Transferring Brew with a Vacuum Pump

I have made wine for over two years now and I occasionally use a vacuum pump to transfer my wines from carboy to carboy. I also have a filter station set up for filtering my wines. I was thinking that since O2 exposure is so much more critical with beer than wine, that vacuum transfers would be beneficial for beer.

I posted a BMP file in my gallery to show how to set up the equipment, but I don't know how to include it here! SORRY!

Here is a small version of what I uploaded.



Has anyone tried their hand at something like this? I do it with wine, but have never tried it with beer.

Salute!

A lot of people use airless transfers using either gravity or CO2 pressure. I have not heard of anyone trying vacuum. My only concern is that any dissolved CO2 in the beer would come out of solution and give you some foaming issues. You could try it and let us know.

raceskier said:

A lot of people use airless transfers using either gravity or CO2 pressure. I have not heard of anyone trying vacuum. My only concern is that any dissolved CO2 in the beer would come out of solution and give you some foaming issues. You could try it and let us know.

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I understand the airless concept, the only problem here is that as the breer is removed from the primary or secondary, you fill the space with O2 and it therefore comes in contact with the beer. I realize it is only a short amount of time, but people here stress the importance of not airating, so I assume it is important to avaoid it at any level or time frame.

The issue of foaming can be controlled by the amount of vacuum used to transfer the beer from one vessel to the other. In addition, using CO2, Nitrogen or Argon as a buffer to keep O2 from the beer in the vessel being evacuated will completely remove any contact with O2 at all.

I can see that this process may be beyond the needs of many members, but I just don't have enough experience with brewing beer at home yet to know if O2 exposure is that critical in the brewing process or if it is just in the storage phase or fermentation process of the beers life.

Salute!

Isn't a vacuum still full of O2 unless it is a true vacuum (which it isn't)? Pretty sure it's just air at less than atmospheric pressure although I certainly could be wrong about that.

Personally, I think filling both vessels with a blanket of CO2 and then transferring with CO2 pressure is the best O2 free way of transferring.

The major problem is that the vacuum system degases the beer. Thus, when it's time to bottle prime, you don't know how much CO2 is left in it. I have thought about using the system before and have been discouraged by the fact that you would have to guess the dissolved CO2 in the beer to get the proper carbonation (which I deem important).

Discarding all that, it may reduce exposure to oxygen, but by how much? The 2nd carboy is filled with oxygen before you start the pump and it doesn't get rid of all the oxygen by pumping before the beer starts flowing into the carboy. The problem is you would have to have a racking cane that goes to the bottom of the carboy with the vacuum system so that the beer doesn't fall through a lot of oxygen.

I don't think you really reduce your exposure to oxygen, but on the other hand a lot of people just gravity siphon into a sanitized carboy for secondary (or bottling bucket, or keg) and don't worry about the air inside since some Co2 will come out of solution and reblanket the beer.

Given the amount of time the beer is exposed to the air in transfer, I can't believe there would be any significant damage caused, but coments in this forum have indicated to not aerate your beer. I take this to mean "Stir Up The Beer" and intriduce O2 into it.

As I initially indicated, I have not tried this with beer and it seems it would truely be of no added benefit unless I was doing significant amounts at one time.

Salute!