Degassing Techniques

[Dave_E]

Hi All,

This topic is for all brewers (I think). I’ve watched all the videos and seen all the gadgets on amazon regarding degassing and degassing tools. After making a drill motor degassing stick and seeing the results and using vacuum and seeing the results, I’m wondering why do I still see YouTubers gently stirring their brew with a stir paddle, telling us how they degass? If I’m wrong in my assumption that stirring accomplishes nothing but stirring, would someone please explain how stirring gently with a paddle gets anywhere near the quantity of CO2 out of the brew as a drill motor gadget or a vacuum system?

Dave

 

[doug293cz]

Is this a wine making question? I have not seen degassing being talked about when brewing/fermenting beer.

Brew on

 

[Dave_E]

In all honesty, it’s for wine, Mead, Cider.

 

[Maylar]

I think the degassing practice has become an obsolete one. Folks seem to feel that the risk of mixing oxygen into the must is worse than having some CO2.

 

[Dave_E]

Maylar, I might agree with that one. Made my first hard cider a month ago, it was DONE in the secondary but still almost had that “carbonated” mouth feel. I can live with that. When I’ve done the mechanical degasser wand thing, my first reaction is always “look at that gas”… followed by “how bad am I messing up with all this exposure to the air”?

 

[Broothru]

Is this a wine making question? I have not seen degassing being talked about when brewing/fermenting beer.

Brew on

I have a wine bottling device (EnolMatic) made in Italy that draws wine under vacuum into the bottle being filled, thus the only space left for air (20% O2) is the small ulege space between the top of the wine and the bottom of the cork.

I haven’t bottled any wine in almost two years, even though I have over 25 gallons/125 bottles ’bulk’ aging on French Oak. But the vacuum chamber gets a workout on a regular basis. Whenever I pull a sample of fermenting beer, I place the container in the vacuum chamber and draw about half an atmosphere negative pressure, and the CO2 just ‘boils’ out in about 15 seconds. EasyDens doesn’t like non-evolved gasses when trying to read S.G.

 

[Maylar]

For me, there's just one time when I will degas. After the lag phase when ferment is actively under way and I need to add the first round of nutrients (mead) or bentonite. With a ton of CO2 you'll get mega foaming when you add powder or granules. At this stage O2 is actually needed by the yeast so I'll whip it up good or wave my O2 wand through it for a while.