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when degassing looks like aeration

Degassed my first kit wine (VR chianti) today...here's what I did...

Got me one of those drill driven degassing paddle deals, the one that fits through the carboy mouth. Got it all sanitized, the full length of it. Also sanitized a 2L E-meyer flask. I pulled off about 1.8 L of the wine to make room for the turbulence, used some of it for the gravity check (which was -1.9P). I was careful not to aerate this wine. I dissolved the #2 and #3 packs like the kit said, in 1/2 cup water (used a sanitized measuring cup). Added this solution and began stirring "very vigorously" and wondered...at what point does this start to aerate the wine? Since this was a reversible drill, I decided to change the drill direction everytime a funnel started to form. Once or twice it did worry me. This kicked up quite a storm in the carboy. No sediment was left undisturbed. I then added the other pack, something about chitosan, and mixed it all again, for about 2 minutes. I then topped it up with the wine that I had removed earler (except for the gravity sample) and gave it a few more spins.

After I had everything back together in the carboy, I sampled the progress. The remainder of the flask was obviously a little gassy, but it tasted fine. I then poured the gravity sample into the flask and sloshed it around to degass it and to see how much it would foam. Quite a bit. I let it settle out and then tried it. It seemed to lack something. Not alot of body, not much fruit. It seemed that it tasted better and had better body before I degassed it.

Everyone has said and written that these wines improve with age, about 6 to

9 months is what I'm expecting. What improvements should I expect? Better body? Better fruit? More rich flavor?
Reply to
Duck Redbeard
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Don't understand the 1.9P. The wine should have an SG of around .955 to .990

I use a drill and a home made paddle with holes in it to degass. Since the paddle is below the surface it seems to me it would take a lot of stirring before much of any aeration took place.

Reply to
Crhoff

Aeration takes place where the wine is in contact with air. If the wine is still, aeration will be slower as the O2 is must diffuse into the wine. If you stir it, O2 will be picked up much faster and aeration will occur much faster. Any splashing will further increase aeration as it stirs bubbles down into the wine effectively increasing surface contact. The simple answer is that degassing will definitely increase aeration and oxidation to some extent. This may be why kit wines tend to age faster and in some cases go over the hill younger that traditionally made wine.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. I have made kit wines that tasted very nice after only 2 months whereas few of my tradionally made wines reach that point nearly that quickly.

As to it improving with age, that is another question. The degassing will probably effect the wine for a while, something like extreme bottle shock, so I would not worry too much at this point. It probably will improve. What type of wine was it? As I said, some kit wines age very quickly. I would try a bottle at 3 months, then at 6 months. Especially if you have not made this wine before. You do NOT want to wait to long. It is really disappointing to start drinking you wine when it is past it's prime. When you like it, start drinking it.

Ray

Reply to
Ray Calvert
1.9 P = about 1.007 sp gr. which is a little high for bottling. Should be below 1.

I think most kits recommend degassing so you can bottle quicker but its not really necessary if you want to avoid any accompanying oxidation.

Just let it your wine age in carboy (or whatever) for that 6 to 9 months (or longer) before bottling and CO2 will come out naturally.

Reply to
miker

Perhaps you didn't see the dash before the 1.9P...it is negative 1.9P.

Last time I used a SG hydrometer, it was about .995.

If you don't know what P is, it is the Plato scale, indicating % sugar by weight. Compare to Brix.

Reply to
Duck Redbeard

Most winemakers don't use the Plato scale, I see you are a beermaker. Wine and beer are different when it comes to air. Aeration is never something you look for in a finished wine, but wine is more tolerant of aeration than beer seems to be.

A better way to determine how much sugar is left in the wine is to use Clinitest tablets. The problem with hydrometers is that they are measuring dissolved solids and you really don't know how much of those are actually fermentable sugar. Your pharmacy can order them, they are not usually stocked now since it's a urine test and docs care more about the amount of sugar in your blood. A bottle of 100 is about $20 US.

I would agree with Ray that what you noticed was a form of 'bottle shock', since aeration is a violent operation. I would expect you wine will return to normal and taste even better than before in a week or two max. I think red wines need a little air contact to round them out so you really didn't damage your wine.

Another way to degas would be to pull out at least 500 ml, replace the airlock and just swirl the carboy. That way the dissolved CO2 will eventually displace the air and you can repeat as necessary to degas with no exposure to air. Warmer wines degas faster than colder wines, just like beer.

As to aging, it's kind of hard to describe the improvement other than to say the flavors of a young wine seem to have hard edges and a wine with a little time on it seems to integrate all of those edges into something smoother. If a young wine is tart, the older wine will still be tart; it's not a drastic change in my experience. Young wine usually show more fruit and that kind of fades into the background with time, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

The odor of a wine definitely improves with bottle age; bouquet develops in the bottle. We taste more with out noses than most suspect so that's a good thing too.

Hope that helps, wine making and beermaking really go hand in hand, you already know how to make good wine since you make beer.

Joe

Duck Redbeard wrote:

Reply to
Joe Sallustio

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