First batch, tastes a bit carbonated/gassy

cramar · Mar 30, 2017

Hi, most of my action has been over on the beer forums. All grain brewing has been going great so tried my first wine kit.

Got a Shiraz kit with a muslin bag and grape skins, everything went very well, no problems. Wine has been in the bottle for about 8 weeks, I know it's still young but I tried a sample bottle just to see how it was coming along.
It seems slightly carbonated, I'd use the term gassy. Not an off taste, just a gassy sort of edge to it.

Tried pouring a glassful into a bottle and giving a hard shake, foamed up a lot, maybe that's normal, and tried it. Definitely had a smoother taste.

At this point I'm wondering if I should just leave it for the long haul or it is even possible to empty all the wine into a bucket, degass and rebottle....or will that ruin it at this point?

bernardsmith · Mar 30, 2017

How long has it been since you pitched the yeast. If you bottle before degassing or you bottle very early then you bottle with all the carbon dioxide still in the wine

MaxTheSpy · Mar 30, 2017

bernardsmith said:
How long has it been since you pitched the yeast. If you bottle before degassing or you bottle very early then you bottle with all the carbon dioxide still in the wine

+1

Also make sure you kill of the fermentation process completly, would suck to have some nice bottles and have them shatter from the pressure. Been there done that but with 1 gallon mead. Sticky Sticky mess.

Yooper · Mar 30, 2017

The degassing instructions in the kit aren't really that great at telling you more than to "degas for xxxx minutes". The truth is by doing a kit and bottling so early like they do, to rush the wine to bottle, you have to degas the ever lovin' **** out of it. I mean with a drill and a wine whip, and sometimes more than once.

As a result of incomplete degassing at that stage, your wine is carbonated. That is ok, as long as the corks don't pop out. Watch them, and keep them cool (a cellar would be great). To degas at serving, pour the bottle into a decanter and shake and it should be much better.

cramar · Mar 30, 2017

Yooper said:
The degassing instructions in the kit aren't really that great at telling you more than to "degas for xxxx minutes". The truth is by doing a kit and bottling so early like they do, to rush the wine to bottle, you have to degas the ever lovin' **** out of it. I mean with a drill and a wine whip, and sometimes more than once.

As a result of incomplete degassing at that stage, your wine is carbonated. That is ok, as long as the corks don't pop out. Watch them, and keep them cool (a cellar would be great). To degas at serving, pour the bottle into a decanter and shake and it should be much better.

Thanks for the info, as unorthodox as it seems to me that was what I thought might work from initial reading online.
The fermenting went well and I did degas per kit instructions (whip for 15 minutes), looks like I need to study up on degassing.

Thanks.

PS, cheers from a bit north in the Sault.