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Stevew1

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I am in need of a pump for my wine. I have recently added at 50 liter oak barrel to my cellar. I also have 20 liter barrel, three 54 liter demijohn and 6 each of five and six gallon carboys. I need a pump to transfer the wine from the demis to the oak and back again. Bottling would be a nice feature to have.
Vacuum pumps seem to be great for bottling but I am unsure how it would be for transferring to and from the demijohn and oak barrels.

A transfer pump does not seem to have the bottling feature. Any thoughts?
 
I am in need of a pump for my wine. I have recently added at 50 liter oak barrel to my cellar. I also have 20 liter barrel, three 54 liter demijohn and 6 each of five and six gallon carboys. I need a pump to transfer the wine from the demis to the oak and back again. Bottling would be a nice feature to have.
Vacuum pumps seem to be great for bottling but I am unsure how it would be for transferring to and from the demijohn and oak barrels.

A transfer pump does not seem to have the bottling feature. Any thoughts?

Vacuum racking establishes a vacuum in the target vessel, so you can vacuum rack out of a barrel into demi's or carboys, or use the attachment to bottle with no problem. See the All In One videos from @vacuumpumpman . When bottling, your bottles need to be higher than the wine you are drawing from.

The only issue I see with your goal, is racking into a barrel, which requires a vacuum in the barrel if you can't use gravity to siphon into the barrel. I do not know if you can create a vacuum in a barrel without drawing air in through the pores, but maybe someone else has done it and can chime in. It seems like it would be airtight enough to do it, but I do not know that for a fact.

Most of my transfers are with an auto-siphon using gravity, as I don't have any issues lifting 6 gallon carboys and barrels. When racking out of my big barrel, which I can't lift, I either vacuum rack to a carboy, or use my Buon Vino Super Jet to move wine uphill by simply bypassing the filter plates and just letting the pump do the work for me.

EDIT: Meant to add, if you don't have a filter / pump, you can get a pretty inexpensive pump from a marine supply store that is made to handle saltwater and should have not problems with wine, just need some clear tubing.
 
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I do make attachments for any size barrels. It works great !

I have been selling them for a long time now, to allow people to go into a barrel and now I designed a system to go into a pet carboy
 
Thank you for the input. I believe that I will likely need both soon. But I need a transfer pump first and soon.
 
I also sell a bottle washer that can be easily converted into a transfer pump if it helps you out. You can find it on my website under accessories
 
I have both a pump and a vacuum pump and find I need both. This SureFlo is inexpensive and super reliable. Made my own carrier and on/off switch, works like a champ.

I like that sureflo pump! How exactly does that work. I guess you rig it up to your racking cane? What gpm do you have? I was just looking at them and i see one at 3 gpm that seems like overkill. There is one that is at 1.8 gpm that is only $86.00 that seems like it would work well for transfer.

https://agrimart.net/shurflo-1-8-gp...000-543-236/?gclid=CMzJz5K6gdICFcS1wAodtisPQA
 
The unit I used is Shurflo 2088-594-154, 2088 Series, 198 GPH, 115 VAC. $79, free delivery on Amazon. Get the strainer for the input side. I built the handy dandy holder and made a run to Home Depot for the electrical pieces. I run a hose to a racking cane and a hose out the other end where I want the wine / water to go. It makes quick work of a 60 gallon barrel.

Ken
 
That's good to know. I'm sure that you can achieve the same CO2 removal properties racking into the barrel as you do a glass vessel. Very nice!

It is designed to be used with a 1/2'' racking hose - so it will reduce the vacuum on the wooden barrels and increase the volume of the liquid.

It will remove some of the CO2 - but not as much as if you were going into a standard glass carboy.
 
I like that sureflo pump! How exactly does that work. I guess you rig it up to your racking cane? What gpm do you have? I was just looking at them and i see one at 3 gpm that seems like overkill. There is one that is at 1.8 gpm that is only $86.00 that seems like it would work well for transfer.

I also use a sureflow, ac version. 3 Gomez. I picked up a heavy duty fan speed control, Emerson I think, and it does a very nice job of varying the speed and thus the flow. I can crank it up for transfer barrels or dial it down as needed to reduce splash at the start of a transfer or to control flow into my bottling machine. I use it with a whole house filter as well.

I did recently spring for a vacuum pump. Main reason is ease for small volumes and handling of whites and rose'.
 
It seems everytime I add something to the my wine making, I end up adding three.
 

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