What’s wrong with whipping to degas?

[WineDad]

There are safe ways to use a vacuum pump to degas. But one of those ways is not by creating a 2 atm underpressure in a glass carboy. Even if failure only happens "maybe 1 in a thousand times", is that an acceptable risk? Based on the potential for personal injury, would it be acceptable if a carboy burst like the one in the YouTube video if you wife or child happened to walk by just when it let go?

Me either.

WineDad

 

[sour_grapes]

There are safe ways to use a vacuum pump to degas. But one of those ways is not by creating a 2 atm underpressure in a glass carboy. Even if failure only happens "maybe 1 in a thousand times", is that an acceptable risk? Based on the potential for personal injury, would it be acceptable if a carboy burst like the one in the YouTube video if you wife or child happened to walk by just when it let go?

Me either.

WineDad

I am not disagreeing with you, just wanted to clarify something before someone else jumps on you: As pointed out above, you cannot create a 2 atm. underpressure. You can only create a 1 atm. underpressure.

While I am at it (and here I am speaking to the group, not to you specifically), I do not believe it makes much difference whether you pull 25 inHg or 29. That is like being concerned about whether your driveway will crack if you park a 7000 lb truck or an 8000 lb truck on it.

 

[Rice_Guy]

There are safe ways to use a vacuum pump to degas.

I am reminded of being 26 or 27 and someone in the plant emptied a tank without checking the relief valve. They imploded it, only happened once since everyone walking by could see it and say s#*&$@. ! ! Don’t think they worked there long.

A full carboy/or tank is relatively safe.

 

[mainshipfred]

There is no way in the world I'm going to stop using the AIO whether is be racking, bottling or degassing. In my 3 years of wine making I personally used a vacuum on over a thousand glass vessels. Add that to all the members on the forum that that have been making it a lot longer than me and your 1 in a thousand is ridiculously low.

 

[WineDad]

I am interested in learning the details of your experience. I have also (successfully) evacuated carboys to low pressures, but I have also seen catastrophic failures with laboratory glassware due to evacuation. Therefore, although I do evacuate carboys, I am always wary. (Those laboratory cases were due to people using the wrong glassware, so not fully relevant here, other than to inform of the dangers.)

We are listening and I believe you, so you do not need to be defensive or strike out at others who contend differently. I hope that we can learn from your experience.

I was using an Enol vacuum bottling machine to draw a negative pressure inside a 6.5 gallon carboy (plain heavy duty blown glass, not borosilicate, not 'safety' glass; just plain glass). It was a procedure I had done frequently before without incident to degas wine. The carboy was one of several (10+) I had used before in wine making and bottling/de-gassing. It had roughly 6 gallons of fermented and fined wine that was being degassed before racking for bulk aging. The carboy was not "laboratory" grade, but I don't know of any that are.

There is no pressure gauge on the Enolmatic and there was no inline gauge to measure the vacuum, so I don't know what the vacuum draw was in Hg, psi or hectopascals. There were no visible scratches or production flaws on the carboy. It had been purchased new from a local wine and homebrew store.

My procedure at the time was to degas under vacuum for 10 or 15 minutes before racking while tending to other tasks. The process had been going on for probably 5 minutes with minor bubbles and surface foaming visible as CO2 came out of solution.

Without being moved or jostled, the carboy suddenly sheared radially around the bottom third of the carboy spilling wine over my entire work surface (plywood) as well as everything in the storage area under it. Without even considering the consequences I rushed across the workspace to turn off the pump before it shorted and grabbed the shattered carboy to place it in a laundry sink. Still not thinking, I started grabbing shards without gloved hands and began mopping up 6 gallons of prime Chardonnay amongst the shattered fragments.

Soon rational thought returned and it dawned on me to check for lacerations, blood and missing didgets. I could have slashed a wrist or sliced through a femoral artery and bled out on the basement floor (home alone). Not pleasant thoughts.

One nasty cleanup. Needless to say, it was the last time I degassed that way.

