I'll bet you can rig up the hoses on the food saver and use it similar to the wine pump.
DangerDave's Dragon Blood Wine
- Thread starter dangerdave
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Brilliant! I'll have to try that.
Degassing my Dragons Blood since 1pm yesterday and you can see all the bubbles. I used the vacuum saver for 10 minutes on the hour until 7p last night and put the carboy under a vacuum air lock last night. Today we started degassing again, and its about to wear out my my vacuum saver. Still bubbles .... a dozen times today for 5-10 min and still getting bubbles.
I have not put in my clearing agent. According to the DB directions the clearing agent comes after degassing.
At what point do you finish degassing Dragons Blood? Keep degassing for another day?
I have not put in my clearing agent. According to the DB directions the clearing agent comes after degassing.
At what point do you finish degassing Dragons Blood? Keep degassing for another day?
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I use a (Harbor Freight) hand vacuum pump for degassing. It takes me several days to fully degas. The first day I need to pump several times and then less on subsequent days. My pump has a gauge on it. At a certain point the bubbles become very small and the vacuum holds at a value less than 0. That is when I stop.
BTW, when I rack the final time before degassing, I let the wine splash which gets the majority of the CO2 out. I figure since the wine at that point is absolutely loaded with CO2, there is little chance it will pick up too much O2. I also put a wadded up paper towel around the hose as it goes into the neck of the carboy to reduce the fresh air that can come into to carboy.
BTW, when I rack the final time before degassing, I let the wine splash which gets the majority of the CO2 out. I figure since the wine at that point is absolutely loaded with CO2, there is little chance it will pick up too much O2. I also put a wadded up paper towel around the hose as it goes into the neck of the carboy to reduce the fresh air that can come into to carboy.
After degassing on Friday like my hair was on fire I decided to move on with my clearing agents with some good advice. This morning I woke up, ran to the carboy, and it looks like a new wine. Gonna say its only been 36 hrs since I added the clearing but holy moly. It is a deeper color now.
K&C usually starts working in a matter of hours. I've had a few batches where it took a week, but that's unusual IME.
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Hmm, that’s not promising. If you use a drill mounted whip, you’re done in 10 minutes.
To add on to this, you should wait a at least a couple days, if not a week even when it looks clear. It will continue to drop sediment that you can’t really see.
Agreed. Probably the worst fining mistake is, "it looks clear".
On occasion, I've fined with K&C, and 6 months later at bottling time, discovered a very fine layer on the bottom of the carboy that was not visible until the very end of racking. This is the major reason I leave a bit in the carboy at bottling time, and add that remainder to the last bottle (or my glass if the bottles are all full). Better one less-than-clear bottle than all of 'em.
Yesterday when bottling, I reserved 19 liter of 2 batches, which I treated with K&C. I'll bottle these carboys in 2 to 4 weeks. I'm interested in seeing how much sediment K&C pull out of "clear" wines (these are 2021 wines), and if the K&C treated wine smells/tastes different than the non-treated bottles.
I'll take this advice and wait extra before racking again. I'm so excited about my Dragons Blood but I'm also not in that big a hurry to bottle. I'm not leaving town until the end of Dec and plan to take a few bottles with me.
Bottle at the end of Nov/beginning of Dec to give the wine a chance to recover from bottle shock. Not all wines experience it, but there is a corollary to Murphy's law that says it will happen 100% when you're showing a wine off.
Welcome to the club! Dragons Blood will NOT speed up if you stand there and watch it ... just sayin' cause I've done it. lol. Good luck with it. I bottle my first in a few weeks.
My advice, try it after it’s done but don’t drink everything. Wait 3 months and try again. You will see ( and taste ) a huge difference.
Dragon Blood watch 2022 .... its been 10 days since the clearing agents and it looks great but lets give it more time. I have stood watching it, sat watching, talked to it and yesterday tried to sing to my Dragons Blood but not much has helped to speed up this process! Is it ready for the next step? Yes, maybe, probably but I've got time to let it sit.
My quadberry DB is working with the Superkleer for 11 days now and although it looks crystal clear I will wait till Sunday, for the next 5 days to rack it.
I found a bottle of DB in the fridge last night. I thought they were all gone, long ago! I really liked it when I first made it, but I found this bottle lacking substance. This has to be 8 months old, so maybe it passed it's time, or maybe it speaks to the progression of what I am making.
I just wondered, how big is your fridge?
I should have stated wine fridge, it was tucked away on the bottom shelf.I just wondered, how big is your fridge?
