“At Domaine Alfred, we use positive gas pressure (i.e.: a Bulldog) for all our racking applications due to its gentleness, exclusion of oxygen and for the very clean racking we can get. Until recently we used the original Bulldog Pup, but have just purchased a Rack-it-Teer.
The Rack-it-Teer basically solves all of the issues we had with the Bulldog. Primarily, due to a better bung and cam locking mechanism, the wand stays in the barrel far better. This allows us to rack more cleanly, because it is stable enough that the lees screw doesn't need to touch the bottom of the barrel. We can rack every barrel to the actual lees level, not the level we set the screw to. There is also less likelihood of the wand popping out of the barrel and stirring up the lees. The ultimate result of this is that the clarity of the racked wine is far superior, greatly reducing the need for polish filtration.
The average time it took to rack a barrel with the old Bulldog Pup was 5.5 minutes. Due to the higher pressures we can run with the Rack-it-Teer, a barrel now takes us 3 minutes. The only limit to the gas pressure we can run is the structural integrity of the barrel (we were getting a few buldging heads when we upped the pressure too much).
Small features like the angled hose connection at the top, the flashlight holder and the big valve for gas release, turn racking jobs into a much more pleasurable experience and have nearly doubled our racking productivity.
I would highly recommend the Rack-it-teer to any winery that uses positive gas pressure to rack.”