Vacuum Pumps and Winemaking. Let’s Set the Record Straight A www.WinemakingTalk.com Fact Check
Many of us use Vacuum pumps to transfer wine. As a method it has certain advantages. The two most important the pumping is very gentle on the wine and the wine is moved in a much reduced environment of oxygen. It also helps in degassing kit wines. All this makes for a very good way to move wine safely.
For a very long time winemakers have been using the Enolmatic Bottler not only to fill bottles but also to make use of the system to move wine between carboys and barrels. Using this system saves the Winemaker making small amounts the cost of needing an additional pump. Various 2 hole bungs are available or can be fabricated for various size openings be it carboys, demijohns or barrels.
In addition to the Enolmatic System, which is essentially a vacuum pump system , Winemakers have been using Air Conditioning Evacuation Vacuum Pumps to accomplish the same job as the Enolmatic. A few concerns arise when using them . Some are groundless yet the Myths continue on Winemakingtalk all the time. The first is the strength of the vacuum produced. For safety reasons not exceeding 30 hg when evacuating a car boy is a safe thing to do. A reasonable level is about 25hg. When evacuating Demijohns a little less vacuum might be prudent as these are made with very thin glass. An easy way to regulate the amount of vacuum available is a simple one. A small gas ball valve will do the trick when teeing off the vacuum source at the pump. It will hold its adjustment perfectly despite claims to the opposite by the Gurus at Winemaking talk .com. Additionally another tee in the line will give you the opportunity to install a gauge. Despite claims to the otherwise no expensive regulator is needed.
The other nonsense perpetrated by these same experts is you should use only an oil less vacuum pump. Hogwash! Some who advocate this have a commercial interest in selling an inferior bottling system to the Enolmatic. In any case the claim is the oil model pumps spew out a fog of oil in the room when you are using them. I have used 3 different oil model pumps and have never had that problem. I have heard that the Harbor Freight Model does this. I cannot confirm this but only to say one of our club members just purchased one and it will be very easy not only to find out but simply put some cheese cloth over the exhaust of the pump to catch any fumes. This notwithstanding the Valley Vintner ( this link is to the single stage model) oil less models are a better choice if you care to spend a few more dollars.
Since I crafted the Poor man’s Enolmaster using 3 heads from an Enolmatic it appears that this has caught on. There are quite a few Winemakers and some commercial enterprises that have followed what only can be considered my lead. Now even Valley Vintner sells single and multiple head Enolmatic type bottle filler heads on stands. All of this makes owning and using a vacuum pump a desired winemakers tool.
Just in case you need to read more lunacy this beats the band…Here is another one for you on Winemakingtalk.com The guy asks what temperature is safe to keep wine one of the regular geniuses says well you can dig a cellar below the frost line and it should be 55 degrees. The fellow responds that he lives in North Carolina and he doesn’t have a frost line. And the conversation devolves from there. Yes you do no I don’t yes you do etc etc. But even though there is a frost line where he lives it doesn’t mean that you reach it every year. In other words that is the maximum depth of frost ever attainable in that climate. But that is not even the point. The suggestion that if you dig below the frost line your cellar would be 55 degrees is plain and simply wrong, You have to dig to about 48 inches deep anywhere on earth to get to a temperature of 55 degrees. It has nothing to do with the frost line. But don’t worry the Julie Super Bitch Moderator is now trying to handle the heated discussion. ROFLMAO
Here you go Dan
2 hole bungs for different barrels. The orange bung is a proprietary bung from Enolmatic. It comes with their Carboy Racking Kit. It fits gallons and carboys. They also make a Demijohn Cap for racking as well.
Carboy bungs for Vacuum Racking
Well, as it turns out I do have a few vacuum pump questions. First of all, I have been using a Buon Vino Mini Jet Filter as my pump. Not a vacuum pump, I realize. Works OK, as long as there are no skins or chunks of wood etc. Recently I purchased, after reading Gene’s treatise on “The Poor Man’s Enolmatic”, the “All in One Pump”, but have yet to use it. I was planning on using it to rack, blend, and fill my barrels.
