Degassing and Carboy

Greetings, I’m a noob to wine making, strictly beer until now.

I’ve just degassed and added the stabilizer and clearing agents using the whip. Kept it up for a good 20 minutes or so and went thru a couple batteries on my drill. Anyway I have access to vacuum pumps at work that we use when we evacuate refrigeration circuits when we repair them.
If I were to use a vacuum pump instead of the whip would the carboy be able to withstand the vacuum without imploding? These pumps have the ability to pull down to 400 microns.
Also would I degas before or after adding the clearing/stabilizers?

Thanks,

Bruce

glass carboy most likely - better bottles NO!

If you’re going to let it sit under a vacuum, 5 - 7 inches should be sufficient I would think.

Negative pressure is negative pressure, and I wouldn’t stress the carboy too much!

Glass should be fine.

Degass before adding everything. The fining in particular works best in still wine.

Warming before attempting to degas will make the task a lot easier.

Is there no chance of cracking with a vacuum?

I had 2 glass carboys and did vacuum degassing for a few months. Usually up to 20 inches but highest pressure was around 23 in. But then I started to notice a crack at the bottom of each carboy. It’s possible these were unrelated to the vacuum. I felt that I was careful handling them though. I decide to toss them and switch to better bottle. I didn’t want to risk a wine spill.

I also had a 1 gallon jug that definitely cracked from the vacuum. I was pumping my brake bleeder, heard a crack, and saw a little chip in the shoulder.

There would be some danger of breaking the glass if the preasure is way too high, but I’m not sure exactly what preasure that would be. I know the combination of thickness of the glass and the stabilizing force of the liquid inside would make it pretty solid though. I certainly would not try adding the vacuum to an empty carboy.

Here is an link to an article written by Tim Vandergrift on the subject. Keep in mind this is the same guy who tells on site opperations that vacuum degassing is not recomended and that everyone should buy a $40 wine whip.

http://www.winemakermag.com/stories/kit ... -wine-kits

Thanks for the feedback everyone, I suppose caution should be used, I hate to loose 6 gallons of wine and then there is the mess it would make.

As far as degassing before adding the fining, I wish I would have known that earlier :cry: I followed the directions and they said to degas for another two minutes or so after adding them but I probably did it for a bit longer because I heard that degassing is very important. The wine looks to be clearing okay though and I’m due to rack it later this week so we’ll see how it’s clearing.

Thanks again…

You’re fine so far. I don’t see anything that would cause an issue.

[quote=“Brew1”]Thanks for the feedback everyone, I suppose caution should be used, I hate to loose 6 gallons of wine and then there is the mess it would make.

As far as degassing before adding the fining, I wish I would have known that earlier :cry: I followed the directions and they said to degas for another two minutes or so after adding them but I probably did it for a bit longer because I heard that degassing is very important. The wine looks to be clearing okay though and I’m due to rack it later this week so we’ll see how it’s clearing.

Thanks again…[/quote]

The idea behind the kit instructions is that you do some primary degassing first, then as you make each addition you continue the degassing as you mix it in. By the end the degassing is supposed to be complete.

The only thing I like to do differently is to have the wine degassed and settled a little before I add the final fining. And instead of a thorough mix/whip I gently stir in the fining agent. I just find gas and foam have a tendency to stick the fining (especially chitosan) to the top of the carboy.

I’ve used this setup a few times with no problems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjL80hXkHdI

I give it about 50-75 pumps each day until i stop seeing bubbles come up. That way i don’t shock the carboy or bottle with too much vacuum at once and don’t have to worry about breaking it. Cost about $25 for the pump and 3 toppers and shipping, and when you’re not degassing you can use it for its original intent of preserving open bottles of wine.

at 75 pumps the bubbles were going crazy!! after about 3-4 days i didn’t notice anymore bubbles at 75 pumps so i knew it was degassed each time. Some people want the quick-fix degas solutions that pull all the CO2 out in one shot, but I like to pull it out a little slower to allow the trapped particulates to settle out as much as possible so that i know my fining agents will be 100% effective with the minimum amount (i hate adding extra stuff to my wine). I’m not a fan of using the drill because i don’t like the idea of introducing O2 during the process. I know it’s probably a negligible amount of O2, but I’m picky and I don’t want to add to the list of possible things that could have affected my wine later on when i’m drinking it…

happy vinting!!!

Wow, so I bottled the Pinot Noir yesterday and had about 1/2 bottle left over so I put it in a vacuum and saved it for supper with my Father In-Law. We didn’t tell him that it is was the Pinot we just bottled. We drank that and then opened another Pinot from the California and asked him which one he liked better and he said defiantly the first one (my first batch). So if it taste this good now I can’t wait to see what it’s like in a year. Seems to have more body than some of the Pinot’s we’ve had latley, it was the Winexpert Eclipse Sonoma Valley Pinot Noir…

Before I racked it for the last time I did the bottle pump method, took a lot of pumping but seemed to have done the trick nicely, thanks for the tip…

Next up a nice Cab maybe… :cheers: