Degassing Wine
The purpose of degassing is to pull from your wine manually or mechanically trapped CO2 that if not allowed to dissipate naturally over time will result in bubbles for foaming when later uncorked from its bottle for consumption. If you are going to be aging your wine in your carboy for an extended amount of time, six to ten months, degassing is not all that critical as the CO2 trapped in your wine will work its way out of your wine and through the airlock on its own. However, with the expedited bottling and limited bulk aging schedule dictated by most Wine Kit instructions, degassing is incredibly important.
Wine Making Supplies & Ideas for Degassing
- Wine Whip - A very affordable plastic tool that attaches to the end of a drill to agitate and mix wine to release gasses.
- Fizz-X - Similar to the Wine Whip but a durable, long stainless steel rod with plastic fins on the end that reaches deeper into your carboy or fermenter.
- The handle end of a Mixing Spoon or even a Racking Cane can be used to agitate and mix, but usually not effective enough for the accelerated time line required by Wine Kits, but very effective alternatives for wine or wine kits with a delayed bottling schedule.
- Put your carboy or fermenter on a clothes washer during the agitation cycle. Check out this video clip on You Tube. Caution that your container of wine does not vibrate off the washer!
- Here is possibly the most clever, effective and affordable method using a Snail Wine Saver Evacuator Pump and a #7.5 Drilled Rubber Stopper to extract sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide gases from your wine. Check out this You Tube Video.