# Degassing or oxygenating the wine?



## spurgon (Apr 1, 2010)

I am aware that creating a whirlpool in the carboy exposes more of the wine to air and increases oxidation. Therefore, my wine equipment supply contact says to keep the degassing rod in the top of the wine or it wont degass the wine. I use a Mix Stir rod in my drill. When I brought the rod up into the top layers of the wine it of course generated a great amount ,"explosion" of bubbles. As many times as I would do this a fury of bubbles was released. It then occurred to me that this might be what it would look like if there were no CO2 dissolved in the wine and I am just agitating the wine's surface and mixing in large quantities of air. Am I degassing properly and if I am when do I stop, because I think I can make bubbles till the cows come home with that battery drill!
Thanks,
spurgon


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## wyntheef (Apr 1, 2010)

After some trial and error, I have found like others, that short-powerful bursts while alternating forward and reverse agitates the juice quite nicely and avoids the volcano suction effect to which you are refering. 
My preference is to keep it towards the bottom of the carboy.

hth.

Steve


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## Runningwolf (Apr 1, 2010)

I agree with Steve and also use the mix rod the same way. Lately I have been racking back to the primary to add the stabilizing agents, clarifier's and for degassing with the drill. Then I splash rack back to the carboy with a vacuum pump and then degas in the carboy again with the vacuum pump.


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## robie (Apr 1, 2010)

I agree with Steve and Dan. To degas, I always rack back to a bucket and get the temperature above 75 F. With the blades at the bottom of the bucket, your short bursts should be powerful enough that if you didn't stop the drill soon enough, you would have wine all over the floor. This doesn't give much time to suck down oxygen, but delivers lots of CO2 bubbles to the surface.

If you think you have degassed, put some of the wine in a bottle and shake it up. If you get lots of tiny bubbles and fizzing, repeat all of the above.

(IMO)


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## Tom (Apr 1, 2010)

Keep in mine you DO NOT want to "whip" the wine. Degassing is "stiring" the wine. I keep my degas tool near the bottom and use a LOW speed on my drill. Yes it makes a vortex but does not suck any air in the wine.


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## summersolstice (Apr 1, 2010)

I stopped degassing my wine a few years ago, opting for lengthy bulk aging. I now bulk age for a minimum of a year and never have any residual gas problems.


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## Manimal (Apr 2, 2010)

I really don't understand the need to degas... yes, I understand the thinking that you don't want residual CO2 in the wine to such a degree as to give a noticeable spritz, and I understand that it helps to clarify things a little faster, but with a bit of patience most of the CO2 will blow off on its own and things will clarify just fine. I have degassed in the past, and I don't see a whole lot of difference in the wines that I haven't degassed... For cool fermented whites, there is sometimes a bit of spritz left at bottling, but I think this is beneficial for this style of wine. In fact, a lot of commercial wineries measure and adjust the dissolved CO2 in aromatic whites to ensure they have _enough_ CO2 to best showcase the aromatics and flavours of the wine. Also, many of the esters created during cool fermentation are very volatile and degassing will only encourage their release from the wine, thereby defeating the whole purpose of fermenting at a cool temperature. 

For reds, the warmer fermentation temperatures tend to blow off most of the CO2 and after a few months of bulk aging, there is no noticeable spritz left. In addition, contrary to popular belief, wine can still dissolve oxygen while saturated with CO2, so any activity which unduly exposes the wine to more air than necessary is best avoided in my opinion since it increases the risk of oxidation. I am convinced that many home winemakers don't realize the fact that oxidation can occur to such a subtle degree that it can rob their wines of precious aromatics without noticeably causing any definitive oxidized character. And then they wonder why their wines seem kind of flat and lackluster. 

Anyways, just my two cents.


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## NSwiner (Apr 3, 2010)

Runningwolf said:


> I agree with Steve and also use the mix rod the same way. Lately I have been racking back to the primary to add the stabilizing agents, clarifier's and for degassing with the drill. Then I splash rack back to the carboy with a vacuum pump and then degas in the carboy again with the vacuum pump.



I was wondering doesn't put it in a bucket to degas allow more air in ? Or do you have the cover on and put the rod through the airlock hole ?


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## Runningwolf (Apr 3, 2010)

At this stage Darlene the introduction of of air is minimal. Remember, make no whirlpool and use short bursts forward and reversed. Splash racking back into the carboy really is where I loose most of the gas, then when I vacuum degas there is very little left. I work very steadily, so the process does not take very long from racking to the bucket and back to the clean carboy.


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## djrockinsteve (Apr 3, 2010)

I was degassing some wine the other day and boy that is so cool. It makes you wonder where does it keep coming from. I could watch it for hours. This could replace the lava lamp.

I know some of you are saying "What's a lava lamp?"


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## robie (Apr 5, 2010)

Tom said:


> Keep in mine you DO NOT want to "whip" the wine. Degassing is "stiring" the wine. I keep my degas tool near the bottom and use a LOW speed on my drill. Yes it makes a vortex but does not suck any air in the wine.



I do understand what you are saying and agree about whipping the wine. However, on the WineXpert LE brunello kit I just received, it says to make sure you "whip" the wine to degas.


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## Tom (Apr 5, 2010)

I stand on what is said. You do not want to "whip" your wine. Remember "Time" can fix most things with wine. Time (aging 12 months) will degas also.


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