I have a 100L Marchisio variable capacity wine fermentor with a floating lid that uses a inflatable tube to seal the lid. The inflatable tube absolutely stinks! It is constantly in need of additional air (daily) from the attached hand pump. Obviously this is a nuisance and a waste of my time. With that being said, Does anyone use these for winemaking and secondly have you had a similar experience? If so, what is your solution? I searched for a heavy duty replacement tube but came up empty. I even thought of an bicycle inner tube but that obviously can’t come into contact with the wine.
That would be my suggestion also. They sell 12 volt electric tire pumps for emergency road needs. Perhaps one could be used for your purpose? You may need to incorporate a pressure switch of some kind, but that shouldn’t present any real concerns.
For the life of me, I have inflated with the air hand pump that came with it, co2 tank at 1bar then 2, both times sprayed with starsan…nothing! Not one air bubble. Put in a sink of water and still nothing. Guess what? I have 2 100 liter SS wine fermentors for sale. What a colossal waste of money. Tanks are worthless! The junk man will love them come garbage night!
I assume that this is not simply a pressure drop issue in the tube due to temperature changes, so maybe a gasket made from slicing a slit in the length of some silicone tubing might fill the bill? I used that with a pizza pan to create a “mash cap” for low ox brewing a while back - the silicone tubing slipped over the rim of the pizza pan and was measured to fit pretty tightly end to end without a gap where the two ends came together (you cold use some type of overlap, if necessary for your application).
