De-gassing wort samples

Monday night, I brewed my first batch of beer, morebeer.com's Dunkelweizen extract kit with Wyeast 3068 (Weihenstephan Weizen). Tuesday, there was a 1-2" layer of krausen in the carboy and no bubbles in the airlock. Same thing Wednesday and Thursday. What I've read about that yeast indicates that it should produce lots of krausen, so I wanted to make sure it was actually fermenting properly.

I drew a sample to test with the hydrometer. I realize there is CO2 in solution, so I need to remove that to get an accurate SG reading. I tried pouring the sample back and forth between a couple of glasses several times, but I'm not sure if that did it. Also, when I poured it back into the sample jar, it left a layer of foam on top that persisted overnight (which suggests to me that I hadn't gotten all the CO2 out, either). So, how do I remove the CO2 from solution, and how do I deal with foam that won't go away?

The good news is that the SG came out around 1.025. I wouldn't trust that as an exact reading, but it's enough to tell me that the fermentation is going just fine.

When fermentation is still occurring, there will always be lots of co2 in the sample. I simply stir it briskly and it's pretty good. Then, if there is foam on top, I just take apiece of paper towel, stick it in the top of the test jar, and it sucks up the foam. I gently spin the hydrometer just to make sure there are no bubbles holding it up and giving an inaccurate reading.

You had krausen, therefore you could see that the fermentation was going fine. It's your first batch and I know you're impatient and curious (hell, I still get that way when I brew my first beer after a hiatus), but leave the beer alone. The krausen will drop...eventually. We never really worry about degassing our test samples and the persistent foam was probably a sign that the beer is still actively fermenting, and the not-done-yet reading you got from your sample bears this out. Airlock activity is not a reliable indicator. Let me repeat that for emphasis: airlock activity is not a reliable indicator.

In any case, while the beer is fermenting there's not a whole lot you can do, apart from temperature management, to change what's going on. Just be patient. It will do its thing and you will have great beer!

Thanks for the feedback. Damage, the main thing I was wondering about was the level of krausen--I'd been reading that that yeast needed 33% headspace or so, and I expected that I'd see quite a bit more. It does look like it's working just fine, though. I know--RDWHAHB.

The yeast don't need headspace at all. You, as the brewer generally want some headspace in order to avoid a the blowoff that might occur from a healthy, vigorous fermentation. But you don't need 33%. The most common practice is to brew a 5 gallon batch in a 6 gallon carboy. That's usually plenty of headspace, but many brewers will still use a blowoff tube for the first few days of fermentation as insurance. (A blowoff tube is replacing the airlock with a tube that leads to an open jar or bottle of StarSan. It's basically a home made giant airlock.)