fermentap

[Jwhelan939]

Has anyone ever seen one of these fermentaps. It looks like it could be a cheap way to turn your carboy into a conical. Everywhere I look talks about its use for beer. Has anyone ever tried one? Could it work for wine?

 

[Wade E]

</span><a href="http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=4914" target="_blank">Product Description:</span>


Fermentap:
By inverting the glass carboy and installing the Fermentap valve, the
procedures of sampling, yeast harvesting and racking done in commercial
breweries can be copied by the homebrewer. The neck of the carboy
naturally concentrates sediment at the lowest point, which facilitates
separation and minimizes waste. You use gravity to transfer the beer to
your bottling bucket or keg, and you can leave all of the sediment
behind in the carboy.</span></a>

I have never seen 1 or used 1 but it looks interesting. For anyone who has seen 1 in use or uses a conical please explain how it could leave all the sediment behind.

 

[Jwhelan939]

It definitly looks interesting!!!

 

[smurfe]

The only advantage is that will let you drop your gross lees and yeast out. With this set up you are going to have to get every bit of sediment out before you invert the carboy to remove the wine. If not you will just have a cloudy mess and will have to let sit longer and still end up racking.
With a regular conical you have the regular port on the bottom but you will have a racking port above the sediment bed. In a conical the bottom port isn't really as much to remove all of the sediment but to collect yeast samples to save for reuse. I would just have to see and use one of these to see how they work.

 

[PeterZ]

It looks like there is a sediment port and a racking port. My only concern with that setup is lifting a full carboy with no handle, inverting it, and placing it into the support ring on a table at 3-4 feet high. I am in good shape, but at ~60 lbs the risk of dropping the carboy is way too high for me.

 

[dfwwino]

I don't see the benefit for winemaking. It is very useful for homebrewing beer because it allows one to draw off yeast and repitch it in a new batch, thus saving significantly on liquid yeasts for each batch and providing a robust, healthy and fast start to the fermentation of the wort, which is extremely important in brewing quality beer. However, wine yeasts produce consistent results and are cheap. Also, how would one degas the wine with the wine covering the opening of the carboy.Racking wine to clarify wine also has the benefit of partially degassing wine.