Quad Berry DB - very gassy, may have small problem

[Tripplett]

Hi, so I started some quad berry dragon blood on 12/15/2012. Starting SG 1.080. Lots of action and foaming. 12/24/2012 the SG was 1.000.
I racked to secondary on 12/26 again with a SG of 1.000. Added Pot Meta and Sorbate, stirred 20 minutes with a mix-stir then one of the blades fell off along with the nut. I racked back to primary and back to retrieve the pieces.
Degassed for another 30 minutes, lots of foaming but the bubbles were very tiny when I was done.
Added Sparkolloid and degassed for another 15 minutes. A test with the tube gave a very faint pfft but since I am making this for spring and I was late for an engagement I felt ok to stop.

The next morning there was a small cap at the top of the better bottle. I jiggled the bottle to release the CO2 and it sank. Next day the same thing. Some lees had settled to the bottom and it was starting to clear nicely. I put on the solid bung and began to roll and smack the bottle around, releasing more CO2 each time. I figured if the lees settled once they'd do it again. I did this for another 40 minutes. I then racked 1/2 gal off and really shook up the better bottle - lots of release for another 15 minutes, racked the 1/2 gal back.

After that each day since there has been a small grouping of bubbles at the top. If I smack around the top of the bottle they release and i can see a puff of fine lees drop. I've done this twice a day since 12/27 but every day it keeps coming back. So, today I took a sample and tested it. It had fermented down to .0994.

So obviously I had more fermentation going on after adding sparkolloid. I have 1/2 inch of sediment on the bottom and it's been just over a week.

Should I do anything specific now? I will be out of town all next week. I was thinking to rack to primary this weekend, clean secondary, then back to secondary just to 'clean it up' a bit. Maybe some more degassing? i did slightly over sulfide this when I racked to secondary.

Thanks for reading and helping. This is only my second wine made and I don't want to screw it up.

 

[Arne]

Just leave it in the secondary while you are gone. It should be about finished, after you get back check the s.g. If it stays the same for 3 or more days in a row it should be done fermenting. Once it quits the sediment will start to fall out. Then you can rack and degass again as the new ferment will give you more gas. Bet when you get back it will be about done and it will not be too hard to degas it. If you get the s.g. stable, and if it was me, I would off the lees into a carboy with some k-meta and sorbate. Let it sit for a month or so, if it doesn't clear, you can try some more fining. Good luck with it, Arne.

 

[Tripplett]

I wanted to post an update to this thread. After I got back from my vacation I noticed that I was still having some foam / bubbles but the SG reading was still the same as it was before i left so fermentation was obviously done. What I realized is I did not degas the wine well enough. I spent an evening racking the wine off of the lees and then degassing like crazy. Days later still no more foam and everything has cleared beautifully. I back sweetened and now I'm just waiting to bottle. I had my sister, my niece, and my wife all try this wine and they all love it. I will wait one more month to bulk age a little and then bottle. Thanks for all the help.

 

[Arne]

Btw, when you bottle, save a little back. Otherwise the last cork goes in the bottle and that little voice goes off "I wonder what it tastes like now." If you keep back a quart or a couple screw cap bottles and keep em in the refrigerator, you can try it over the next couple of days or weeks. Just a thought. Good luck with it and watch out for them wine gremlins. Sitting for a month, they find it and there mite not be much left to bottle. LOL, Arne.

 

[winenerd]

Tripplett: I'm in close to the same spot with a batch of DB. Everything looked good to me when I transferred to secondary at 0.996. I went ahead with the K-meta and K-sorbate, but held off on the Sparkaloid. I proceeded to degas for about an hour with a Fizz-X. I was no longer seeing anything come up to the top of the carboy at that point. So I put an airlock on it. It has now dropped some serious sediment and I have a little residue showing up at the surface of the liquid. I feel like I need to degas some more, but don't want to agitate it. So I guess I should re-rack it and degas some more. How long was your degassing like crazy evening?

 

[robie]

It should not take that much effort or time to degas under most any circumstance, unless the temperature is down in the lower 60'sF. Hope you are not stirring in oxygen, but I suspect you are.

Fill a wine bottle half full of water; put your thumb over the opening and shake it really hard, then release your thumb. You will get bubbles and even a small puff. Learn to go by taste. Taste it; if it has CO2, you will sense a small fizz on the end of your tongue. Don't confuse fizz with a bitter taste, as most new wine is still bitter tasting, gassy or not.

To degas you really should get the temperature up into the mid 70'sF.

 

[dangerdave]

Robie is right! Degas warm. Age cool. Some wines can be pesky, though. I had an apple wine once. I degassed that sucker multiple times before it was done. I usually let the DB sit in the primary for a few (2-3) extra days. That lets the sediment fall out and the gas bleed off. I keep the temp in the mid 70's in the primary, then stabilize and degas while it's still warm.

 

[Tripplett]

It was 75 degrees when I degassed. I actually took it to 80 one day trying to get all the co2 out. I agree it shouldn't have been this hard but this one was. I dont think i was doing it wrong as i spent a great deal of time reading and watching You Tube videos of how to use the Mix-stir. i have better bottles so an Allinone won't help me.

UPDATE: last night I blew a cork! After all that its obviously still not degassed. I had bought a wine rack last week and moved all the wine from the basement to the dining room two days ago. This morning one of the corks blew about 8 feet across the room and my nice pine wine rack is now pink. So is the carpet, bummer. Instead of coffee I'm playing with a carpet shampooer.

When I opened the boxes of DB in the basement to move them up here there were a few bottles that had small drops of wine on the tops of the corks. I didn't think anything of it but I suppose that should have been a sign. Now I'm opening it all back up and moving it to a carboy for now. I'll have to call the few people that I gave bottles and warn them too. A little embarrassing for my first wine.

 

[Tripplett]

Ok, all back in the carboy. It wasn't that hard. I also checked the SG just to make sure it hadn't re-started fermentation. Nope, it's right where I left it. I'll let everything sit a week then degas. I definitely will wait a while before bottling. A month or two. I need to learn how to detect co2 by taste but my sense of taste isn't stellar.

 

[dangerdave]

Sorry about your bottle bomb, Tripplett! I've been there. Some batches can be troublesome. You might make 100 more batches and not see it happen again. I actually did the same thing as you. Bottles that were fine in the basement blew their tops upstairs---where it was warmer. I'm a lot more careful now.

Give it some time. It will be fine. And good luck on the carpet!

 

[Montresor]

The same thing is happening to mine. Any advice or just degas degas degas.

 

[dangerdave]

Degas...degas...deags. Or just let it sit.

 

[Tripplett]

Update: I can't let a large charge show up on the CC until I prove I can make some good wine so an AllInOne pump is out for now. So... I bought a glass carboy on Craigslist for $10 and a $30 hand vacuum pump from the local auto parts store, I hooked it up to this batch of Dragons Blood that I had degassed, bottled, let sit almost month, had one pop a cork, opened all bottles back to carboy, degassed twice over two days. I wasn't expecting much. Boy was I wrong.

I started with trying to hold pressure at "15 HG. After about 250 squeezes of that pump I moved to 20 then "25 HG. Over the course of 3 days I probably squeezed 1000 times and spent about an hour degassing but now I can hold 18-20 HG so I am finally degassed. And, I've got some great hand strength conditioning underway, haha.

First, I'm now a fan of vacuum degassing of course. I only have one 5 gal glass carboy, the rest are 6 gal Better Bottles. Eventually ill pick up a 6 gal glass. I was surprised how much more gas came out after I thought it was degassed via spoon and mix-stir. Ill always "test" with a vacuum to see if any more comes out. I've found when I get up to the low 20's I can draw a vacuum, go upstairs, come back in 20 minutes, and start a new vacuum back to low 20's. This helps rather than sit there squeezing forever. It's usually at 10" HG when I get back.

I suppose I'll have to ask for an AllInOne for Christmas. I'm bottling this AGAIN next week. I can't wait to taste this now that I've REALLY degassed it. I never thought it tasted as good as everyone seemed to rate it. To sum it up, I'm now excited about my two bathes of DB. One with lemon, one without. Thanks for reading..

 

[dangerdave]

Glad you got things worked out, Tripplett. Nice to be excited again, huh?

 

[Reilly]

I'm on day 3 of degassing my Triple Berry DB with a drill whip in the carboy. I transferred at .990 and added the sorbate and k-meta but held off on the sparklloid. I give it about 30-45 seconds at a time and do so about 3x an hr (when I remember). The temp is consistently above 73 and thought that it would not have taken this long.

I am ready to go buy a brake bleeder to speed up the process.... Any other suggestions besides the allinone pump ??

 

[jrvernon]

Unfortunately Reilly, not from me. It used to be the part of wine making that I hated the most. Now I have an All in One and after a few rackings, I could not pull a gas bubble if I tried. What took me three days takes me under fifteen minutes.

 

[Tess]

took me about three days to degass mine then I realized it wasn't gas so much that I was seeing. Mines bottled and fine so far.

 

[Tess]

Im new so it hard to tell whats foam and air bubbles being whipped up and whats real gas

 

[Reilly]

Update.
Yesterday I purchased a Mityvac hand pump from AutoZone and started pumping away. I got crazy CO2 bubbles off at 22 in Hg for about half the day. At about 9pm, I was getting less and less bubbles at 22 and even 23. The pressure was holding at 20 with no activity. After about an hour with no bubbles I think I successfully degassed the DB.

Added my sparklloid and will wait to clear.

 

[wineforfun]

I must say with all the trouble that degassing seems to present, I am ok with making 2 gal. batches for now. I never have degassing problems as I can just whip the heck out of it with a spoon and it is good to go after a few minutes.......................the downside is I am only getting 10 bottles in relation to your 25.