REVIEW: *All in One Headspace Eliminator*

In order to eliminate Head Space, I have used:

1) 5 gallon carboys and various size glass jugs to hold the remainder
2) Glass marbles
3) Corks

All the solutions have their issues, so I decided to try the All in One Headspace Eliminator (HE).

Wine #1: CC Showcase Argentine Malbec that was pitched on May 4, and moved to Carboy around May 13. I did not degass, nor used any clarifying agents.

The HE was wet from sanitizing with Starsan. It kept sliding out of the carboy, and would not stay on. Then I got the bright idea of turning on the AIO and drawing a vacuum. That worked .... too well. The HE sealed nicely, and as the vacuum built, the wine started degassing and bubbling.

I normally like to keep the CO2 in to help protect the wine. So, I let it degass a little, and then stopped the pump. The degassing stopped, but the HE still held a vacuum (HE bulb still collapsed). Success.

Wine #2: MM La Bodega Port. The Port was still fermenting, but now in a 5 gallon carboy (3 gallon kit). Dropping about 0.001 SG per day, if that. Since it was still fermenting, I was happy to degass the port, and boy did it degass. After a while, I stopped the pump, and the HE held a vacuum. Another Success.

The next morning, I checked both. The HE in wine #1 was still holding a vacuum. However, the port continued fermenting/degassing, and blew off the HE. So, I put the airlock back on.

After a few days, the HE in the wine is still doing fine.

Summary: The HE performs as advertised - keeps a seal on wine during bulk aging. The HE is also a great AIO accessory for degassing when you don't want to rack back and forth. The HE is not great for wines that still need degassing, but that is only a problem with new wines.

I am happy with the HE. Now, I can get rid of my 5 gallon carboys. But, then I will have to get more 6 gallon ones.

Can I ask why you didn't want to degass the wine#1. I was under the assumption that it was a good thing to fully degass the wine even at that stage in the winemaking process. I assumed that leaving the carboy under a vacuum state would be fine and not harmful to the wine until ready to bottle. Thanks in advance.

hardworkin said:

Can I ask why you didn't want to degass the wine#1. I was under the assumption that it was a good thing to fully degass the wine even at that stage in the winemaking process.

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Degassing helps if you want to accelerate the clearing of the wine, such as when you are using clarifying agents. In my case, I did not use any clarifying agents, so degassing is not required at this time.

My thinking is that the CO2 reduces the amount of O2 that can get into the wine. At a minimum, it displaces air in the headspace. Some O2 will be there, but not as much as when there is CO2 taking up space. So, keeping CO2 in the wine will allow it to slowly diffuse in to the headspace, and keep out O2.

Trying out this headspace eliminator so far so good ....Thanks Steve at allinone

The LaBodega seems to have settled down at 1.022 after adding the f-pack. So, I decided to degass while waiting for it to truly finish. I put on the HE, and turned on the pump. It produced about an inch of foam for about a minute, and then settled in to a "simmer" for a long time.

Since I wasn't sure if it was fully degassed, to avoid the HE blowing off again, I put back on the airlock. Interestingly, the airlock started sucking air into the carboy. The wine must have been pulling air back in. So, I put the HE back on, sucked the air out again, and I will see tonight if it held a vacuum.

If it finished as 1.020 with 18% ABV, that would be perfect for me. I'll then fortify to 20%, and let it age for a while. 18% ABV is the limit for the EC-1118 yeast, and is about what I calculated from the Starting SG, estimated raisin sugar, f-pack (adds 0.030), and dilution. I wondered about no chapitalization compared to the WE port kit. It seems like the raisins in the LaBodega kit made up for the sugar in the WE kit.

Rich -
This is the first time that I saw this thread on a review of the headspace eliminator !

Has it been determined yet if this product can be used for bulk aging? Once completely fermented/fined/degassed will it maintain an adequate vacuum for 3 months?

Also, perhaps a stupid question, but does anyone know what the air content/o2 amount is in the airspace of this vacuum. I assume there are air molecules still in the headspace at a negative pressure? Not ALL the 02 can be removed (I assume), just reduced by an X amount? just wondering about the physics of this.

brewbush said:

Also, perhaps a stupid question, but does anyone know what the air content/o2 amount is in the airspace of this vacuum. I assume there are air molecules still in the headspace at a negative pressure? Not ALL the 02 can be removed (I assume), just reduced by an X amount? just wondering about the physics of this.

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Not at all a stupid question. The inventor has reported that the pressure is reduced to about half of atmospheric pressure. The exact composition of the residual gas will depend a bit on the kind of pump used, the size of the tube that leads to the vessel, how long it was pumped, and how much CO2 was in your wine. However, you should figure that roughly half the initial oxygen was removed from the headspace.

I really don't know to what percentage of oxygen is in the actual headspace. I was told even if you had a perfect vacuum that there would be oxygen - ?

I believe that if you are under a vacuum that is definitely a
lesser chance of your wine being destroyed by oxygen.

I do know if you wanted to you could displace most all the air with a heavier gas - argon,CO2 etc and then use the headspace eliminator.

if I put the headspace under vacuum and then use that vacuum to sucks in wine to se how much is displaced - would that help explain things better at all ?

vacuumpumpman said:

if I put the headspace under vacuum and then use that vacuum to sucks in wine to se how much is displaced - would that help explain things better at all ?

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That is a pretty good idea! It does not address the composition of the gas, but would be an "ironclad" way of telling how much gas was removed.

vacuumpumpman said:

I really don't know to what percentage of oxygen is in the actual headspace. I was told even if you had a perfect vacuum that there would be oxygen - ?

