I have been vigoroursly stirring my wine with a drill mounted whip. I have been whipping it for 3
days now at about 3 minutes per time. I still get alot of foaming after the whip. Is that normal or will the foaming stop once I have all the CO2 out of the wine?
James S
Did you raise the temp before degassing?
If you’re whipping it aggressively it will foam no matter what I think. Are you testing it buy drawing some out to a test tube of some kind, covering it with your hand or a stopper, shaking it and then removing your hand/stopper to see if there is any gas escaping? I had this problem on each of my first two wine kits, it indeed took a long time to do and was not nearly as simple as the directions indicated.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong (being that I’ve done two kits only) but I think I remember reading somewhere that it works better if you keep the whip near the bottom of the carboy and power it so that it isn’t violently whipping wine around.
If you have been whipping the wine for three days it is probably OK. The meathod of testing refered to above is fairly standard practice (though I don’t usually bother)
There are very different types of foam that you could see after whipping. Is is light and fluffy, or fairly thick and creamy? Look just below the foam itself. Do you see a ton of gas coming out, and how long does this continue?
Temperature would have an effect as mentioned. But so does time. Remember in commercial settings, much of the degassing takes place naturaly over time (as it sits around for a few years.) Just make sure you get the majority out of there - and if you have been whipping it for days you probably have. After that just letting it sit in the carboy for a month or two before bottling should do the rest.
I raised the temp to 72 degrees. The foam looks thick and fluffy. Never looked below the foam so don’t know what is happening there. I will try whipping it again tonight and see what is happening below the foam.
James s
Ok, I whipped my wine for a 4th time tonight. Before whipping I pulled a small amount into a beaker and put my hand over it and shook it up. Pulling my hand away I heard nothing. I then whipped the wine and did the same thing. This time I heard a hiss coming from the wine.
So am I suppose to perform this test before or after whipping the wine???
James S :cheers:
Like I said above, if you have been whipping this wine for days it should be fine to stabilize by now. I’m assuming it was clear with no remaining signs of fermentation?
If you did the test jar test and found no pop to it, whatever gas is in there is very minimal and will come out easily through the rest of the process. Yes it is important to properly degass, but you may be overthinking this a little.
Once you let the wine sit for a month or so before bottling it should end up flat as a board.
