C02 Go Away!!!

[First Time Wine]

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Ok I need some advice. I am ready to bottle my first kit. It is a $60.00 Vintners Reserve Chardonnay so I am not expecting great things from it, but who knows. I am mainly using it a an experiment. Up until this point everything was relatively easy as it is suppose to be with kits. I have a gas problem. Obviously I didn’t do what I was supposed to do. I go to bottle it last night and I fill one or two and realized it didn’t taste so good with all the gas. If I took the bottle and shook it tasted fine. The wine is in it second carboy so there isn’t any lees. Couldn’t I put the rubber stop in there and shake the snot out of it until it doesn’t release any more gas? With the first shake any oxygen that was in the headspace would have been pushed out so you would have to worry about oxygen exposure.

 

[geocorn]

My last 2 newsletters addressed this point, extensively. In the meantime, never bottle anything that does not taste right. Get it fixed before you bottle.

 

[Wade E]

I recommend degassing it with a mix-stir or vacuum pump or manually
with a big plastic spoon but that is very labor intensive but can be
done!

 

[JBHarris]

First time...I am having the same problem...one thing I can tell you...listen to what these guys tell you. Has gotten me out of a mess. Oh and by the way.......get a mix-stir and get rid of the gas!!!!!

 

[Angell Wine]

I still have problems with degassing. just hang in there and let time work on your side.

 

[rshosted]

I agree that patients is needed to make wine. Though, when it comes to gas don't expect it to go away of it's own volition. You must take action. I have bulk aged wines for over a year, only to find they are still gassy. I suggest a vacuum (brake bleeder) to degass. I have found it the easiest and will take the gas down to an undectectable level.

 

[sangwitch]

I still have de-gassing issues myself. I have the mix stir and the whip and tomorrow I'm going to buy the brake bleeder. I have a few 1-gallon batches of welchs that I've been shaking for days and they're still foaming and spitting. Anyone care to explain that one?

 

[First Time Wine]

I put a vacume on the top and looked for the bubbles on the side. It just sat there. I have and have used the Fizz-X Mixer but I bet I didn't use it correctly to degas. Do I froth the top or move it up and down? The readon I ask is because if I leave it in the middle it just spins arround and zero C02 comes out.




Thanks for the help

Edited by: First Time Wine

 

[MikeC]

I just degassed my Sangiovese on Saturday. The directions said to stir it for at least 2 minutes. After 10 minutes I was still seeing a few bubbles.


What seems to have worked for me was the following.....


I used the drill stirrer that George sells. I used a combination of constant stirring at moderate speeds, combined with periods of forward and backward stirring (flipping the reversing switch on the drill). While stirring at a constant speed I floated the stirrer up and down. I honestly thought the bubbles would never stop, but eventually they did.


It took a good solid 10 minutes of work to get the Sangiovese to the point where there were no more gas bubbles coming up.


I purchased the kit George wrote about in the degassing newsletter but have not tried it yet. I suspect I'll try it on my next wine.


Hope this helps!

 

[First Time Wine]

Good info.... I think I got it degased now.





Thanks for the help

 

[Wade E]

How many hgs did you pull on the vac. We typically pull 25 and try to hold 15 to 20.

 

[First Time Wine]

You got me... It was a standard up right

 

[Flaco]

Wade, is that hold at 15 -20hgs? Do you see the vacuum slightly drop as you do this? When I did mine, it seemed that the vacuum would hold for 30 seconds then drop slowly. How do you know when it is done???? George's comments are that the small bubbles along the side are C02 and the larger bubbles through the middle are from the vacuum not gas???

 

[First Time Wine]

I thought about this a little last night. I did the vacuum when the carboy was completely topped off. The surface area on the top of the wine was reduced from several inches to the diameter of the carboy top/neck about 1 1/2 inches. Could the vacuum pull not be working because of such a small surface area? Just a thought. Edited by: First Time Wine

 

[Flaco]

First Time, I was under the impression that thesmaller volume of air left in the carboy, the better it was for the vacuum. So topping off in this situation is what you want to do before using the vacuum pump. I am also pretty new to this, but struggle with some of these same issues. Hopefully the wiser forum members will chime in soon!!!

 

[First Time Wine]

Man I am stumped.... Oh well. I did happen to get the gas out. I checked it this morning and it tasted ok...

I have another wine that is getting close to botteling in a month. I will let this one sit until then and see if I am happy with botteling it then. 02 is now my concern because of the stiring etc. I might have 6 gallons of viniger on my hands...hahahah


Time will tell. I might pop open a bottle in a year and it taste pretty good or it might stink.


Thanks for your help.

 

[Wade E]

You definetlely want it topped up while doing this to reduce the chance
of imploding your carboy. And yes George is right you will always get
bubbles but the big ones are nothing toi worry about. Its all those
smaller ones. Its hard to keep a constant vacuum with the equipment we
use and we also go overboard I believe in our degassing. Next time you
buy a bottle of commercial wine. open it, put your finger over the top
and shake a little, Im sure your going to discover quite a bit of gas!

 

[First Time Wine]

Good info Wade, thanks. Like I said I think it is all out now. I did a little sample this morning and it tasted pretty good. I am going to leave it racked for a couple more weeks and bottle it. It is crystal clear and looks good. The C02 really made it taste bad so I am glad it has gone bye bye.


Thanks for the help

 

[rlyness]

After a degassing failure with my first kit, I am determined to get rid of the fizz in my future product.
I bought a Mighty-Mac and hooked it up to my full 6" carboy and vac pumped and shook the carboy while sitting on a tennis ball for 2 days. To my dismay I realized I would be doing this ad infinitum.
I removed about a half-gallon of wine from the carboy put it in a gallon jug and shook the hell out of it. When I removed the cap, plenty of gas still came out. So in the interim (while I acquire a rotary vane pump) I plan to shake the hell out of the wine a half gallon at a time in one gallon jugs. When the 6 gal carboy is only half full, I will shake the carboy. After that task is complete I will put 5 gal of wine in a 6 gal carboy ( I think a lot of surface area is beneficial to pumping and I don't worry about imploding the carboy- thick glass) then hook it up to an electrical vacuum pump.

 

[Dean]

Here's what I found that REALLY helps with degassing:

1. Bring the wine temperature up to at LEAST 75 degrees fahrenheit.
2. Make sure on the day you wish to degass that there are no storms coming, or your region is experiencing a high pressure weather system coming through. If a low pressure system is coming through your area, degassing will go much quicker!
3. Syphon some wine out of the carboy if you are choosing to degass in there. About 1 gallon less should do.
4. Shake the 1 gallon siphoned out to degass that. 1 gallon or slighly less is easy to shake up.
5. With the increased surface area in the carboy, you are well suited for vacuum degassing as well as stirring with a drill mounted stirrer. I still find that I use my spoon, drill, and vacuum to get all the co2 out.

And finally, my last 2 methods, which seem to work the best, may not work all that well for WE kits. RJ Spagnols has moved to a 14 day primary fermentation regime on all their kits. Since I have done this, i've had little to no problem degassing with just a simple stir. My final method for degassing is time. A carboy under airlock, or a barrel, sitting for 1 year or more, is very likely to be totally degassed. However, I realize that many folks as they are starting out, do not want to wait 1 year or more for something to degass. In that case, use my steps above.