Dragon Blood degassing issue?

[kXb]

my db is in my secondary (glass carboy) at room temp. i can see it's starting to clear after 3 days but i'm concerned that when i degassed using fermtech wine whip, i may have added oxygen rather than degassing. i didn't realize you should SLOWLY whip and so went to town with the electric drill. in doing so, the bung dropped some rubber down into my db. not happy with myself on that but i think (if i remember) to use a nylon net on the end of my siphon, i will bypass those little buggers.

question is, why the big focus on degassing? is it to eliminate bottle bombs or eliminate carbonation in the final product? personally i would like a little carbonation. i was really wanting to make a slighlty carbonated hard strawberry lemonade but settled for what i consider to be a strawberry lemon wine.

thanks in advance

 

[dangerdave]

If I misses your welcome to the forum, then welcome, kXb.

Degassing helps the wine to clear. Rising CO2 bubbles will carry sediment up with them, keeping the wine cloudy. I'm not a big carbonated wine fan, so I cannot give you advice about how to do that. My goal, personally, is to get that gas out. Under normal circumstances, wine will give up it's CO2 over time like an open can of soda---e.g., it takes a while.

I've made the strawberry lemon DB version several times. It's very good.

 

[oreoman]

What is the recipe for the strawberry lemon version? ( if you don't mind me asking )
Joann


Sent from my iPhone using Wine Making

 

[kXb]

thanks for info. should i be worried that i may have oxygenated rather than degassing?

 

[kXb]

oreoman i got the recipe here http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f2/dangerdaves-dragon-blood-wine-41825/

and i just replaced all the berries with strawberries. i also modified mine for a 5g carboy.

 

[oreoman]

Ok-- I've made DB in different variations before. Just curious if you used something besides the obvious.
Thanks.
Joann


Sent from my iPhone using Wine Making

 

[dangerdave]

thanks for info. should i be worried that i may have oxygenated rather than degassing?

If it was only once, I wouldn't worry. It's harder to oxidize wine than you would think. If you added sulfite after fermentation (per the recipe), this is one of the ways it helps protect the wine, by bonding to the O2 that gets into the wine.

Do you haqve a way to test for SO2 in your wine? If you are concerned, you can add another pinch of sulfite to it to replace what may have leached out during your over-zealous degassing.

 

[kXb]

i added everything per the recipe. no i don't have a way to check s02. right now i'm about to rack over to another vessel to backsweeten and continue clearing as the recipe indicates. i think i'm going to take my chance on it at this point and not add any more sulfite.

i appreciate the help!

 

[beggarsu]

i added everything per the recipe. no i don't have a way to check s02. right now i'm about to rack over to another vessel to backsweeten and continue clearing as the recipe indicates. i think i'm going to take my chance on it at this point and not add any more sulfite.

i appreciate the help!

Yeah at one time i realized I could be oxygenating it because I was frothing a (temporarily) half empty something above the liquid line and realized I could be frothing IN the oxygen so thereafter I whipped always below the liquid line making sure the narrow line of the batter handle whipping axle was always inserted fully into the liquid so I only stir the liquid below - you have to do it fast speed or you will be there all night, I can get to second speed on the mixer but third speed will have spillage.

I also realized sulphide will prevent oxygenation problems so I sulphide first before I whip. And for the whip I add extra every phase that I might do it or add some pinch of sulphide even if i do extra racking. I guess for whipping I might add 1/4 extra the recommended dose for the whole batch for regular sulphide.


They say over sulphide could affect the taste or something go wrong in long term storage but I think the sulphide can always aerate out if air exposed.
Anyway I think it must be a whole lot to ruin the taste - I have had no problem in the taste of any of my wines about 8 6 gal batches last year.

 

[kXb]

thanks beggarsu! i bottled into large mason jars and had just about 16oz too much so, darn, had to drink that. dh and i were amazed at how delicious it is! tart and sweet at the same time without too much of either! this is going to become a summer time habit i'm afraid

 

[dangerdave]

Welcome to the DB family, kXb. Glad it turned out great! Mkae more, fast!

 

[bkisel]

Degassing has always been a challenge for me. I find myself most often both stir degassing and then following up with VacuVin degassing over the course of several days. If I splash rack to a bucket and stir diligently I can get by without hand pumping. Issue with that is that I then have to rack back into a carboy anyways.

 

[dangerdave]

Solution: Birthday or Xmas, tell the whole family to pool their finds and get you an Allinone! You'll never know how you lived without it!

 

[kXb]

ok, i'll bite. what is an "allinone"??? (send link)

 

[kXb]

NEVER MIND! found it at http://www.allinonewinepump.com/

if i continue to make wine/db/sp, i may have to break down and get one

 

[Floandgary]

The fear of using a whip/drill has always proffered questions/doubts! If you whip fast enough, you can create a vortex which will draw air into the wine. I've found that if you keep moving the whip around and maybe slow it a bit, you can prevent that vortex and not have to worry about oxygenating. "Just Whip It"!!! LOL

 

[Bhushan Thatte]

I recently bottled the DDDB wine, but sound it's carbonating.Actually wine is quite clear and taste is very nice.... but much carbonating wine after I bottled it. Guys any solution?

 

[Rice_Guy]

* IF the db was minimally degassed and not sweetened you should be OK. A normal wine bottle should hold 1.5 atmosphere and the heavier normal bottle usually does 2. (Champagne is 3 atmospheres)
* IF you back sweetened and are refermenting it’s time to say oh sugar! Pour back in the carboy to let it ferment. It should have potassium sorbate to prevent refermentation.

 

[Bhushan Thatte]

* IF the db was minimally degassed and not sweetened you should be OK. A normal wine bottle should hold 1.5 atmosphere and the heavier normal bottle usually does 2. (Champagne is 3 atmospheres)
* IF you back sweetened and are refermenting it’s time to say oh sugar! Pour back in the carboy to let it ferment. It should have potassium sorbate to prevent refermentation.

Thanks Madison.
yes, it's quite minimal sweet, but still looks like carbonating, hence my earlier query. But based on your 1st point - it seems OK. Another curious question about the 1.5 atmosphere you talk about - Can you educate me more about it and how important is this concept w.r.t. wine?

 

[Rice_Guy]

measuring in atmospheres is one of a dozen ways to talk about pressure, it means “the weight/ normal pressure that air pushs on a soda bottle”. IF the soda in a bottle is gassed above one atmosphere the bottle will feel fat, if it is a non-carbonated water/ zero atmospheres pressure you can press the bottle in. ,,,, The term is useful in soda factories, if I wanted to be more accurate I would measure in PSIG, pounds per square inch, as an air compressor might deliver 100 psig to a nailing gun, one atmosphere is defined as 14.696 psig.

. Another curious question about the 1.5 atmosphere you talk about - Can you educate me more about it and how important is this concept

how important? ,, a gas dissolved in a liquid follows Henry’s Law
. . . . . . dissolved gas equals K (constant) times partial pressure . . . . . . .
therefore if I am making a soda/beer/ sparkling wine product I can produce a uniform product by simply monitoring the pressure coming off the CO2 tank, or in the quality lab I can check what the plant folks did by pushing a needle into the head space and measuring the pressure.
K is a “dirty” number because it depends on what the beer/ soda is made up of ie will vary with alcohol minerals and temperature, but is a good predictor of how much gas the factory needs to have in the tanks for any one product.