Freakin' cool degassing technique! (video)

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I don't know if this will be a revelation to any of you, but I thought it kicked ass. Use a FoodSaver!

I have my agave wine in a 1 gallon Carlo Rossi jug, and a whip won't fit into it. I made a makeshift whip out of a piece of welding rod, but it just wasn't cutting the mustard. I read another post where someone was using a vacuum brake bleeder, and that's when it hit me: use the FoodSaver!

After scavenging a few pieces of tubing, a stopper, and a FoodSaver lid that I could use as a makeshift "nipple," I managed to rig an airtight setup. I wish I'd have taken a video to show the rush of bubbles!

A word of warning: The FoodSaver isn't capable of pulling a strong enough vacuum to cause a small jug like this to implode, but a full sized carboy might be a different story. Use caution with this technique, especially on larger vessels.

The stopper in the center foreground is a FoodSaver wine cork that I was hoping would fit the jug, but it's too small.

FoodSaver_degassing.jpg


EDIT: Example video:

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Sweet deal!

I've got a blackberry wine I've all but forgotten about hanging out in my closet...I might give this a shot...

Thanks man!
 
Yuri I had thought about using my vacuum pump(for ac) and freezer as a means of drying hops,basically freeze drying and think it would work, but never thought about degassing with vacuum. great idea! sure wish I had the hops to try freeze drying. But it might pull the volatile oils off first. what are your thoughts?
 
Amazing, but why?

I'm stumped, or just plain old gassy, but what's the benefit of degassing? :confused:

sometimes you will end up with a very light carbonation inside of a brew that is not going to be carbonated i.e. wine, and this is a way of making it flat, like commercial wine.

i'm guessing about any air pump can do this without too much difficulty.
I think a standard vacuum might be dangerous because of possible implosion?
 
That is pretty cool. This may be a dumb question, but is it really possible for a foodsaver to cause a carboy to implode? Is it fair to assume that doing this on a Better Bottle is completely out of the question.

Thanks
 
I'm not certain that it's possible for a FoodSaver to create enough negative pressure to cause damage to a carboy, but I'm not going to be the first to find out, either. I wouldn't use this technique on a Better Bottle - one of those will almost definitely cave in on itself.
 
So was it determined that you could do a full size carboy, or still no?
 
I saw that video and immediately thought "Man, somebody is THINKING. Now we're talking!" So I hooked it up on my 6 gal glass carboy.

I 'ghettoed' my rig a little differently - I wanted to be able to break suction immediately if needed, so I ended up in a balancing act with the jar attachment and hose on the foodsaver and a airlock bung as a seat. It took a couple of alignments, but I finally got the super saver to take suction (You'll hear it when it does), and it worked. I had my foodsaver set on 'longer seal'.

Did 3 pulls with it (Got lots of foam, reduced each time) on a batch of late season strawberry I've got going on.

Like many here, I was concerned about my carboy breaking (especially since they don't make them here in the US anymore!). But the whole thing went smooth. Did that a week and a half ago, the wine is clearing well now. Highly effective.

My experience.

- abe
 
I saw that video and immediately thought "Man, somebody is THINKING. Now we're talking!" So I hooked it up on my 6 gal glass carboy.

I 'ghettoed' my rig a little differently - I wanted to be able to break suction immediately if needed, so I ended up in a balancing act with the jar attachment and hose on the foodsaver and a airlock bung as a seat. It took a couple of alignments, but I finally got the super saver to take suction (You'll hear it when it does), and it worked. I had my foodsaver set on 'longer seal'.

Did 3 pulls with it (Got lots of foam, reduced each time) on a batch of late season strawberry I've got going on.

Like many here, I was concerned about my carboy breaking (especially since they don't make them here in the US anymore!). But the whole thing went smooth. Did that a week and a half ago, the wine is clearing well now. Highly effective.

My experience.

- abe

Anyone else try this with a 6 gallon carboy? I sure would have to lose all my wine and my carboy...
 
I have used vacuum to degass polyurethane resin when molding rubber parts. I mixed the resin in a paper carton and then placed it into a vacuum chamber to pull a vacuum and degass. The vacum pressure was on the spherical vacuum chamber-not the vesssel holding the resin mix. The point I am trying to lead up to is vacuum can provide incredible amounts of suction force force so its important to be carefull. A food "seal-a-meal" type arrangement probably is very limited in the amount of inches mercury it will pull but you do need a method to stop it quickly.

