Vacuum degassing with a hand pump

[milant]

Good evening everybody!!! Well, this newbie here worked through the active fermentation and racked his first wine into a carboy. Now, as I am waiting for my second fermentation to complete, my focus is on degassing. To be perfectly honest it scares me a bit, since there are so many threads about people struggling with it. Now, summer in Texas means that I don't struggle with low temps, so my understanding is that I shouldn't have all that many problems, but still... Like everybody else, I plan to do most of it with the degassing stick and electric drill (the agitating method) - and there are plenty instructions on how to do that. However, I have noticed a lot of you recommend the vacuum degassing, as a sole method or in addition to stirring.

Since I have VacuVin pump I was thinking about giving it a whirl. Can you tell me your procedure of degassing using this hand pump? And lastly how do you know when the wine is properly degassed.

Thanks!!!
Milan

PS. I understand that there are vacuum pump machines out there that will do several things including degassing. I'm new to this wine making thing, so I'm no looking to spend more money until I see if I like it.
PPS. I also understand that bulk aging will naturally release a lot of CO2 (if aged sufficient amount of time) - I plan to do that on the next batches and when I get a additional carboy(s). (see comment above)

 

[vernsgal]

As noted below by bkisel, it takes a few days.
http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=49489

 

[bkisel]

Good evening everybody!!! Well, this newbie here worked through the active fermentation and racked his first wine into a carboy. Now, as I am waiting for my second fermentation to complete, my focus is on degassing. To be perfectly honest it scares me a bit, since there are so many threads about people struggling with it. Now, summer in Texas means that I don't struggle with low temps, so my understanding is that I shouldn't have all that many problems, but still... Like everybody else, I plan to do most of it with the degassing stick and electric drill (the agitating method) - and there are plenty instructions on how to do that. However, I have noticed a lot of you recommend the vacuum degassing, as a sole method or in addition to stirring.

Since I have VacuVin pump I was thinking about giving it a whirl. Can you tell me your procedure of degassing using this hand pump? And lastly how do you know when the wine is properly degassed.

Thanks!!!
Milan

PS. I understand that there are vacuum pump machines out there that will do several things including degassing. I'm new to this wine making thing, so I'm no looking to spend more money until I see if I like it.
PPS. I also understand that bulk aging will naturally release a lot of CO2 (if aged sufficient amount of time) - I plan to do that on the next batches and when I get a additional carboy(s). (see comment above)

I've been using the Vacu Vin method for the last 3 years, almost as long as I've been making wine.

Make sure you've some head space. I do my vacuum degassing in a ~6.5 gallon carboy.

Start pumping slowly. In spite of whip/agitation degassing, which I do and recommend you still do, you'll likely have plenty of CO2 left to pump out and you don't want it coming out to fast.

Wine at 75F or better will make your degassing easier.

Pump every once in awhile over the course of 1-3 days. You'll feel it getting harder to pump and you'll just be getting those large bubbles - that's when I stop.

Good luck!

Ps. Go to YouTube and search on "Vacu Vin Degassing" and you'll find several vids showing hand pump degassing. This is the one that got me starte4d... [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjL80hXkHdI"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjL80hXkHdI[/ame]