WineDad

 

[Johnd]

So anecdotally you've had a carboy withstand approximately 2 atm of negative pressure. Which exactly proves that you (once, according to your account) successfully depressurized an empty carboy to less than -29 psi and it didn't fail. Once. That time. One off. Random chance. Dumb luck (emphasis on 'dumb').

I had repeatedly duplicated that process many times before I imploded a carboy full of wine under less pressure. My experience proves that it can happen. Yours 'proves' that it didn't. Once.

Blindly wishing and believing it won't happen to you makes you a prime candidate for a Darwinian Award. Given the potential risk for catastrophic failure, why would you take the chance?

There are alternative ways to degas with a partial pressure that don't involve the grave personal risk involved with a closed vacuum of a glass carboy.

WineDad

I’ve vacuumed glass carboys hundreds, if not thousands of times, you can cram your Darwinian Award up your *** ****** bag.

 

[WineDad]

I’ve vacuumed glass carboys hundreds, if not thousands of times, you can cram your Darwinian Award up your *** ****** bag.

Large Member. Small hands? Some kinda mature discourse, there Bubba.

If/when you sober up maybe we can have an adult conversation. Until then, good luck with your vacuum degassing. At some point in time you may really need it.

Buh Bye

 

[kuziwk]

....right...well...how about that corona virus

 

[WineDad]

I am not disagreeing with you, just wanted to clarify something before someone else jumps on you: As pointed out above, you cannot create a 2 atm. underpressure. You can only create a 1 atm. underpressure.

While I am at it (and here I am speaking to the group, not to you specifically), I do not believe it makes much difference whether you pull 25 inHg or 29. That is like being concerned about whether your driveway will crack if you park a 7000 lb truck or an 8000 lb truck on it.

So, I never said I had pulled a 2 atm vacuum. I replied to a post saying the poster had pulled a 29 psi vacuum. If one atm is 14.7 psi, twice that number is ~29 psi or 2 atm. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

 

[Johnd]

Large Member. Small hands? Some kinda mature discourse, there Bubba.

If/when you sober up maybe we can have an adult conversation. Until then, good luck with your vacuum degassing. At some point in time you may really need it.

Buh Bye

I’m perfectly capable of a mature discussion, but also capable of responding to disrespectful discourse in kind. There’s a level of human respect and decorum here that clearly escapes you, we disagree regularly without belittling or disrespect.
If you’re now attempting our second shot at mature discourse by starting off with a lame ***** size reference and the implication that I’m drunk, and may just stay that way indefinitely, you’re clearly off your rocker. Recall, you started this “mature discourse” with insults, not I.

Very few folks get off to such a great start on this forum, congratulations are in order.

 

[Scooter68]

Guess I'm lucky - I've never had to de-gass. I believe if you age a wine long enough in bulk, it will de-gass itself, one more reason to age in bulk. Never had a pop from pressure when I pulled a cork or a fizzy wine.

Vaccuum racking for me would have ONE appeal, Not having to lift heavy carboys - that, at some point might be reason enough for me to do it.

 

[dmguptill]

Seems to me that vacuum racking as a means of degassing (like what is done with the AIO) is going to result in a much lower vacuum than if you simply seal up your carboy and pull a vacuum on it. Since the wine is continually filling in the void made by the pump. So much lower probability of implosion in that scenario than one where you're decreasing pressure as much as possible on a full carboy without racking.

 

[cmason1957]

One thing I would point out, is that, if you vacuum rack, you never keep the carboy under vacuum pressure for an extended period of time, it is only there as long as it takes to rack and for a six gallon carboy that is under 5 minutes.

Oh well, the chance for an intelligent discussion was lost. I wonder if the issue was just the carboy broke, as has happened to others while the carboy was just sitting there and the vacuum was being blamed unfairly.

 

[ThunderFred]

You heartless monsters! He TOUCHED BROKEN GLASS!!!!11!!1 Another potential victim of senseless vacuum-carboy murder, America's #1 under-reported crime. WineTroll I mean WineDad is just trying to save lives. You'll see how funny it is when you pick up broken glass in your wine room and your uncaring family finds you months later dead on the floor in a pool of dried chardonay and blood!!!!!

