How to degas wine with a home made degassing wand

[dogman]

Dito. :hat:

 

[Vinotinto]

Whether you rack off the lees before degassing depend on your prior method and the wine style you are making. With the cheaper kits it is generally advisable.

However some of the more the more expensive high juice volume kits for big body reds recommend the procedure I follow. I start fermentation in an open bucket with a loose lid - when the gravity gets down to about 10 or thereabouts but fermentation still going strong I rack of the main more "trubby" lees and the oak chippings. I then track off to a vessel under an airlock. When fermentation finishes I degass and stir up the the remaining cleaner lees and leave a day and then fine. It clears brighter than doing it after racking and the flavour is better. However this is usually with wines i am going to store.

With cheaper kits for more immediate consumption or with whites I would usually rack of the lees before degassing and fining.

Exactly what the Beaverdales recommend and which I do if I remember to catch it - rack off at 1.010 then finish under lock before the rest of the process . Works well.

 

[Vinotinto]

I'd never heard of degassing when I did my first wine (blackberry) and it was fizzy on the tongue when I started drinking it 6 months later
I'd already bottled it by that point, so now I use one of them winer saver rubber caps and hand pump the day before I want a bottle and it seems to be effective at dear fizzing it
Learnt my lesson though and I properly degass before bottling now.

You are lucky. _ Just had this summer's batch of Blackberry start to blow the corks. Never had this before so I have not done bad but this lot has obviously started to re-ferment in the bottle and was not stopped properly. Fortunately they are stored in an area where the mess does not matter. Shame though. What is left in the bottles is not fizzy it is atomic!!!

 

[DanielB]

I'm a bit confused by this degassing malarkey.

If I'm not creating a vortex...what am I supposed to be doing?

If I am sharing the DJ...how vigorous?

I am a little confused what I'm aiming for...

 

[Chippy_Tea]

The vortex can be created when using a degassing wand thats why you switch between forward and revers to avoid it.

When shaking you don't need to go mad just enough to get the gas to the surface so you can release it by removing your hand, make a degassing wand (if you have a drill) it really does make the job a minutes job unlike shaking.

 

[DanielB]

Thank you chippy_tea. What am I aiming to do then? Just get the liquid to move around? Agitate it but not make it bubbly?

 

[Chippy_Tea]

No shake the hell out of it for a couple of seconds then release your hand from the neck to release the CO2 then repeat several times.

 

[DanielB]

So, doing that, making it go all bubbly and releasing the gas, this is ok? It rids the co2...but doesn't oxidize?

So it's ok?

I have some strawberry wine - it has finished fermenting. It's been stabilised and is now bulk maturing in its djs.

Not degassed yet. No finings added yet.

I read somewhere you need to be careful not to oxidize ...?

 

[Chippy_Tea]

You are letting the CO2 out not air in, don't get your information somewhere that somewhere is obviously a waste of time!

 

[DanielB]

Still a bit confused about this degassing.

I have various fruit wines now, in 5L Demijohns.

I'll be degassing with a wand/coat hanger and drill.

I get that I'm spinning, fast, one way. Then the other. To try and agitate rather than a deep vortex - although it will of course spin.

I will do this for a "few minutes". There will be bubbles and I'll let these bubbles dissipate.

But do I just do this once? Or a few times a day? Or every day for a week?

Will there be less and less bubbles? Will the bubbles get smaller and smaller?

I'm just a little unsure as to what I'm looking for...

 

[Chippy_Tea]

You only need to do this for a minute and only once, degassing really isn't that important it just helps the clearing process if you didn't degas your wine would not taste like a sparkling wine there isn't that much CO2 in there.

 

[Bigcol49]

Hi!
Earlier this year I bottled about 20 litres of blackberry wine without de-gassing it - totally forgot!
The first bottle sampled was a bit "gassy" so I applied the Vacuvin a few times and it was OK. I did this for the next few bottles, but after that the wine was fine and the gassiness had disappeared.

 

[DanielB]

as ever - thank you!

 

[Honk]

Handy post this as I haven't made wine for a while and haven't always degassed in the past but time has sorted it out.

Just read the first few posts and someone mentioned using a vacuum cleaner. so with a bit of cling film and silicon pipe attached to my ss brewbucket that's what I did, not so powerful a vacuum that my fermenter was in danger of imploding but hopefully speed the process up a bit whilst I agitate the fermenter. Repeat again tomorrow and hopefully I can free up the fermenter sooner for the more important job of brewing beer.

 

[Honk]

Just to follow on from my previous post

 

[StevieG83]

Shaking a DJ to get rid of the CO2 takes time and effort and using a big spoon to degas a bucket of wine is not the most efficient way to do it, a degassing wand makes degassing a minute job.

You can also use it to mix all your ingredients meaning you dont have to heat water to dissolve the sugar, this saves time and cleaning pans etc.

How to make a degassing wand from an old coat hanger, watch click tricks video -

When using the wand start in forwards for 5 seconds then switch to reverse for 5 and keep doing this for a minute.

This is mine -

(I cut the part i have blacked out in the picture off as it made it hard to get it into the DJ)

Bit of a newb question and sorry if it has been asked before but why is it important to de gas wine. And do you need to de gas if its only a gallon?

 

[Chippy_Tea]

All your wine should be degassed for the reasons below -


Suspended carbon dioxide prevents wine from properly clearing.

White wines are especially sensitive to the amount of suspended carbon dioxide. An improperly degassed white wine can have a haze to it that won’t clear through fining.

Carbon dioxide increases the sensation of acidity in wine. While the acid isn’t really there it tastes like it is.

Despite all these reasons to remove the carbon dioxide you don’t want to remove absolutely all of it. This can leave a wine tasting flabby and boring. For the amateur winemaker, however, this is rarely a problem.

Even sparkling wine is first made as a still wine and must be free of carbon dioxide prior to making a sparkling wine.

Usually not being able to remove enough carbon dioxide to avoid the three negative effects listed above is what gets us in trouble. So, let’s look at the best ways to degas your wine.

http://winemakersacademy.com/degas-wine/

 

[StevieG83]

All your wine should be degassed for the reasons below -


Suspended carbon dioxide prevents wine from properly clearing.

White wines are especially sensitive to the amount of suspended carbon dioxide. An improperly degassed white wine can have a haze to it that won’t clear through fining.

Carbon dioxide increases the sensation of acidity in wine. While the acid isn’t really there it tastes like it is.

Despite all these reasons to remove the carbon dioxide you don’t want to remove absolutely all of it. This can leave a wine tasting flabby and boring. For the amateur winemaker, however, this is rarely a problem.

Even sparkling wine is first made as a still wine and must be free of carbon dioxide prior to making a sparkling wine.

Usually not being able to remove enough carbon dioxide to avoid the three negative effects listed above is what gets us in trouble. So, let’s look at the best ways to degas your wine.

http://winemakersacademy.com/degas-wine/

Thanks Chippy.

 

[Honk]

There are a couple of things that put me off trying this, modern DJ's seem very thin walled compared to older ones and vacuum cleaners are not designed to create a vacuum in a container I imagine they need airflow to cool the motor so you may damage it if you do this, you then face SWMBO, I will stick to the degassing wand. ;-)

Let us know how you get on if you decide to try it.

nearly got away with it but I hadn't realized that red wine had splashed up into the Hoover tubes until she did the hoovering this morning. From now on i will use @Gunge sucking method.

 

[Gulpitdarn]

Got a bit carried away. Hahahaha!

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