Question for Peter

[Trubador]

I've been asking a lot about brake bleeders lately, but I thought of something. At work, I have access to a peristaltic pump. Could I simply hook up the pump to the bung of the carboy? This would hold a perfect vacuum for as long as I kept the pump on.


Also, would there be any danger of atmospheric pressure cracking the neck of the carboy?

 

[Wade E]

Ill let Peter answer most of the question since I have no idea what
this even is but will just say not to take it above 25" of vacuum or
you could implode the carboy.

 

[PeterZ]

Trub,

A peristaltic pump will work fine, but you should T a vacuum gauge into the line. While I am not personally concerned about impolding a carboy if it is full of wine (which exerts a fair outward pressure on the surface of the glass), others are iffy about it, and I have no first hand experience. My feeling is that light bulbs hold almost complete vacuum, and the glass is paper thin. I feel that any carboy that implodes under full vacuum was already cracked.

Another great use for a peristaltic pump is that it is ideal for racking and filtration. The wine never touches any part of the pump except the food grade tubing, which can pump a gallon of SO2 solution first from one bottle to another first. Since the flow rate is low, you can put a racking tube just above the sediment after fining and draw off the wine. Even if you do lose prime, the pump is self-priming up to almost 30', so it's easy to restart.

As far as I am concerned, peristaltic is the way to go. Got a spare you can send me?

 

[Trubador]

Trub,

A peristaltic pump will work fine, but you should T a vacuum gauge into the line. While I am not personally concerned about impolding a carboy if it is full of wine (which exerts a fair outward pressure on the surface of the glass), others are iffy about it, and I have no first hand experience. My feeling is that light bulbs hold almost complete vacuum, and the glass is paper thin. I feel that any carboy that implodes under full vacuum was already cracked.

Another great use for a peristaltic pump is that it is ideal for racking and filtration. The wine never touches any part of the pump except the food grade tubing, which can pump a gallon of SO2 solution first from one bottle to another first. Since the flow rate is low, you can put a racking tube just above the sediment after fining and draw off the wine. Even if you do lose prime, the pump is self-priming up to almost 30', so it's easy to restart.

As far as I am concerned, peristaltic is the way to go. Got a spare you can send me?

LOL....we actually have two of them! We use them to collect ground water samples from wells in which the water less than 28 feet below grade (the theoretical limit). I never thought of using it for racking, you are right, it would work well; however, the autosiphon i have works perfectly and is extremely easy to use, so I think I'll keep doing it that way.


Filtering is very interesting though! It would be a great way to filter, but only if there are filters which fit onto the end of the tubing. Do such filters exist?

 

[PeterZ]

Trub, there are lab filters that will fit on 1/2" tubing (I don't know what size your pump uses), but they tend to be pretty pricey. However, many fridges now have filters for the waterice maker, and these are relatively cheap. They use cartridge filters that have enough capacity to rough filter a cloudy wine, which could then be polished through a wine filter. I'm sure I could build a setup out of readily available parts.