Champlain Valley - Grapemans' vineyard - Planting to small winery

[ibglowin]

Yes,

Rich is now formally known as a "wine teaser"

 

[grapeman]

OK, here is the pump. It is set up with an intake prefilter and then an intake filter to keep the particles out. It is just a pump and not a chunky pump. This is all I can afford to start. I set it all up today and tested it with water. It is very effective and I can operate a transfer without vacuum. Now on Saturday I will fill the tank with it- if all goes well.

 

[AlFulchino]

looking good...what is the hose diameter? what is the pump type diaphragm etc and gpm?

 

[Wade E]

So do you pump it into the tank via the bottom?

 

[grapeman]

looking good...what is the hose diameter? what is the pump type diaphragm etc and gpm?

The hose is 3/4" and the
type= inexpensive and
pumps about 8 gallons a minute.


No it is not a great pump and should not be the envy of anyone, but hey, I have a lot of wine to move from pointA to B and can't use vacuum to do it in these cases.


Wade, I am going to try to put it in from the bottom. I figure that will be more gentle than letting it fall 4-5 feet from the top of the tank. I attached a tri-clamp fitting to the 20 length of hose. I have 10 feet on the suction side. That overall length will cover most areas in this side of the winery. I will eventually need around 100 feet of hose, but will have a better pump by then.

 

[Runningwolf]

Very cool!

 

[Wade E]

Yeah, with all the wine you have that vacuum pump is a little to "low grade"! If you decide to let that pump go through it up on this or my site!

 

[AlFulchino]

actually you dont really want much faster in the gpm dept because you can lose sight if things going in...its gentle enough when handling things by yourself

the hose size is good enough handle the pulp and seed should they still be around

 

[grapeman]

I am certainly keeping the vacuum pump. It operates a lot of stuff yet. Like I said before, it won't allow you to use vacuum on the large tanks to transfer into them- just like you can't use them for Better Bottles. It is perfect for filling glass carboys- and I still have 75 of them and adding more all the time. It works my filter system and even the bottling systems. The hose and fittingswere almost as expensive as the pump.

 

[BonnieJoy]

Big difference in equipment needs going from amateur to pro. Thanks for sharing your growing experiences with us. That's a sweet looking tank. Do ya think you'll jacket that tank someday or do you have another plan for doing cold stabilizations?

 

[grapeman]

Bonnie that tank does not have the capacity to be jacketed. I could add a drop in cooler if wanted, but I expect to add a nuber of tanks in the future. Around here, cold stabilizing is not a problem, just wait until December and you are all set!

 

[grapeman]

I finished pressing the last of the wine today. I did two brutes of Catawba and got about 35 or so gallons. I also did a very small batch of Noiret and ended up with around 4 gallons. The yields of wine to grape poundage this year was higher than it has been for me in the past. So far the body and all seems as high or higher than usual, so it is strange. I ended up the year at close to 1000 gallons in the tanks- a few hundred more than I anticipated. Even though I lost some yield to the hail, overall I got greater than expected yield of must and wine.


After I do a bit more cleanup around the winery, I need to do some fall vineyard cleanup work, etc. I need to round up the rest of the nets into their storage bags. Then I may do a last mowing in the alleyways between the vines. I have an acre of vineyard left to install trellising in. I have about 40 out of 140 posts installed and need to get the rest in. Then the anchors need to be installed and finally install the wires. This vineyard doesn't get much attention yet, but is the first of my expansion vineyards and has hundred of vines of the same variety instead of 25 to 100vines of a bunch of kinds.

 

[Randoneur]

So, you have no Vidal vines for late harvest wine?

 

[BonnieJoy]

Rich - how did the new pump work moving the Frontenac into that awesome SS tank?

 

[grapeman]

The pump worked super in moving the wine. It took about 5 minutes per brute to move it and the tank was full in no time. My little screen filter did not work right and plugged the screen (too fine) in no time so I took the screen out. I need a larger mesh screen. The pump would reprime itself good between tanks. I could let it suck down to nothing but crud in the bottom of the brutes and move to the next tank and the pump would take about 5-10 seconds and be pumping again.

 

[BonnieJoy]

I'd bet that the LaCrosseAppleman is growing he could make some dandy dessert wine.

 

[grapeman]

Bonnie Joy there are a lot of the whites I grow make great dessert wines. I was bottling some LaCrosse and St. Pepin today dry to free up a few carboys to get some more from plastic to glass.

I got a few pictures today of the setup with a single filter in it - can use two when I want. I used the stainless single nozzle filler today.

 

[ibglowin]

What is the make/model of the filter set up? What is the filter size (micron)

Nice set up for sure!

 

[Runningwolf]

Looking good Rich. I see lots of oxy-clean. Do you buy the large boxes at Sams Club or Home Depot and then transfer to those tubs? Thats what I do. The other thing I noticed that I really liked were your hose clamps. Were you able to get those at the big boxes. I like how you can just tighten them with your fingers.

 

[grapeman]

What is the make/model of the filter set up? What is the filter size (micron)

Nice set up for sure!

The filter came from Valley Vintner. I don't like to give out specific online stores, but in this case, George doesn't sell these filters yet. I got a variety of filter sizes for them from 5 microns down to 0.35 microns. I only wanted to polish today so I used a one micron filter.