Question about filtering multiple carboys

[Comet in TX]

I am planning on using a 1 micron inline/house filter with my vacuum pump to filter multiple carboys of wine. I have read on these boards that you can filter more than one carboy using these filters. I have two questions:

Using a vacuum pump, how do you know when the filter is "full?" It seems like the vacuum differential would continue to draw wine through the filter even if the filter is saturated?

And second, even when you fully empty the inline filter prior to the start of the next carboy, these filters are large enough that they continue to hold a decent quantity of the last wine filtered. So, at the beginning of every carboy, the filter releases that prior wine as it begins filtering the new batch. So you always have maybe 1/2 bottle worth of the prior wine mixed with the new wine (or, if you have just started k-meta solution). What do y'all do with this? Ignore it and bottle it anyway? Dispose of it?

Does anybody filter directly into the bottle, or do you filter into the carboy?

Thanks,
Lara

 

[Tom]

Well, 1st I use the Mini-Jet filter and with that I can get up to 4 6-gallon carboys filtered. Now these have been aging min of 6 months and quite clear. I would think if it (your filter)looks like I have you can do as many. Caution, when filtering different batches you will throw out the profile because of whats still in the filter.
I would never filter in the bottle (can be bad for the motor) . I filter to the bottling bucket or another carboy to be later filled.

 

[grapeman]

With your setup comet you can get several (at least) carboys filtered with the same filter. Try to group similar wines so if there is a bit of carryover, it doesn't change the profile much- like topping up wine.


The filter tells you when it is becoming plugged in that your vacuum will increase. If you filter at about 8 in vacuum and it increases to 12-15, it is getting plugged.


You can tandem filter and bottle if you want. I just do it to another carboy and then do it to bottles later, but some do both at the same time- just add another hose and attach it to the filler, so you are hooking up the pump to the filler, which hooks up to the filter which draws from the carboy. It really is quite easy, but you need to play with the vacuum a bit to get it to auto-shutoff flow.