Archive for the ‘degassing’ Category

Today was Opening Day of the trout season where I am. Some readers will know that as well as making wine, I also am an avid fly fisher. I had plans to go out this afternoon. The weather forecast originally said it was going to be warm and sunny all day – I figured an afternoon and then into the evening might offer some nice results. However, the forecast changed. Instead of the sunshine, we had wild thunderstorms with winds gusting to 100 KM/H (60 MPH). I am not too bad at casting in windy conditions – but that is just nuts. And I certainly don’t want to be out on the water with a long piece of graphite while lightning is striking!

So instead of heading out, I thought I would give my wines some attention. I had meant to do this a couple of weeks ago, but decided on a spur of the moment trip to see Colleen for five days. When I returned, I had a lot of catching up to do on work related activities – home winemaking activities needed to be put on hold.

One thing I’m frustrated about – the GSM is still holding carbon dioxide gas. There were two things today I’ve never seen before – the second one I’ll get to in a moment. But the first one – this GSM that I started March 8/09 still has tons of tiny bubbles coming up when it’s agitated. It’s been in a warm spot for a month, and I’ve never seen a wine hold gas like this.

I also racked the Granache I started about a month ago – it’s tasting very good although of course, young. As readers may recall, my plan is to blend the Granache with the GSM. This evening, I added Kieselsol and then Chitosan which came with the kit. The Granache has very little CO2 in it, thankfully. Maybe sitting in the primary for 9 days does help with degassing.

Do you remember the “Mystery Wine?” There was a LOT of sediment on the bottom of the 5 gallon carboy it was in and I decided to rack it off of that. I ended up racking to a 4 gallon carboy and then there was enough left over to two thirds fill a gallon jug. Now, this was the wine that I had fermentation problems with, and was a bit concerned about it. I had a taste of it this evening – all I can say is that it is wonderful! It’s not much like the blackcurrant wine although it does have some notes in the flavor that were similar – I’m wondering if the berries in the freezer were indeed a mixture of black currant and purple gooseberries. I don’t know. But it sure is a “yummy” wine.

Now, the interesting thing – the second thing today I’ve never seen before: I took a specific gravity reading, and this was below the 0.900 mark. So I don’t really know exactly what the SG is. I’ve never seen a wine go below 0.900 when I’ve made it, previously. The beginning SG of this wine before fermenting was 1.104. I thought it might end up a little sweet – but it’s not. And it does not need sweetening – it’s quite good the way it is.

Too finish things off, I racked the Liebfraumilch as well. It has a nice fruity taste to it – I just had a very tiny sample – and it needs some degassing before adding clarifying ingredients. I was hoping to get to the Potato Wine, but time ran out. If I had more room, I could be doing a couple or more things at once, but right now space is limited. Hopefully that will be resolved soon, and I can get some of these winemaking activities done faster and in less time.

Tomorrow, I should give the potato wine some attention, and then if the weather co-operates, I’ll be wetting some flies and catching a few rainbow trout!

First, I’ve had suspicions for some time that winemaking kit instructions are a bit off when it comes to degassing wine. Most kit instructions advise, after adding Potassium Metabisulfite (and please please make sure you add the sulfite BEFORE you attempt to degas!!), to stir vigorously a few times for at least a day or two before adding the fining agents. The most recent set of instructions advise that it is vital that the wine be degassed or it will not clear adequately.

Here’s my problem with these instructions: I have yet to be able to stir a wine vigorously for five minutes, three times a day for a couple of days, and have it anywhere near to being fully degassed within those two days. I’ve had a Zinfandel sitting in a carboy for the past week, and today, it continues to give off lots of CO2 when it is vigorously stirred, with lots of tiny CO2 bubbles rising. I am not introducing that much air to it while I’m stirring because most of the action is way down below the surface of the wine.

Here’s another reason why in my opinion, even a kit wine will profit from bulk aging before it is bottled. Much of the CO2 will have time to dissipate on its own. Whenever I let a batch of wine, kit or not, bulk age, (which is most of the time), I have little CO2 problems. However, I have seen others who follow the instructions of a kit wine to the day, and their wine can have excess foam when poured. I once had a bottle with a man who was very proud of his wine he had just made and wanted to share a bottle with me. He poured his into his glass, gave it a swirl, and the foam on top was nothing like I’d ever seen before. To say that he had made the wine is a bit misleading – he sprinkled the yeast on it in a “ferment on the premises” shop. Obviously the shop staff did not do much degassing, if any.

One does have to be careful not to overdo it when degassing too. That’s one of the reasons I’m not so keen right now on the Fizz-X tool. That thing can create a whirlpool with a deep vortex at the centre. That’s a lot of surface area that’s coming into contact with air. And I’ve found that even using that tool does not seem to really degas wines all that great. Unless I’m mistaking all those tiny bubbles rising from various depths of the wine and all that foam on top for something else – but beats me what it could be.

No, I think time is the best degasser. Not that some degasing isn’t a good thing to help the process along. But that’s just my opinion and I’m certainly open and welcome other thoughts on this as well.

Another observation after racking the Grenache that I started about two weeks ago to the secondary carboy: I really dislike the original 5 Gallon (6 US Gallon) carboys I purchased. They seem to have more capacity than 5 Imperial gallons, which leaves too much ullage for my liking. Quite a bit too much. I much prefer the “Mexican” 5 gallon carboys.