Micro-Oxygenation?

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Adam Beck

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Has anyone here tried doing micro-oxygenation in a glass carboy? I've heard you can set up a small aeration stone and do it with aquarium equipment. I have a cab franc that I think would greatly benefit from it.
 
An aeration stone and aquarium pump will not work. Minimum tank height for direct sparging of pure oxygen is 7 feet, the bubbles have to dissolve into the wine before reaching the surface. Then you have to use a D.O.-probe regularly to ensure there is no accumulation of dissolved oxygen in the wine.
 
An aeration stone and aquarium pump will not work. Minimum tank height for direct sparging of pure oxygen is 7 feet, the bubbles have to dissolve into the wine before reaching the surface. Then you have to use a D.O.-probe regularly to ensure there is no accumulation of dissolved oxygen in the wine.

Well damn. Thanks for the info. :)
 
There are people on the sister site beer forum that insist you can't keep enough oxygen out of anything to matter. Drink it all now. :pee

There is some truth this. Doublet oxygen is pretty damned small. If air locks kept it out then you wouldn't have to add kmeta every three months. The people that make the orange/purple caps claim that theirs keep out more oxygen that the standard bung airlock combo.
 
If only I had one...

As an initial investment, spending $175 +/- to age a carboy of wine may seem a bit edgy, but think in longer time frames. In the first two years of life, before becoming neutral, my 6 gallon Vadai barrels saw 5 different wines. 150 bottles of wine amounts to $1.16 per bottle. In the ensuing years (2 more years), the barrels saw 4 more wines. So in 4 years, 9 batches of wine, or 270 bottles, at a per bottle cost of 65 cents per bottle. The barrels make a big difference in the development of wine and your finished product, even when they are neutral, and you can use them longer than 4 years.

My first barrel scared the heck out of me and I was a nervous wreck when the wine went in for the first time, it quickly becomes old hat when you go through a couple of wines, and becomes a really neat part of winemaking. Still love to go into the wine room and thief a few tubes of wine to sample. Undrstood that barrel aging isn't for everybody, some folks just don't want to do it, and that's OK, wish I'd started sooner. Wish I'd started wine from grapes sooner too. For me, there's a real authenticity to what I'm doing and trying to produce, not that I'm trying to copy off of the "big boys", but more trying to keep the traditionalism of the art in my process.
 
As an initial investment, spending $175 +/- to age a carboy of wine may seem a bit edgy, but think in longer time frames. In the first two years of life, before becoming neutral, my 6 gallon Vadai barrels saw 5 different wines. 150 bottles of wine amounts to $1.16 per bottle. In the ensuing years (2 more years), the barrels saw 4 more wines. So in 4 years, 9 batches of wine, or 270 bottles, at a per bottle cost of 65 cents per bottle. The barrels make a big difference in the development of wine and your finished product, even when they are neutral, and you can use them longer than 4 years.

Oh trust me, I'd love to have an oak barrel, and it's not the price point that's keeping me from getting one! I live in an apartment and have to store all my wine supplies under my desk - I simply don't have room to add a barrel on top of the equipment I already have! I'm hoping to move to a place with a garage or basement (or even a spare closet I can use, lol) sometime next year, at which point I'll have more room for activities.
 

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