when to de-gas?

The overly simple answer is never. If you bulk age long enough there will not be a problem with fuzziness. It will escape on it's own without the bruising action of degassing. But then there are times when it is useful. Some of my wines are better very young. In those cases I degas before bottling.

In your case, however, I wonder if it is an incomplete MLF. Red wine usually ferments out pretty quick and 6 months bulk aging should be enough to eliminate the CO2. But you are doing MLF after fermentation. It may take longer to eliminate the CO2 from it as it will not finish as long. You may need 6 months after MLF is completely finished. I suspect the problem would go away if you gave it another 4-6 months.

But then if you really want to put it in bottle at the time you are, then sounds like you need to degas and before bottling is the time to do it. You can test to see if it needs degassing. Just put it you a bucket and stir it hard for a few seconds. If it foams, it needs it.

Ray

Lee,

I've had this problem myself in the past when aging in glass. What is your racking schedule? It sounds as if you're just leaving it in the carboy after MLF at 55F. If you've racked 3 times over the course of the year, this should have allowed much of the CO2 to escape. For a young red wine a little splashing when you rack is ok - perhaps even beneficial. The low temp, as you suspect, is also a factor as more gas can remain dissolved in the wine at lower temps. FWIW I never cold stabilize my red wines. Over the course of a year or 2 of bulk aging plenty of tartrate crystals precipitate out at cellar temp. If there's no hurry to bottle now, rack it allowing the wine to trickle down the inside wall of the carboy then see where you stand.

Good luck, RD

Lee,

I've had this problem myself in the past when aging in glass. What is your racking schedule? It sounds as if you're just leaving it in the carboy after MLF at 55F. If you've racked 3 times over the course of the year, this should have allowed much of the CO2 to escape. For a young red wine a little splashing when you rack is ok - perhaps even beneficial. The low temp, as you suspect, is also a factor as more gas can remain dissolved in the wine at lower temps. FWIW I never cold stabilize my red wines. Over the course of a year or 2 of bulk aging plenty of tartrate crystals precipitate out at cellar temp. If there's no hurry to bottle now, rack it allowing the wine to trickle down the inside wall of the carboy then see where you stand.

Good luck, RD

Somebody on the forum at

just suggested using a Mightyvac to degass. I've never tried it but may give it a try one of these days. The Mightyvac is a small hand pump which can be attached to a carboy allowing you to draw down the pressure in a carboy to bring the CO2 out of solution. My only concern with this would be the possibility of breaking the carboy. So if you do it, don't use too much vacuum.

Jon.

Carboys have a pretty flat, large bottom, so they're less able to withstand the forces of applied vacuum than a wine bottle would. I'd use the least amount of vacuum that does the job. That's probably in the range of 3-5 inches of water column (i.e. 9/10 to 4/5 of an atmosphere).

My $30 hand-pump automobile vacuum system diagnostics vac pump does the job. I pump until I see some bubbles start coming out of the wine, then hold the vacuum there an hour or so. Venting back to 1 atmosphere with filtered room air completes the task.

Gene

J> Somebody on the forum at

just

Gene, I think your units are off; 3-5 inches of water column is next to nothing pressure wise; 9/10 of an atmosphere is either 1.5 PSIG of 13.5 PSIG depending on which way you are talking. An easy rule of thumb for vacuum is that atmosphere is 14.7 PSIA or twice that in inches of Hg (close to 30) or... 50 times that for mm Hg. I think the real values are 14.696 PSIG, 29.92" Hg and 760 mm Hg but that is from memory.

Not that this has anything to do with degassing, I'm just saying 5 " WC is very little vacuum applied.

I took a carboy to 25" Hg but had limited success degassing it this way, it seemed to alway give up a bit more if I would shake the carboy so I assumed my precess was just faulty.

Joe

Joe

You are so right, Joe... I'm thinking inches Hg and speaking inches water. 1 ATM vacuum is 407 inches water column, so getting 0.9 ATM pressure is 366 inches water column; requires pulling 0.1 ATM vacuum 41 inches water column vacuum. Sorry 'bout that all. Guess i wuz sipping too much sherry when I wrote my earlier reply.

Interesting YMMV observation, Joe. I've been able to degas at 5" Hg vacuum (i.e. 0.84 ATM); I reckon it works best on a wine that isn't clarified. Those particles act as great bubble nucleation sites. I like your 'shake the carboy for more' tool. Tells me that initiating bubble formation is the 'limiting step' in your experience, an 'activation energy' so to speak. Somehow it hasn't been so for me so far. I'll try putting my vibrating massage pad under the carboy next time and see how much it speeds up the process. Hope it doesn't bruise my wine too bad lol.

Gene

I've always been tempted to sulfite/clean/bake out at 500F some sand and pour that into a carboy. Those many nucleation sites should cause an immediate explosion of gas (which means really slow addition)... and if it were clean sand there should be no impact in taste.

I saw something rather funny about mento's being used to release all the gas from a diet pepsi. Interesting...

If you are baking at 500F, do you really think sulfiting is going to be needed? Nothing organic can survive at that temperature LOLOL.

I can picture the sand shifting during the next racking, stirring up some settled sediment. Hmmmmmmm...

Two things come to mind. First, sand will have a porosity of about 30 to

33%. Therefore, you will loose that much wine in the sand where you cannot rack it. Second, you need really pure sand. Glass quality sand. Most sand is a conglomerate of many types of ground up rock. Even if you get all organic mater out, some of that rock will probably be soluble in an acidic solution like wine.

Ray

I was rigging up a magnehelic to my furnace to tell me when to replace the filter when you posted so was already thinking in inches of water; no on seems to think in those units much anymore. I used to do a lot of pressure conversions and said one thing and meant another all the time, it can make for a really bad day. :o)

I bought a magnetic stirrer and was thinking about giving that a shot for degassing. The problem with that is carboy bases are always sloped so it's probably tough to get the stirrer centered. I'm going to try it on a white first, I have to rig up a base to hold the carboy, the stirrer is a lot smaller than a 5 gallon carboy. If anyone thinks it's crazy let me know...

Joe

Sounds reasonable to me, but I'd opt for a plastic jug for the duration of this operation. They're thinner, so you'd get better magnetic coupling. They're also lighter, so you wouldn't necessarily need any fancy holding fixture. Center the stirrer in the bottom of a bottle crate, lower the full bottle and stirrer onto it (gently) turn on the motor and you're in bidnezz.

Tom S

Sounds perfect Tom, now I have to grab another one of those plastic carboys. I gave all of mine away... They have a fltter bottom too.

Joe