in under 15 minutes.
As far as chemicals go youll want either the fermenting bags for wine which are reusable or you can o the throw away paint bags like Tom mentioned. You will want K-meta, potassium sorbate if you plan on sweetening any of these wines, ascorbic acid is a very good idea for fruit wines, tannin, acid blend, pectic enzyme, yeast nutrient, yeast energizer, yeast, and possibly a packet of a fining agent just in case you run into a stubborn wine that just wont clear for you like an apple or Peach wine(these 2 are notorious).
As far as chemicals go youll want either the fermenting bags for wine which are reusable or you can o the throw away paint bags like Tom mentioned. You will want K-meta, potassium sorbate if you plan on sweetening any of these wines, ascorbic acid is a very good idea for fruit wines, tannin, acid blend, pectic enzyme, yeast nutrient, yeast energizer, yeast, and possibly a packet of a fining agent just in case you run into a stubborn wine that just wont clear for you like an apple or Peach wine(these 2 are notorious).
