Inert Gas System for Variable Volume Tanks

Protect your wine from oxidation!

If you store wine in a variable volume tank in an environment that is not perfectly temperature controlled and the temperature drops, the wine in the tank will contract. As the wine contracts it creates a vacuum and pulls air into the tank. Even in a temperature controlled environment sampling will pull in small amounts of air. The traditional airlocks used in variable volume lids allow air to enter. If air does not enter the tank through the airlock (say if you had a solid stopper in place of the airlock), the internal vacuum pulls on the entire lid, which often causes a gasket failure. The solution is to replace your airlock with our MoreWine Inert Gas Bleeder.

What's Included
Our system comes with a tank lid connection, and diaphragm bleeder regulator. Not included is the stainless variable volume tank, high-pressure gas tank, regulator, or tubing to connect to a high-pressure regulator.

How to Use
As you can see in the picture, the traditional white airlock (on Italian Tanks) or the black screw plastic screw fitting (on our Speidel tanks) is replaced with our white tank connection fitting.

The Diaphragm Bleeder Regulator allows for inert gas to be pulled through a one way valve on demand without putting actual pressure on the tank. If the temperature increase and the wine expands the excess pressure also vents out of this Bleeder Regulator.

If you plan to use Variable Volume tanks for long term storage we strongly recommend these systems as a safety guard against oxidation. Tips:

The correct pressure to set the tank regulator to for use with the WE399 is 2-5 psi. The bleeder valve that is part of this kit has an auto blow off at 10 psi, so having the regulator any higher than that will cause the bleeder valve to vent to the atmosphere and thus drain your gas tank.

Note: The inlet is noted with a molded text "CO2" next to the barb fitting.