Don't try this

[Thig]

I got a new Vacuvin wine saver and had read it could be used to degass wine also. I put in on a clean airlock and proceeded to degass my one gallon jug of apple wine. Worked great so I put it on my one gallon jug of pineapple wine. Again worked great so I thought why not see if my 3 gallon jug of Muscadine needed degassing. It sucked the wine up through the airlock faster than you can say Oh sh**.

Lesson: do not vacuum degas from a plastic carboy. I had forgotten it was plastic not glass. One more reason to get some glass carboys.

 

[Runningwolf]

I am laughing because we've all had volcano's for one reason or another. Better Bottles sure have advantages but you also have to weigh out the disadvantages like you just had.

 

[Duster]

Been there, and felt like a dumb A** afterwords.

 

[derunner]

yep, I noticed the same thing tonight when degassing form my new better bottle. Can't use the the vacu vin. Hopefully i will rack to a glass carboy for long term aging and will use it then.

 

[MurphyTexas]

Laughing w you not at you. Degassing better bottles just requires a change in thinking. The objective is to get suspended gas to rise to the surface. The better bottle FAQ page indicates using shock waves to degas by tapping / slapping on the side of the bottle. It works especially if you have song playing that has a good back beat. To speed up this process, I saw a video where a guy held a vibrator / back massager against the side of a better bottle and the CO2 bubbles quickly filled the airlock. I used one of those small brookstone back massagers and it worked fine.

The guys at my local home brew shop sell a plastic stick that goes on the end of your cordless drill. As it rotates, the blades on the bottom of the stick move out w centrifugal force.

Also - if you ever need to stir a better bottle just put a tennis ball underneath and gently roll it on edge to get a whirlpool motion going.

 

[Boatboy24]

Funny. I did a similar thing several weeks ago with my port kit. I had a size 6 1/2 stopper in the carboy and not a 7. Put the hose of my brake bleeder in there and within 5 pumps, had sucked the stopper right into the carboy while splashing port all over myself and the winemaking area. Good thing it tasted good.

 

[Tom_S]

I've degassed with a vacu-vin stopper on a 3-piece airlock, but only works on glass bottles of course. The only problem I had was the vacu-vin stopper being pushed down into the airlock and was hard to get it back out. Otherwise it worked great.