Niel,
Not to lecture, but for the next time why not go with a standard kit that produces 25 or 30 bottles. It is the same amount of work for more product. You will find that the directions are similar for any brand of kit.
I am not sure what the problem is. Let it slow down in a few days and check the SG. It is not necessary to check every day. It will be obvious when fermentation is nearly done. The best way to check SG is to remove a sample with a wine thief and a cylinder, there will be less foam.
No body will taste the difference with your 1.004 wine. Do you know if your hydrometer is even accurate. Mine is off .002 high so when I am at 1.000 it is actually .998. Stick it in distilled water to check. If you are doinng a MLF I'd do it now.
There is a cold storage company outside of Atlanta that stocks frozen juice from a national company whose name escapes me right now. I will post when I find it.
And so once you get trained well enough to release vacuum before liquid hits the vacuum tube, no liquid is ever sucked into the overflow vessel.
Even it it hits the tube a very slight amount goes back to the bottle. With a little practice one can "feather " the vac release to get it just right.
It is such a pleasure to buy something that works just like it is suppose to right out of the box. Just finished racking to a plastic Better Bottle with Steve's new racking kit. For some reason I thought it might be slower but did not notice any difference in filling time.
On the first set up...
I'm sorry but I can't see the point buying a 6 gallon kit and making 6 one gallon batches unless one wants to make them all different. Same amount of work for one gallon as doing 6; probably more.