Something that may work very well would be a vacuum cleaner. It would probably pull enough vacuum to degass a low viscosity liquid like wine but would not be so strong as to be dangerous. A shop vac would be even better. I think a couple carboy rubber stoppers and some tubing would adapt a vacuum cleaner hose to pull a vacumm on your carboy. I think you could pull a vacuum and hold it for a few minutes and it should totally degass the wine-no re-peats should be neccesary.
 
I have been thinking on this subject........and I'll bet my boss would be real happy to know what I have been doing on his time. I think you could place a good quality ball valve in-line between the vessel and your vacuum source and apply your vacuum pressure "forces" slowly to control how quickly you pulled the vessel down. If you go too fast it would pull wine up into your lines and vacuum source. Applying the force slowly would lessen the risk and you could stop it before it collapses your carboy.

I think this way could be safely used on a plastic carboy. I hope so anyway as this is the only kind that I have!
 
don't use the plastic carboy it will collapse. the glass is ok.. I use a brake bleeder and regularly pull 20-25in with out any problem. I know my wine is degassed if it will hold 20in for more than an hour. the only wine I degass is white though, usually with 6-8 months of bulk aging it only need a quick vac. to be to my liking (commercial level)

the plastic does not have the strength to take it though, you will destroy it.
 
I can understand how 20-25 inches of mercury would collapse a plastic carboy, but was thinking 3 or 4 inches would w0ork as well. Pulling it down to 20-25 inches is a lot. Total vacuum is somewhere around 28 to 29 inches isn't it?

I wonder if it would be worth while-or would even make sense to have a glass carboy to rack into just prior to bottling. I could rack into the glass bottle-pull a vacuum for an hour or more-then bottle the wine. Does anyone have any input on this idea? I have a couple vacuum pumps that would handle that heavy of a load.

I wonder how much vacuum a Korney Keg would handle?
 
to make it totally de-gassed I usually let it sit for at least overnight with a vacum on it.

here is how I vac degass with the brake bleeder.....

I attach my set up to a full carboy. I then pump it down to 23 in. I leave it there for about three days and over the course of the three days I never let it go below 20in. when It can hold 20 in for a bit then i pull it all off, clarify and bulk age.

If you wanted to use only 3-4 It would probably take forever to get done. there is often alot of CO2 in wine. I don't even know if 3-4in would work. I mean it would just take.....forever that is if it was able to remove the dissolved co2. it would need to be warm enough to work.

ramp up the vac, slow because it will bubble a ton, and be careful about it. I dont know what a better bottle will collapse at. you will know because the plastic will start to fatigue before it fails. Plastic has a pretty good failure mode, even under compression.

Never tried a corny keg, but I will probably be fermenting in them very soon.
 
Thanks 199q-I think I will look another direction than with using a better bottle.

no problem! also if you filter your wines, that helps alot too. such if I filter my wine, I usually only filter whites, but that removes much of the CO2 and only needs a few quick blasts to remove all of the co2.

good luck

:tank:
 
Do you really find it necessary to pull a vacuum for days on end? Here are my experiences thus far:

One batch with the whip:
Slight fizz after a few months. Incredibly irritating.

One batch with the FoodSaver (done in about 15 minutes):
No detectable CO2, even after several months of aging in the bottle.

Current batch with the MityVac brake bleeder (totally forgot I had this thing!):
I used the FoodSaver until all substantial foaming ceased, then switched to the bleeder. I've had 23 in. on a one gallon jug for an hour. It's holding steady, and there is only the VERY occasional single bubble rising. I think I'm going to bottle soon.
 
that a excelant idea you could store an entire jug like that... if you could rig up a way to keep the jug in vaccum and just store the wine that way, it wont oxidize and you can keep resealing it if you dont drink it all at once... i must try this... i tip my hat to you yuri

cheers
 
Excellent idea! Hooked a brake bleeder up to a carboy of wine that I thought was degassed . . . hah! Amazing amount of bubbles coming up. I think I'll leave it hooked up overnight.
 
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