But I don’t have the appropriately sized two holed stoppers for the barrels, so I emailed the “All in One PumP” site, and this turns out to be a bigger puzzle than I thought.
First, let me say that the gentleman I spoke with is very eager to help, and to avoid having me break valuable equipment.
I have never figured out this whole system of numbering the damn stoppers. WTF?? #6 tells me nothing about the size of the hole it’s supposed to plug up. Use Metric, use inches, I don’t care, but tell me how big the hole is that it will plug, for crying out loud.
So we’ve got this issue that seems simple to me: I tell him the diameter of the bung hole, and he should be able to tell me the # of the stopper, put two holes in it, and I should be good. But he’s confused by this, and by the time I get done talking to him, I am confused. However, we will eventually figure this out.
A bigger issue is that he is concerned about is me using the pump on the barrels. He says he knows nothing about it really, but is concerned that imparting a vacuum on a barrel may weaken the seals. I told him I’d bounce this concern off of people who know more about it than I do. Which is you.
He suggested using a 1/2″ cane instead of 3/8″, to move more wine faster, but also to impart less of a vacuum.
thoughts?
OMG LOL Jeez!!!! What seals are in a barrel? LOL! Use any size tubing or cane you want.
If you want me to measure bungs for you I will. At a price LOL
I believe Valley Vintner sells all the bungs you need or you get a bung for your barrel with one hole and drill another. I have a few like this I have drilled out for various barrels. The all in one pump is ok but a single head enolmatic nozzle you mount on a DIY stand will make bottling a pleasure.
Dan you live in the fingerlakes ??.I think you have Fallbright on Kueka lake and also theres another on seneca lake.
Actually, Carmine, I have a little lake house right down the road, less than a mile from Fallbright. About an hour from my house though.
I was looking for a two hole bung for filling my barrels, which have two different size bung holes.
I have tried drilling holes in bungs, with bad results. If there is a trick, let me know what it is.
I’m heading to the lake house on Friday. Maybe I’ll run up to Fallbright and see if they have anything that will work.
If you start with the regular one hole bung the plastic rigid pipe used on the enolmatic racking cane will fit in the hole. This leaves you having to drill a 1/4 inch hole for the smaller plastic pipe commonly used for fridge ice supply lines. Having the pipes in place you can attach the hoses to them. I posted a picture above. Also it help to have a bung in a hole to exert pressure equally when drilling.
2 hole bungs
http://www.widgetco.com/3-rubber-stoppers-plugs-2-holes
http://www.widgetco.com/5-2-hole-rubber-stoppers-plugs
http://www.widgetco.com/6-2-hole-rubber-stoppers-plugs
http://www.widgetco.com/7-2-hole-rubber-stoppers-plugs
http://www.widgetco.com/8-2-hole-rubber-stoppers-plugs
http://www.widgetco.com/9-2-hole-rubber-stoppers-plugs
http://www.widgetco.com/10-2-hole-rubber-stoppers-plugs
http://www.widgetco.com/11-2-hole-rubber-stoppers-plugs
http://www.widgetco.com/12-2-hole-rubber-stoppers-plugs
From Valley Vintner
http://valleyvintner.com/wine/WE-10-2250.html
It amazes me a guy who sells a vacuum all in one pump can’t sell bungs for the job. DUH!!!!
By the way, Doyle couldn’t even acknowledge your Poor Mans Enolmaster Rich Mans enolmatic when he refers to it on Winepress.us LOL Edited under pressure from Fiorot
OK visited the WidgetCo site. The black 2 holers are not for food use, but I got them anyway. Contact with wine during transfer will be minimal to none.
But just for the hell of it I picked up a couple of silicone stoppers with no holes. I’ll see if I can drill them out.
thanks for the help.
Hey Gene,
Easy on Doyle there. I’ve met him and he’s a super nice guy. I don’t know the situation on the PM Enolmatic but from other situations, I know he is a really decent guy. He was an early adopter of the Vinmetrica and ran testing vs. lab testing to prove it out. Based on his testing I bought mine and never looked back. If he used your idea, just take it as a compliment, at least for a 1-time deal. There’s another guy on WP that has used several of mine like they were his own. He’s know the truth, I don’t care.
