Lifting Gear for Carboys

Do a search on this group - some months back (longer?), there was a posting with a link to a design for a lifting mechanism using a car jack (the floor kind) and some boards. Pretty nifty.

Peter:

1) Ask the BoP if they can get you one of those lifters.

2) Find a local store that deals with ABC Cork. They list a Carboy Lift Single Crank (#19300), and Carboy Lift Double Crank (#19301). Sorry no pictures that I could find on the internet, and the double crank is almost twice the (wholesale) price.

Steve

Check the March 17th entry in Jack Keller's wine blog. His site is;

Bill Frazier Olathe, Kansas USA

If push comes to shove you can always have a look at the Canadian tires 1/2 ton chain host. They are advertised at around $99.00 CAD when on sale. A full carboy weights approx. 50 to 60 pounds. Providing your floor or ceiling structure are strong enough, mounting a metal track on the ceiling joists and installing the chain host would provide some mobility. If your ceiling joists are not accessible an hydraulic motor bike lift could be used. Again, Canadian Tires sales them at around $150.00 CAD. One of my friend is using a come along to load heavy tree burls on to his lathe. He hook it on to his basement ceiling joists. A come along costs about $20.00 to $50.00 CAD. Canadian Tires and Wal Mart have them. Make sure that any of these lifting devices have a locking and release mechanism.

an easier and cheaper method, recruit someone to do the lifting for you. You could even compensate them with wine, I would love to lift carboys for free wine (but I'm not in canada, sorry).

-tom "a college kid making wine" w

I love it!

Rather than lift the carboys , use a pump for racking. Winemaking magazine had an article by a winemaker on a pump he was using. Part numbers and construction details were included in the article. I imagine the WineMaking website would have the article. It was at least a year ago

Sal Coco Kansas City Kansas

Could you use the same type of pump that people use to put plumbing antifreeze in the water lines of an RV? Of course you would have to use it only for your wine not for both!

Just a thought. I have absolutely no idea how these things works! I leave that for the boys!!

Frances

in response to

Rather than lift the carboys , use a pump for racking. Winemaking magazine had an article by a winemaker on a pump he was using. Part numbers and construction details were included in the article. I imagine the WineMaking website would have the article. It was at least a year ago

Sal Coco Kansas City Kansas

I racked a batch of Apple Wine yesterday using a pump from a Buon Vino Super Jet Wine Filter.. That would be a rather expensive remedy but it worked like a dream.

Later, A. J.

I use a 12v pump meant for potable water in RV's. Works great. I use a battery charger that has multiple setting from 12v - 6v and multiple amperage. Allows for adjusting speed.

Make sure it's a diaphragm pump. Much more gentel on the wine. Also helps getting the CO2 out.

Dave and Fran wrote:

There have been a lot of good ideas posted recently and in the past. If you have space, a automotive engine hoise will be the most economical as far as hydraulics go at around 100-150 bucks. As for pumps, I always reccomend using a vacumn displacement system. You seal the recieving carboy off and use a pump to evacuate that carboy, then there is a line that runs to the transfer carboy to the recieving carboy. The reason I say that is it can be difficult to find an economical food grade liquid pump. the above setup can be done with a 20 dollar venturi device found at

the only change is that you will want to run the line into the recieving carboy form the transfer carboy all the way to the bottom of the recieving carboy to prevent splashing. I think it only costs about 20 bucks.

Peter wrote:

As stated the wortwizard Appears to be the answer. However, I am not too comfortable using a garden hose or its equivalent to activate the out flow. Nevertheless, I might experiment with the wortwizard. Conversely, the mini pump driven by a 1/4 or 3/8 drill may foot the bill. Once the pump is well sterilized before and after use, it may not contaminate the wine of beer? Some of these pump do come with a stainless steel shaft and normally the impeller is made of plastic. What do you think.

is the URL for Jack Keller's Wine Blog. Search down for March 17th, 2005. There he discusses the Carboy Lifter Martin Benke invented for Jack. There are pictures and the pictures are accurate. I can say this because I purchased one. I have two slugs of plaster in my back holding up two compressed vertebrae and am still recovering from shoulder surgery to repair a torn labrum. I paid Martin $230 for it and I wouldn't go without it for one day. It is an awesome device and is a steel at the price!

Martin is not in mass production. I ordered mine in February and Martin says I have #7.

I have found only one problem using it. It's legs must be able to slide under whatever surface onto which you want to load the carboy. Otherwise you have to move the carboy from the lifter to the surface. This means I need to raise my fermentation fridge off the floor.

As Jack notes in his blog, Martin Benke can be reached at L & M General Store, 7800 FM 471 South, Castroville, Texas 78009, (210) 854-2178 or at home at (830) 538-6492. And I add that Martin's e-mail address is snipped-for-privacy@medinaec.com.

An extremely happy customer,

Dick

Generally the issue of food grade materials is concerned with plastics. If the plastic is food grade it will tell you.

I am not a big fan of impeller pumps for transfering wine. Since the wine is in contact with the working parts of the pump and those parts are not closed to the atmosphere you run a risk of whipping air into the wine and enhancing oxidation. I much prefer peristalic pumps to transfer liquids.

Many people report using impeller pumps with wine and beer with no problem though. Not having tasted their wine I do not know what effect if any their use has on their wine.

snipped-for-privacy@nb.sympatico.ca wrote:

I thought about building one of those out of an old ford bumper jack and some angle iron

If I ever do i will post results.

Dick Adams wrote:

LoL - Take photos - I haven't seen a true Rube Goldberg in years.

Dick

I look at the lifting design. A trailer boat winch is used. The gears of this winch looks like it made with stamped sheet metal. The problem with those winches is that you have to make sure that it has a positive latch for when you are at the idle position. We had one of these winches installed on our mast stepper at our yacht club. Every year we have one member, when not careful, dropping the mast on his sailboat because the locking device get worn out and fails to hold (its load) the mast over the boat. To correct the problem we went to a more sturdy winch made in the US with machined gears at a cost of more than $200.00.