Frequently fizzy wine - why??

[Nelly]

I've been making wine for a couple of years now and have had some jolly good stuff (just don't talk to me about meadowsweet). One thing that just keeps cropping up though is unintentionally fizzy wine. Typically the SG will indicate the end of fermentation yet when I siphon into bottles there will be a good "head" on the wine (!) and sometimes the corks are pushed straight back out again. On a couple of occasions I have chosen to bottle in champagne bottles (1 gallon of bramble, 1 gallon of oakleaf - both really good), on one occasion I've risked leaving it in normal bottles (at the back of the garage) and I have another couple of demi-johns that should be ready for bottling but I really don't know what to do with them. I'm pretty patient and the wine is generally in the demi-johns for about a year before I bottle. I'm not sure whether I'm dealing with another fermentation or lots of gas from somewhere else. Please could someone enlighten me with an explanation? Ta muchly...

[darrel]

Hi, do you degas?

[GrillMonkey]

Other than alochol another by product of yeast and sugar is gas. Once the wine is finshed I shake my DJs like a mad thing then leave the "fizz" to die down and then shake it again and repeat for about thrity minutes, althought there are probably easier way to de-gas wine.

De-gassing also helps with clearing. Apparently wine will degas itself overtime but I always de-gas as I've had bungs pop out of DJs whist aging before and ruin the wine.

[GrillMonkey]

I should add I rack half of the wine into another DJ and shake both, I imaging shking a full DJ would create alot of mess.

[Nelly]

"Do you degas?" - sounds like a personal question! The answer is, no, not as a general part of my wine-making routine. I did the whole demi-john-shaking thing for a fizzy batch of raspberry but it never seemed to get any less, no matter how much I shook it. How often should I de-gas and does it literally involve lots of shaking of the DJ? And why do none of the wine-making books mention de-gassing or all this extra gas??

[Nelly]

Shaking a full demi-john also makes the arms ache quite considerably! Are my bottles likely to explode or does the gas, err, just go somewhere and leave the wine alone?

[GrillMonkey]

I think this will porbably help you.

http://www.winesathome.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=904

...and yes for me it involves lots and lots of shaking. There are other, easier way in the tutorial above tho.

[GrillMonkey]

Are my bottles likely to explode or does the gas

I expect your corks are more likely to pop than the bottle exploding but it is a possibility and a dangorous possibilty at that.

[Nelly]

Ta muchly for that - very helpful indeed. But what is that weird orange thing on top of the DJ in the tutorial? I have a vacuvin but no weird orange thing and the vacuvin bung is too small to go directly in the DJ.

[GrillMonkey]

Some kind of stopper that lets gas out. Not sure where you'd get one tho. Hopefully someone will be along soon to help.

[Duffbeer]

You can also de-gass by stirring vigorously or use a vacuvin in the bottle.
Trapped co2 is less likely to break bottles than a bottle ferment so your pretty safe on that front, have you considered a whizz stick and drill if shaking is too hard ?

[spritzer]

Ta muchly for that - very helpful indeed. But what is that weird orange thing on top of the DJ in the tutorial? I have a vacuvin but no weird orange thing and the vacuvin bung is too small to go directly in the DJ.

The weird orange thing on top of the DJ, is a cap, in which the airlock is placed, in a 5 gallon glass DJ.......
And as the pictur shows, can be used in aiding degassing.

You may have another stopper or cap if you have 5 gallon glass DJ's.

As Duffbeer (Karl) states, a whizz stick is one of the ways to degass if you find shaking DJ's too heavy.

[lockwood1956]

I have a vacuvin but no weird orange thing and the vacuvin bung is too small to go directly in the DJ.

look further on in the tutorial (from post No 14 to 17) and you will see directions for degassing a 1 gallon DJ using a white safety bung. and a holed rubber bung and vacuvin



The orange cap is available fropkm some homebrew stores, but they are in very short supply, and only fit 5 gallon Demijohns

the wine will taste much fruitier after degassing.

regards
bob


ps if you are shaking a DJ to degass, its no good shaking a full one, split it into 2 DJs it will degass easier

[kampervan]

can you bring a wizz stick to grapefest for me

[Duffbeer]

can you bring a wizz stick to grapefest for me

Sure thing