Measuring Dissolved Oxygen (DO) and Sparging with Nitrogen

[mbleill]

i have been researching managing oxygen in the winemaking process and reducing it by sparging with Nitrogen gas. As armature winemakers, does anyone do this and has it improved your finished product longevity and taste? If so what type of DO meter and sparging equipment do you use and recommend. Also, what are the relative costs?
Thanks ahead of time for the information!
Cheers,

 

[Rice_Guy]

I do not check DO, but work had a DO lab setup.

Knowing where you are “sloppy” will help you understand your process. Will it help? My guess is that we as home winemakers don’t have the tools to really control oxygen pickup / total package oxygen. ex One could take their floating tank lid and shroud the top with nitrogen, ,, but I use glass carboys. You could nitrogen flush corking but I only am set up for vacuum corking.

My understanding is that the two big risk areas are bottling and racking. The AWRI has done some work comparing different winery hardware setups.