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Vacuum degassing

Anyone out there with an Enolmatic bottle filler really should try it out for degassing their wines. I used mine last night on one of the carboys of Riesling I just racked off. Worked like a charm, got the wine substantially degassed in about an hour. And part of that time was wasted because I was trying to limit the foaming by lessening the vacuum.

Once I gave myself a good sized headspace (take out about a cup or so from full) and used some of my brewing anti-foam agent, I was able to crank the filler up to 11 (so to speak) and the gas just poured out in a rush. I figure this process poses less risk of oxidation than getting in there with a stir stick, or God forbid, shaking the bejeezus out of the carboy like some people do.

I just jury rigged a simple connector with a length of 1/2" tubing and a couple of airlocks. The tubing fits snugly over the center stem of a 3 piece airlock which gets bunged into the carboy. The other end of the tubing goes on the bung end of an S-type airlock. The black vacuum hose on the Enolmatic jams nicely into the top of the S-type, creating a good seal for vacuuming. I'm sure the more creative can come up with something better.

Brian

Reply to
Brian Lundeen
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substantially

Reply to
J Dixon

I'd want to see more than anecdotal evidence on the aroma loss. However, I don't think the Food Savers are meant to be run for long periods of continuous operation. I would be concerned about premature wear. Heck, you can always hook up the Hoover. ;-)

Brian

Reply to
Brian Lundeen

The only thing that would worry me about doing this in a carboy is the possibility of an implosion. Carboys aren't built for vacuum.

Tom S

Reply to
Tom S

tom, this seems to be a very valid point. this said, with all of the people who have done vacuum degassing, does anyone know of this happening? thanks to all, jim book

Reply to
jim book

In another forum, someone commented that carboys can tolerate vacuum better than pressure inside. He used words like compression and tension in the glass, in differentiating between pressure from without and within. IOW, it is harder to make a carboy implode than explode.

The Enolmatic actually comes with a carboy adapter, so that it can be used to transfer wine between carboys. I would assume it works by creating a vacuum within the empty carboy, the same way it fills by creating a vacuum within a bottle.

It really doesn't sound to me like there is much danger of implosion with a sound carboy. If the carboy has defects, well, it is probably going to experience structural failure at some point anyway. I would rather it happens while sitting on a bench having the air sucked out of it, than when I'm carrying it around in my arms.

It would be an interesting experiment to hook up a powerful vacuum to an empty carboy and see if atmospheric pressure really is enough to make it implode. However, I won't be the one to do it. I like my carboys. ;-)

Brian

Reply to
Brian Lundeen

I hear Tom's point - I would not want use any positive or negative pressure devices with carboys and demijohns, BUT... like concrete, glass is stronger in compression than tension.

In a negative pressure scenario, the carboy at least distributes the stress of the atmospheric pressure to the remainder of the glass in the hoop (in compression). With positive pressure, the stress distribution is less "efficient" because the material is now in tension.

Additionally (I don't know the effect of this), the 5 gallon carboys I have are with smooth inner walls but the exterior is latticed (inherent in the glass mold, I assume). The lattice provides additional strength to the carboy on the external wall. Since positive pressure would put the lattice in tension, I postulate that the carboy would explode before imploding (lattice in compression when negative pressure is applied).

Patrick

Reply to
Patrick McDonald

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