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No, by definition, a perfect vacuum has nothing in it, so no oxygen. (Of course, it is impossible to get a perfect vacuum on top of a volume of wine; at best, the space would be filled with nothing but water vapor and alcohol vapor.)

I believe that if you are under a vacuum that is definitely a
better chance of your wine being destroyed by oxygen.

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Did you really mean this? If you are under a vacuum, I believe that there is a lesser chance of your wine being destroyed by oxygen. That is, I believe your device is helpful, not harmful. (Your note makes it sound the opposite?)

I do know if you wanted to you could displace most all the air with a heavier gas - argon,CO2 etc and then use the headspace eliminator.

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True, I think that would be helpful. I have often noted that there is no "blanketing" effect due to heavier gasses, but I also acknowledge that inert gasses (nitrogen, argon, CO2...) can be used to purge a volume to reduce its oxygen content. Whatever oxygen remains will have access to your wine, but there should be less of that oxygen.

Paul
thanks for the correction!
I will change it when I get to normal computer.

I will do a test later tonight - with 1 and 2 bottles of headspace (750 ml)

and I will let you know my results and then I will get my son to video tape it

just a fyi they will be at equal heights so gravity can't play effect in the equations

Paul -
I was able to fill up a 3 gallon carboy to within an inch of the top of the neck.

I then pulled out 1 - 750 ml of water and put the Allinone headspace eliminator to the test - I pulled a vacuum using the Allinonewinepump and then sucked the water that was originally pulled out and I came up 43 ml short of being totally full.
I was wondering if I could of got better results if I did not have to draw so far down to suck up the water into the carboy ?

Please check out this YouTube video I made from it -

https://youtu.be/aWfUOU6Z1ZE

vacuumpumpman said:

Paul -
I was able to fill up a 3 gallon carboy to within an inch of the top of the neck.

I then pulled out 1 - 750 ml of water and put the Allinone headspace eliminator to the test - I pulled a vacuum using the Allinonewinepump and then sucked the water that was originally pulled out and I came up 43 ml short of being totally full.
I was wondering if I could of got better results if I did not have to draw so far down to suck up the water into the carboy ?

Please check out this YouTube video I made from it -

https://youtu.be/aWfUOU6Z1ZE

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That is great, Steve! I watched the video, and it looked like a great and successful test. The fact that it sucked almost all of the water back in definitively means that your pump pulled a pretty deep vacuum. The nice thing about this test, unlike some others, is that it is pretty much incontrovertible.

Based on what I saw in the video, I estimated what vacuum level you were able to draw. (I am making a few small corrections described below, but they do not change the results much.)

I estimate the starting volume of air in your carboy to be 770 ml (the 750 you removed, plus another 20 for the inch you reported that you had left empty originally). In the video, it appears that water remained in the plastic tube, but this water was not measured in the syringe. Assuming that is 3/8" tubing, there would be another 40 ml or so left in the tube. Therefore, I estimate you sucked about 750 ml - 43 ml - 40 ml = 667 ml water into the carboy.

So, we can estimate that you achieved a vacuum level of about 667/770 of an atmosphere (or that you expelled 87% of the air). If you were at sea level, this means that you achieved a gauge vacuum level of about 25.9 inHg (or 658 mmHg). Probably we could assume you are at about 700' elevation, so it might be slightly more accurate to say you had a gauge pressure of 25.2 inHg (or 642 mmHg).

In case you are curious, if I did not make any of the corrections above, the results would imply that you achieved a gauge pressure of 28.2 inHg.

All in all, I think you would be safe to summarize by saying you achieved a vacuum level of "around 25 to 26 inHg" and leave it at that. Nice job!

actually the Allinonewinepump only pulls between 21-22 inches of vacuum.

j the tubing that was use is 1/4"
I don't think that there was even 5 ml if that because it all went back into the bottle.

I held it up so I would not drip on the table.

I do believe that if a little CO2 was released that there would be very little contact with any oxygen content in the actual headspace under vacuum

vacuumpumpman said:

actually the Allinonewinepump only pulls between 21-22 inches of vacuum.

Click to expand...

That is what you thought until you incontrovertibly proved that it pulls more.

sour_grapes said:

That is what you thought until you incontrovertibly proved that it pulls more.

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NO - it creates 21-22 inches of vacuum
I designed it that way - I can always put an inline gauge to show you and run the test again ? If needed

All my pumps have the same specs

yes I am approx 700 feet above sea level

vacuumpumpman said:

NO - it creates 21-22 inches of vacuum
I designed it that way - I can always put an inline gauge to show you and run the test again ? If needed

All my pumps have the same specs

yes I am approx 700 feet above sea level

Click to expand...

If you think it only pulled 21 inches, how do you propose to explain how that much water got pulled back into your carboy? The water test is is a more believable test than a gauge. How did your design encompass the goal of no more than 21-22 inches?

I can not explain all the theories that others mention on this forum. I do know that I use my knowledge and common sense to figure things out in the real world .

So I would be willing to retake the video with a gauge inline and a nonstop video - from removal of the 750 ml to adding the excess to make sure that they both match up exact.

If anyone questions the video integrity or myself -
I will not take it personally.

First, I want to assure you that NO ONE IS QUESTIONING YOUR INTEGRITY! Far from it. Rather, I am questioning the accuracy of your gauge.

The theories are not that hard. They were figured out using common sense and observations in the real world. If you wish me to explain them in simple terms, I can do that.