Obviously, this rig is assembled from commercial grade equipment intended for use by someone who knows what he’s doing.
However, as commercial grade equipment, the rig’s components are far more robust, proven, and exact than their consumer grade counterparts in the stock Coravin. The tank and Coravin capsules alike are pressurized to 2600 psi. The regulator on the tank is only capable of producing wine-bottle-tolerable pressures. And the rig design also incorporates several redundant overpressure safety devices where the Coravin has none.
One neat feature of the rig is one can set a level of pressure lower than the stock Coravin, potentially providing safer operation. This low pressure mode works quite well for pouring tastes and could work for full glasses as well, especially with the larger bore Coravin needle.
Yes, the tank and the regulator are off the shelf purchases. The gas delivery system configuration took more thought and effort to select, source, and assemble the components to forestall various problems, provide good usability, and address safety.
The real challenge though was hacking the Coravin internals. The Coravin looks simple, but it is a highly engineered device, tightly designed around low cost operation in a single way with almost no degrees of freedom inside. Attempting the smallest modification runs into all kinds of difficulties.
The fitting on the end came into existence to elegantly solve several mechanical problems adapting to an external gas supply. I designed the fitting from scratch using CAD software and had it custom made.
Out of curiosity, was it ever clearly established that the exploding bottle episodes were traced back to a general over-pressurization flaw in the Coravin system, or was it possibly failure of bottles with inherent defects? I opened a bottle one time with a corkscrew and as soon as the cork was removed, the entire bottom fell out due to a hairline annular crack. The slight difference in pressure was enough to expose the existing defect.
From what was reported, it sounded like there were imperfections in the bottles, but ones that would not have been an issue if the bottles hadn’t been over-pressurized.
OK smart guy, now you have created Argon envy in all of the Coravin users here. So how do we get you to recoup your cost by selling these to the rest of us?
Ha! I could build a rig for you. However the parts and particularly the labor involved in custom build/modification work like this would put the price squarely in the realm of commercial foodservice beverage dispensing equipment.
You would need to be seriously high volume for this to break even, and you really are still gambling on durability and accessibility of any repairs. The breakeven, using $0.90 for Coravin capsules and $0.005 for the tank (the amounts given in post one) is 1,676 pours, assuming both operate effectively and a $1,500 one time cost for development. Assuming five 5oz pours per bottle, you’d be looking at needing to sell through 335 bottles of wine by the glass, particularly noting that you’d really only be compensating for those bottles that you wouldn’t sell through in a day or two, so that’s actually a much larger figure.
Basically, that’s a bunch of stuff to say that it’s probably not worth a $1,500 initial investment for most commercial uses.
Wow, excellent analytical approach. My break-even analysis is similar to yours, though I reach a different overall conclusion.
If there is a requirement the equipment pay for itself within 1 year, then yes, a restaurant would need to be busy enough to be pouring at least 6 Coravin glasses a day to do that.
However, you overlooked the subsequent return on investment that restaurant would enjoy. That would come in year 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. where the rig would save that restaurant $2,000 a year every year moving forward. That’s an attractive rate of return.
Moreover relevant to the analysis is not just the rate of Coravin usage of a restaurant but also the time horizon of that restaurant. Most restaurants don’t expect or need their capital equipment to break-even in just 1 year.
Take for example, just little old me. I drink only 1 glass of Coravin wine a day. But I’m sure I’ll be drinking wine for at least the next 6 years and thereafter as well. So even at just one glass a day, I’m certain I’ll recoup my investment and thereafter save money. A trickle of small Coravin capsule purchases over the course of years when summed actually adds up to a lot of money.
Finally, busy restaurants also value capital equipment by its ability to reduce labor costs and streamline operations. I think for a busy restaurant there is additional value in having a “Bottomless Coravin” that eliminates any capsule management overhead and can be mounted by the soda gun or beer tap and be just as “always on” reliable and consistent.
Nice rig, I built something similar, maybe not as “commercial grade” as this, but sufficient for home use. I took the black plastic piece from a used coravin capsule and constructed a connector which can be tightened to the original capsule connection point using the original plastic capsule container. It’s very cheap (~60$ including a 1.1 liter/110bar Argon non rechargeable cylinder) and has the advantage that no substantial modification of the coravin has been done (I had to drill a small hole into the plastic handle) and I still can use the original capsules if I want to. I can post pictures if anyone interested.
can somebody build me a back pack to put this in so I can work the floor with it. Kind of ghostbuster like… but with wine. I go through so many capsules on the job
just a side note: if you’re talking about breakeven over a 6+ year horizon, you need to factor in time value of money… what’s the PV of spend over 6+ years vs a one time investment now.
You’d also have to factor in cost increases for the cartridge due to inflation/popularity etc.
all in all it’s probably not worth a 4 figure up front investment for now… but hey, was the first computer really ‘worth it’? it’s all about innovation!
Mine was built before Coravin existed, but it is similar. Honestly, what are you people afraid of? It’s a tank of pressurized gas, which are found everywhere. You can hardly get into a taxi in Asia without being seated 6 inches from one that is full of flammable pressurized liquid. At least mine is full of the noble gas argon. Also, I have the bottle pressure set to 3-5 psi, and the max out pressure of the dual stage regulator is 30 psi. So in theory, this setup is safer than using a Coravin directly, which pressurizes the bottle much higher. I’m currently on bottle 206 for this argon tank.
Mine was built before Coravin existed, but it is similar. Honestly, what are you people afraid of? It’s a tank of pressurized gas, which are found everywhere. You can hardly get into a taxi in Asia without being seated 6 inches from one that is full of flammable pressurized liquid. At least mine is full of the noble gas argon. Also, I have the bottle pressure set to 3-5 psi, and the max out pressure of the dual stage regulator is 30 psi. So in theory, this setup is safer than using a Coravin directly, which pressurizes the bottle much higher. I’m currently on bottle 206 for this argon tank.
The concern is that pressure safety standards dictate the use of pressure relief devices, as well as regular testing and certification of the relief devices and regulators and other components. They don’t fail often, but some do fail if not regularly tested, and the stored energy is significant. The pressurized tank should also be secured, so that there is no reasonable chance it can fall and threaten the integrity of the regulator. A somewhat lower risk, depending on the room, is asphyxiation if the bottle were to release its contents in a short time.
These hazards can be easily managed by someone who knows what they are doing, but I’m not sure the average wine buff falls in that category. My employer has rigorous standards for testing and certification of these components, for good reason. They don’t fail often, but the results can be spectacular when they do.Not saying people shouldn’t do it, just that they should be aware of the hazards and educate themselves about how to mitigate them.