Back to the post. I don’t use a vac but I wonder why the all-in-one guy doesn’t test his product more. I’ve put 20 lbs. of gas pressure on a barrel with no leaking, it sure as hell won’t leak under vacuum. The other factoid that seem to be forgotten or not understood is that in an open system, like for racking, you aren’t pulling that pressure on the vessels anyway because the system is open at the originating carboy. The pressure inside is equal to the resistance to flow from the originating carboy only. The only time you apply the entire vac pressure is when you degas with no inlet.
OK I will tell Marty to shut up. Marty edit your comments immediately. Steve you are correct about vacuum pressure. What you say is often not considered. The All in One Pump Guy got a bad time on Winepress so he avoids it. I believe it was Brett who gave him a hard time and he left Winepress or got banned, not sure. I have spoken to him and urged him to provide those bungs but he seems to be stuck in his ways and gets all his play on WinemakingTalk.com. While he makes a decent product for the small producer, I don’t have much patience for a person who markets a product and doesn’t maximize its effectiveness when the solution is easy to accomplish.
regarding pressure on the barrels we were talking about using it to fill a barrel. His concern was that a barrel is designed to resist pressure from within, expanding outward, and pulling a vacuum would impart the reverse pressure on the barrel.
He wasn’t saying he knew it would be a problem, but he was concerned about it and didn’t want me to mess up a barrel.
I’m having some other issues with the All-in-one hook ups. Either I don’t have the right pieces or I am just not assembling it right. I have an email in to him (with pictures!)
Sorry a bit late on the response, but because of the evaporation you normally develop a vacuum when storing wine, if the barrel has a sufficient ‘seal’. Even if you are filling with vacuum pump, the vacuum developed will not be that high, and likely safer and less risk than a carboy,even if a strong vacuum. Nobody worries about rolling a barrel on its side, it is fairly strong(don’t know if I would drop it a few feet though). You wouldn’t roll a carboy around on it’s side , would you?
Can’t see any risk using a vacuum with a barrel, other than having trouble getting a good enough pressure for it to work well.
Pretty much the way I had it figured, too. Nice to have confirmation from people who know what they’re doing, though.
Off on an 11 day cruise keep things together boys! thanks
Bon Voyage! (not Carnival, I hope)
There is so much written about carboys imploding/exploding, vacuum pumps, fittings for vacs, general confusion around using this stuff. I always admire a good solution and I get that vacuum pumps are great for those with bad backs. But I have made my peace with gravity and let is work for me. The siphon is a pretty damn simple and easy to sort out technology. If its lifting that needs to be conquered, there are lots of options. I easily found a $200 Genie Lift on Craigs list using a hand winch with lift capacity of 300 lbs. Lift 4 carboys or 2 kegs and siphon away. Use whatever vessel you want all mechanical, nothing really to not work or break. For a larger operation like mine (still small in the wine world), I’m using a straddle stacker for stacking barrels and often use it for siphoning barrels. Using 1″ hose and racking tube, I can empty of 225 liter barrel in a few minutes, guessing around 10 gpm similar to my pump. But less effort to setup and tear down. Just tossing this out as an alternative to vacuum pumps and all the associated issues.
Nice to be back ! Getting ready for the Chilean order
CRR,since you have a bigger operation you can bring in a genie lift.I cant see being able to bring in a lift into a wine cellar in a regular home,so most of us have to depend on lifting and vacuum pumping to get things moved around.We have 8 barrles and several carboys and demis packed into our wine cellar you cant move at all.several cases of bottled wine as well.
Rocc0, I get that an “anti-gravity” device won’t work for all. Just pointing out some alternatives that might work. Another for a basement/cellar might be an overhead hoist. Put the carboys in milk cartons with a lifting strap.
Just in case you missed the latest advice on correcting PH you will want to read this thread.
It took 7 days before a Winepress.Us member had to post on Winemakingtalk.com and set the record straight. I was wondering how long it would take. Not one Super Duper Moderator got it. In fact one of the Super Moderator Robie gives his sage advice on making additions while ignoring the entire issue. Even his advice contradicts itself. http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f60/how-correctly-adjust-ph-37152/