Degassing kit wine - 2nd time?

Hi,

I'm working on my 4th kit wine - a Winexpert Vintner's Reserve Merlot. I put it in the carboy for the secondary fermentation on 10/31. On 11/23 & 11/24 I checked specific gravity and had a stable .990. I added the last chemicals and degassed with an electric drill attachment for 30 mins in 30 sec intervals.

Earlier today I racked the wine to a second carboy and added 6 crushed campden tablets. I planned to bottle today, but when I stirred the wine to mix in the campden tablets, it foamed heavily and I saw more bubbles rising to the surface than when I initially degassed. (I was using the electric drill attachment.) I stirred the wine for about 10 minutes, and was still seeing bubbles at the end.

Rather than risk bottling gassy wine, I topped up the carboy with 2 qts of water and put the airlock back on.

I know I got some air in the wine when I racked it, but I was puzzled by the amount of bubbling and foaming. Has anyone seen this before?

A couple other questions:
1. How long should I wait before bottling?
2. If I wait 30 days, should I add more campden tablets? I want to store the wine for several months before drinking it.

Any suggestions will be helpful.

Thanks, and Happy New Year to all!

Did you crushed the campden tablets, dissolve it in water or wine, and THEN add it? Or just add the crushed campden tablets?

If you just added the campden, you created "nucleation points" which cause foaming.

Take out a sample of the wine, and put it in a glass. Take a good look, and see if it's got bubbles rising. If the wine is gassy, you need to degas. If the wine is not gassy, you can bottle whenever you want.

Yooper said:

Did you crushed the campden tablets, dissolve it in water or wine, and THEN add it? Or just add the crushed campden tablets?

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I crushed them, then poured the powder into the wine. First time using them...won't make this mistake again.

Thanks for the advice. I'll check the wine again today.

flatrock said:

I crushed them, then poured the powder into the wine. First time using them...won't make this mistake again.

Thanks for the advice. I'll check the wine again today.

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It's not a big deal, but nucleation points will cause foaming like crazy! Remember the old Mentos/coke experiment? That's just an extreme example of it.

I'm sure it's fine to bottle, but you can check for gassiness first.

My standard procedure is to rack, degas, add campden and sorbate all in the same day.
I add 1/2 the crushed campden into the wine and stir, then add the remainder and stir. Depending on how well you degas is how well it doesn't foam but it wont last long and a few bubbles will go away in a couple of days.

Basically, it should settle down in a couple of days.

There's one thing I've learned from making lots of wine: when in doubt, wait.

Dissolved CO2 is the biggest challenge when making kits, especially when you are trying to 'rush' things and bottle your wine a couple months after starting the kit.

One other tip. Make sure the wine is warm when you degas and when you bottle. At cold temps, the solubility of CO2 in a liquid increases. Thus, if you're wine is at cellar temps (50ish), despite your best efforts, when you open a bottle in the summer, you'll have a little bit of fizz. Don't ask me how I know this.

So, make sure the wine is at room temp, degas using a drill-based wine whip degasser and then bottle. Or, you can just wait.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Yooper, your mentos/coke reference was great.

I checked the wine this afternoon. Gave it a strong stir with my spoon handle - saw no bubbles at all. Even though it appears to be ok, I've decided to give it another 30 days in the carboy before I bottle. When I tasted a sample this afternoon, it was kind of thin. I'm hoping some more age will provide additional body and character.