I'm with WineTroll I mean WindeDad on this one. Just to be safe I threw out my vacuum cleaner and boarded up all the windows on my house. This thread has literally saved my life!!!!

 

[Johnd]

You heartless monsters! He TOUCHED BROKEN GLASS!!!!11!!1 Another potential victim of senseless vacuum-carboy murder, America's #1 under-reported crime. WineTroll I mean WineDad is just trying to save lives. You'll see how funny it is when you pick up broken glass in your wine room and your uncaring family finds you months later dead on the floor in a pool of dried chardonay and blood!!!!!

I'm with WineTroll I mean WindeDad on this one. Just to be safe I threw out my vacuum cleaner and boarded up all the windows on my house. This thread has literally saved my life!!!!

LOL!! Seriously though, there’s always room for intelligent discussion centered around winemaking, but never room for attacking and / or belittling other members. Kudos to our moderators for their work behind the scenes maintaining the level of decorum and respect for the members that is appropriate. I’m always up for an intelligent disagreement, and always have much to learn about this hobby / art / obsession, but can’t stand to see folks attacked by a bully. If any of you were offended by my response to him, I apologize for my words, and stand by the intent.

 

[mainshipfred]

I just can't tell you how hard it was to hold back. This is the only forum I ever belonged to and I constantly tell people how cordial and helpful everyone is. Glad he's gone.

 

[Ajmassa]

One thing I’d never do is run a continuous vacuum to degas a carboy. Plenty of co2 is removed doing transfers, bottling, and pulling headspace o2 (takes 10-30 seconds) But if one wanted to solely degas then isn’t recommended procedure to pull a vacuum until the co2 fizz forms a bit, then stopping and allowing it to dissipate before running again?.
I’ve only seen Steve’s AIO claim degassing as an intended use for a vacuum pump - is this possibly for liability reasons? Not to say it’s probable that carboys start imploding if running the pump for a while- but I’m sure it doesn’t help.

I’d like to clear the air anyone able to confirm following statements?
1. Vacuum pumps for transferring & bottling wine will degas as a byproduct of intended use- allowing a product to claim it degasses wine.
2. If you DO decide to pull a vacuum solely to remove co2- running the pump continuously is NOT advised.
3. There is little to no risk of imploding carboys/lifelong PTSD when properly using an AIO or similar pumps.

 

[Ajmassa]

If any of you were offended by my response to him, I apologize for my words,

Na, but this apology offends me!

 

[Johnd]

Na, but this apology offends me!

That just means that it wasn’t intended for you, as you were obviously not offended.....plus, I suspect you’d have responded similarly were the tables turned.

 

[Johnd]

I’d like to clear the air anyone able to confirm following statements?
1. Vacuum pumps for transferring & bottling wine will degas as a byproduct of intended use- allowing a product to claim it degasses wine.
2. If you DO decide to pull a vacuum solely to remove co2- running the pump continuously is NOT advised.
3. There is little to no risk of imploding carboys/lifelong PTSD when properly using an AIO or similar pumps.

1. I agree with the statement
2. Mostly agree. When you initially start degassing, so much CO2 / foam develops, that you need to shut it on and off to avoid sucking foam. Once the little bubbles give way to larger ones, you’re done anyway, so there’s no need to continue, don’t know why anyone would.
3. The AIO won’t pull a vacuum down to 29 inHg like an HVAC type vacuum pump can, I recall Steve saying it was Lin the 22 - 25 range. Having pulled 29 on carboys full of wine to degas countless times, I still believe there’s little to no risk if your carboy doesn’t have some defect, be it inferior glass, a manufacturing defect like a thin spot, a previously existing cracked or damaged area. Can you ever say that anything is completely impossible and will absolutely never happen? Of course not, nothing in life has those sorts of guarantees. You take bigger risks every day just driving a car. If it were an impending disaster, you’d have read about it here and folks wouldn’t be using the AIO and other vacuum racking tools.