won't degass

[tonyt]

I have a Wine Expert Nero d'Avola with skins that just will not degas. This is my second new WE skins kit and the first did not do this. I racked back to primary, added fining agents two days ago and degassed with power drill for about 20 minutes total. The temp was a bit low at 68. I am sure by the time I racked (room temperature) it was up to 70. My only brew belt was on a primary of Amarone. I never got a lot of bubbles while degassing so after I finished I splash racked back to carboy. Next day I hooked up aspirator type vacuum for about 1.5 hours. After that I filled a standard bottle and shook it and still got a lot of foam and big gas pop. Checked temp and it was back down under 70. I took the brew belt from Amarone and warmed up the carboy over night. This morning the temp is 77. Hooked up the drill mounted mix stir and hit it again in small spurts of stirring then waiting 15 minutes between. Still not getting many tiny gas bubbles. Just did another bottle shake test and less pop but still a pop. What gives?

 

[ibglowin]

If its warm and you hooked it to a vacuum aspirator for 1.5 hours I am pretty sure its degassed! Have you added the fining agents yet?

The WE LE Meritage i just finished degassed on its own believe it or not. Never seen that happen before. I kept seeing small bubbles rising on day 10 in secondary after an 8 day primary. The SG was not changing so it was either undergoing MLF (from MLB cross contamination perhaps) or degassing slowly.

By day 10 the wine was basically clear without adding any fining agents. I went ahead and racked off the gross lees (which is a no no according to WE instructions) degassed for 5 min with vacuum (no small bubbles only the big ones which are not CO2) added fining agents and META and it was crystal clear the next day.

 

[tonyt]

I did the degassing prior to during and after each addition (k-meta, sorbate, and chitosan).

I don't however really know how high to run the vacuum pump. It has a gauge with two sets of numbers. I ran it at 15 on the larger numbers which was about 10 on the other numbers.

 

[Wade E]

The bigger numbers are the ones you want and you want to get the vacuum up to about 20" and if you can keep it there for a few minutes without tge foamand sruff goingup your hose you should be fine! 15" is right about whrre you start getting gas out of your wine. There is a good explanation of how to degas in the Tutorials area.

 

[tonyt]

There is a good explanation of how to degas in the Tutorials area.

Wouldn't that be kind of like reading the instructions? Now why would I want to do that?