The basic question is what end point is good enough?
When judging wine at state fair I consider it normal to have fine bubbles on the glass 1/3 of the time. This basically says that there are a lot of wine makers who do not fully degas. At the fine bubble level it doesn’t really affect the flavor so I don’t dock the wine. Likewise on small startup wineries if I pull a 5 inch Hg vacuum on a sample I frequently will get some fine bubbles. For their level of mechanization it doesn’t matter. For wineries which are big enough that they have a bottling line, this level of dissolved gas could be bad.
The video seems to be aimed at kit makers. Good enough for a kit is degas so that the fining agents work. Yes I could see using the drill powered wine whip for 20 minutes. Yes I could see an hour using hand stirring. Degassing is an energy absorbing activity and involves removing gas throughout the whole six gallons.
Vacuum degassing case; what I see is the “wine gusher” the first time I pull vacuum, so I stop the vacuum and let it bubble. On a second cycle it may reach -10 inch Hg before a “wine gusher”. By the fifth cycle I should be able to safely pull -22 inches where the pump just hums maintaining that level and I am not efficiently degassing. This turns out to be in the 20 to 30 minute range and in line with the drill and whip. For my equipment this is not good enough. I pull a -22 inch vacuum at cork insertion and can get a “wine gusher” in the corking tool. ,,, For me a safe end point is that the carboy can hold at least a 5 inch vacuum for thirty minutes. My experience is that if I use this end point I have to do parts of the degassing over 8 to 12 hours. ,,, I currently let it sit over night. ,,,, ie Degassing is a bulk volume function, something which takes mixing and mixing takes time and energy.
If I was operating a decade ago doing gravity/ ambient pressure bottle filling of bottles and corking I never had a problem just letting it naturally degas for six months or through the summer temperatures. NO wine whip! ,,, YUP I can see you degassing a few minutes with a whip and it is good enough for that filling equipment.
Would I ever spend an hour with a spoon stirring? ,,, NO ,,, I would get tired.
Would I spend twenty minutes with my drill? ,,, probably not ,,, I would catch on that I wasn’t getting much gas removal work done and waiting fifteen minutes for bulk mixing makes one minute bursts of effort more efficient. The old adage is PATIENCE.
But the video seems to be aimed at kit makers. AND a pretty good level of degassing makes the fining agents more efficient. What end goal are the direction for?
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