Degassing, again

[medpretzel]

I see this as you needing closure on this degassing thing, now that someone has switched you on to it..........


I think you should try the boiling stones in this wine (gently) and see if it works for you.


maybe you could post a tutorial?

regards
Bob

Are you sure it's boiling stones?

I thought of something like this.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/VARIOMAG-MAXI-HP1P-magnetic-stirrer-more_W0QQitemZ320171180956QQihZ011QQcategoryZ26235QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Not that I know if it would work, but the wine would always be in motion.. That might be bad.

[Richard S]

Hmmm, don't feel too down on the de gassing thing, I think we've all found gassy wines even long term stored ones, it's more a problem when the gas starts to interfere with the taste and smell when it's a worry.
I've many wines that taste ok but still have gas in them.... and others that are obviously gassy by smell and taste.... If that makes sense.

This is what I was trying to get at, bottle the wine then when you come to open it, smell and taste it, if required use a pump.

Not all my wines require further de-gassing. I usualy spend a bit more time (with the pump) on the reds and fruit wine and hardly any on white wines. I have gone to town on bottles of white wine and IMO have destroyed the taste.

At the end of the day it's down to your individual taste and what suits you best. No need to get paranoid on this subject, just take each bottle as it comes.

[lockwood1956]

Are you sure it's boiling stones?

these are the puppies...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_chip

the theory being that they would help the degassing.......

not tried it, but intend to at some point.

[medpretzel]

Will try this weekend sometime. Probably later tonight! This might reduce the degassing time to 6 months!

[medpretzel]

Yay!

I bought 2 pounds of....



















marbles!

[lockwood1956]

Yay!

[Duffbeer]

Any bollies in amongst that lot, if so I'll trade ya three marbels for a bollie...

[medpretzel]

Sorry, no bollies amongst them. I checked just for you!


How 'bout that Jonny Wilkinson??!!?? What a cutie!

[medpretzel]

Okay, Day 1 after the addition of marbles:

Just adding the marbles made the wine bubble.

I let the vacuum pump on it for a while (about 3 minutes), and there was a lot less foam, but a lot more bubbles.

Will keep you abreast of what happens further.

[medpretzel]

Just to clarify, and keep this in the same thread, my reasoning using marbles instead of boiling stones:

okay, this is how I understand it, and it sort of makes sense to me. But unless they're glass chips, I wouldn't use the other stuff. Just a little hesitant, because who knows how teflon would affect the wine...

So, basically, you are adding more places for bubbles to form. The more surfaces there are, the more bubbles can form. Hence, using a lot of little round glass "boiling stones" to get a lot of bubbles. The more bubbles, the more effective the vacuum degasser can be.

from Eepybird: http://www.eepybird.com/science.html

These chemists are saying that the primary cause is physical, not chemical. Their explanation: nucleation sites. If you have a liquid that is supersaturated with gas (like soda, which is pumped full of carbon dioxide), a nucleation site is a place where the gas is able to form bubbles. Nucleation sites can be scratches on a surface or specks of dust – anywhere that you have a high surface area in a very small volume. That's where bubbles can form.

From http://ask.metafilter.com/25484/Ment...oda-explosion:

Chemists are aware of the hazards present when water is boiled in smooth glass containers, and for this reason they often use some "boiling stones." These small object provoke a roiling boil, and therefore they force the water to boil at the usual temperature, rather than letting the water superheat and then spontaneously boil violently. Yet previously-used "boiling stones" are unsafe. They will not work unless they've been allowed to thoroughly dry. Why? It's because the rough surface of a well-dried boiling stone will trap tiny pockets of air, and these pockets still exist when the boiling stone is immersed. The air acts as "seed bubbles" which provoke normal boiling. The tiny pockets fill with steam during boiling, and if the "boiling stone" is cooled and removed from the water, the steam shrinks and condenses, so the gas pockets collapse and vanish. The wet surface of a used boiling-stone is still rough, but it contains no seed bubbles.

Hence the use of marbles. Dry, probably microscopically not completely smooth, increases the surface area. More nucleation sites. (I.e. places for little air-pockets to form) Each marble increases the surface area for bubble to form. Not just on the sides, bottom of the demijohn.

Any physicists or chemists out there to back me up or to tell me I've totally missed the boat?

[medpretzel]

Okay, I'm like obsessed with this now. (Thanks a lot....)

I found this on another forum about degassing....

you might want to siphon some of the wine out to create a much larger surface area. The larger the surface area, the greater the impact of the vacuum! In your photos, you have less than 2" surface area to expose the pressure differential to. If you bring that wine down to the shoulders, you will expose a whole lot more of it and attain much greater degassing ability.

so, if I understand this correctly, when degassing with a vacuum degasser, you should have a glass or two of the wine beforehand?

[Hippie]

Sure, but you will need some more to top it back up with!

[WVMountaineerJack]

On the other hand the fluid helps support the carbory from imploding, if you took too much out would it be possible to loose support on the sides and implode a carboy?

The boiling chips from teflon are nonreactive to acids and other chemicals and so wouldnt leave any taste in the wine. Marbles on the other hand, especially if made in China, who knows whats in them and how the made the colors right?

Crackedcork

[medpretzel]

Got a mityvac now. It's not as easy as I thought it would be, but much more effective. There are some extremely large bubbles that are coming up from the marbles that are in the wine.

It's relatively easy, however, but my hands a bit too small for the handle that is on the mityvac. I guess it really is a tool made for man-hands...

[lockwood1956]

You should be able to use it by not releasing the handle fully when depressed, will take more pumps to achieve desired effect, but should help with the small hands thing (mine are like shovels so not a problem for me )

regards
Bob