DeGasing Wine

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RT1000

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Has any one used vacuum to degas your wine
Instead of stirring it and get oxygen in it


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I have a setup out together by my LHBS. So far I've only used it on a batch being done by a buddy. Worked fine.


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I do a little stirring when the kit instructions call for it. I use a drill. At that point there is probably loads of gas so the drill / whip does the job. That is the stabilizing step if I remember correctly. There is so much gas being expelled I don't think there is much of an issue with oxygen getting in. A lot of mine usually overflow if I am not careful. I bulk age each one for a couple of months. During that time I use a mityvac to degas by vacuum. Works well. I think it comes down to your circumstances. Some people have a lot more equipment and can leave carboys set for many months. With my rotation I can let them set for 2 months so I do give them a little help with a vacuum.
 
I use a wine whip and my drill- but I have seen many other wine makers use a mity vac (that you'd use for bleeding brakes). That works great, if you happen to have one on hand. I'm not one to work on my car at all, so I don't have one.
 
I use a wine whip and my drill- but I have seen many other wine makers use a mity vac (that you'd use for bleeding brakes). That works great, if you happen to have one on hand. I'm not one to work on my car at all, so I don't have one.

I use a whip and drill, too, and had good results.
 
When vacuum degassing, does anyone monitor the pressure? It's highly likely that you could pull a hard enough vacuum to boil off the ethanol at room temperature.
 
When vacuum degassing, does anyone monitor the pressure? It's highly likely that you could pull a hard enough vacuum to boil off the ethanol at room temperature.

I watch it closely and I stay around 20. I watched a vid on youtube where a guy removed pressure from a container with just water. It boiled at room temp at about 27 mm Hg so I posted the question on a science type site about when ethanol will boil at room temp. The answer they gave was:
At 68F, ethanol will boil at 44 mm Hg. Ethanol has a higher vapor pressure than water so at the same temperature it will boil at a higher pressure.
So at 20 mm HG I am a long way off. I am not a science guy so I don't know if their answer was correct and I am not going to try it.
 
When vacuum degassing, does anyone monitor the pressure? It's highly likely that you could pull a hard enough vacuum to boil off the ethanol at room temperature.

You don't have to worry about boiling ethanol by pulling a vacuum. In order to do that you'd need some very specialized equipment (laboratory, heavy industrial, very expensive stuff).

For your reference, I've attached some boiling point info for ethanol. Reading this chart, if you're sitting at a room temperature of around 67°F you'd need to pull a vacuum of 27.79 inches of Hg (29.92-2.13=27.79). To put it into terms that are a little easier to visualize, this is equivalent to being at an elevation that is over twice as tall as Mount Everest.

But, back to your original question, yes I degas my wines via vacuum. My set up is basic; a drilled #7 stopper, an eductor, a vaccum pressure gauge and an air compressor which provide the motive fluid for pulling the vacuum. I start at a very low vacuum pressure and then slowly ramp up over the course of 30 minutes to an hour, depending on how gassy the wine is. It is very easy to over do it and pull too much too soon and have a big mess on the floor. I prefer this method to stirring because I can do other things while the wine is degassing. And I'm very confident that the wine has been thoroughly degassed.

Attached is a picture of the system in action.

Hopefully this helps!

View attachment BPT_01.pdf

IMG_20140119_144143.jpg
 
So, if I have an air compressor - where or what do I need to buy to get a setup like yours? I have basic knowledge - can get connections, hoses, etc no problem. But what kind of vacuum pump/etc do you need??
Thanks in Advance!!
 
I bought mine as a ready made "kit" from someone who's now out of business. But it's pretty basic. You'll need:

- A vacuum ejector: http://www.grainger.com/search?searchQuery=vacuum+ejector
- Fittings to connect it to the air compressor and the carboy
- A tee for the vacuum gauge
- A vacuum gauge
- Teflon tape
- A drilled #7 stopper

Sorry, for the generic-ness of the descriptions, but I'm not sure on the exact sizes I have. And the sizes you need will be entirely dependent on the ejector you buy,

Also, once you have this set up, you can use it to vacuum rack by simply adding a #7 drilled rubber stopper with TWO holes. You would just put the double drilled stopper on the empty carboy you want to transfer to, attach the ejector to one hole and stick a piece of racking cane in the other. Connect some hose to the racking cane and put the other end of the hose in your full carboy, turn on the air compressor, and voila! You might want to connect some hose to the racking can in the empty carboy too to keep from splashing your wine around.
 
When vacuum degassing, does anyone monitor the pressure? It's highly likely that you could pull a hard enough vacuum to boil off the ethanol at room temperature.

I think you'd have to have an industrial vacuum pump to accomplish that.

I've used the allinonewinepump (yes,it's all one word) with great success.

Especially when transferring (racking), the thing rocks.

I stopped using the whip after I found the thing disintegrating. It left tiny plastic particles in one batch I had but in fairness, I was probably using it on the high speed for too long.
 
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