KevinL

Degassing

De-gassing
When I attempt to de-gass wine foams all over the place. I stir with a drill and whip for sometimes hours (stir 30 sec to 1 min wait 30 min for the foam to die down, repeat) I take a sample shake it in the cylinder and still get a puff of gas.

Wine temp is 72-74F I could warm it.

OK all you experts please wiegh in

Are you whipping air in? That's a no no. You want to move the wine then reverse the bit to force co2 out. Not whip air in.

No I don't believe so It foams up the worst on the first stir, about 10 sec of a moderate speed.

I do alternate direction of the drill, that seems to create the best aggitation without a vortex, I go 30 sec oneway then reverse then wait. I may do that 10 times or so, but there still seems to be some bubbles coming up

Do you really need ALL of the CO2 out, or is what comes out with a couple of3-4 minute stirs suffcient.

Get as much out as possible otherwise the wine will not clear properly. Try using a Vacuvin if you have one.

Stirring frequently during ferm. reduces the amount you need to get out later. You will still continue to get bubbles as your wine relaxes and some of the released co2 makes its way to the top.

Add sufficient sulfite to protect the wine. A vacuum pump is a great tool if you have the chance to use one.

I agree with Steve and Mike, stir several times and becareful not to whipair into youre wine. You got a good temperature going. Doing what you have done, I've never had a problem going forward. A vacuum pump is a great tool to have and it saves your arm. Keep your sulphites up.

If come up with a set-up for degassing the works well to protect against air and wine volcano

I must confess, I have never degassed my wine in the 12 years I've been making wine. The CO2 goes away over time and during racking. I don't really see the benefit of trying to hurry things along. I'm sure this has been debated before. Can someone help me understand why one would want to degas a wine rather than let it be? Other than just trying to hurry it along?

Now thats a cool set up I've never seen. I can't tell you how many times Wade and I wished we would have had the set up ourselves. Oh what a mess those volcanoes make.

The degassing whip I have advises using a cordless drill only to keep the rpm down, so maybe your corded drill is whipping too hard.

kevinlfifer said:

If come up with a set-up for degassing the works well to protect against air and wine volcano

Click to expand...

with all respect, I think your degassing technique is lousy, the set up you are using is too restrictive for letting the gas out. try degassing with the lid off the carboy and just the paddle attached to your drill.

A short follow up, as a chemist in a past life (I hated the repetative lab work) once CO2 is released as a gas it's gonna get out. There is no amount of restriction, save a corked bottle, that will contain it, and even then POP. The drill is variable so speed is not an issue and the carboy cap does not restrict the rotation or grab. Once the wine foams over into the tubing you can see bubbles passing thru the low spot on the tubing, sort of like a meter. I usually end up with about an inch of wine in the overflow bottle from the CO2 foaming. At that point if I over crank the drill speed and get a vortex, it sucks wine in, not air. There is a head of CO2 in the carboy until it is topped off, so air is not an issue from the start.

I am not patient. I just started making wine in Dec and have done 12 kits. Some are tolerable. The sooner they become pleasant and I have a drinkable inventory, then I may allow time to degass for me.

Nothing like jumping in feet first into the deep end! Patience is a virtue in the hobby.