Point to De- gasing if I will be kegging?

[fun4stuff]

I'll be making a cherry apple cider Mead. Is there a point to degassing if I plan on kegging it anyhow?

 

[LBussy]

During fermentation it helps to keep the pH higher (keeps the yeast happier.) After, it helps the mead to clear. CO2 in suspension keeps yeast in suspension as well.

 

[On-target]

I am much happier when I de-gas too.

 

[roachvaliek]

Along with what fun4stuff said, the gas trapped in the mead from primary and secondary fermentation gives it a funky and unappetizing taste.

 

[fun4stuff]

Along with what fun4stuff said, the gas trapped in the mead from primary and secondary fermentation gives it a funky and unappetizing taste.

i don't know if I buy the taste part when im going to be carbonating it anyhow. I can definitely agree with the funky taste part if it was going to serve it flat though.

Traditionally I always degassed wine/mead, but that was before I started making beer... which we never degas... and most of it clears just fine with a cold crash and/or gelatin (or other finings). In fact, we avoid stirring/rousing beer at all costs to prevent oxidation. There are fermentors out there that allow the beer to be packaged/ kegg'ed without every coming into contact with air/opening the fermentor, which seems like quite extreme measures for preventing oxidation of something that will likely be consumed much sooner than wine/mead.

Then we have wine/mead which we generally age for much longer than beer so one would think that we would need to be even more careful in regards to preventing oxidation with wine/mead. This is why degassing doesn't really make much sense to me anymore.

I'll still plan to degas just because thats what i've always done and it sounds like that's what everyone is still doing.... but part of me will wonder on the utility.

 

[LBussy]

I degas my beer too if I am fining it. I use a vacuum though, not stirring/whipping. It really helps with clearing. Yes it will drop clear eventually but degassing helps. Adding sparkalloid for instance without degassing is just a waste.

 

[On-target]

The way that I look at the subject is that CO2 is a waste product of the yeast eating the sugars of the honey. Those waste products in some way are probably toxic to the yeast. Happy yeast= happy ferment= happy mead drinkers. My meads have turned out better and sooner since I started degassing.

 

[bernardsmith]

The thing is that all wines - including meads, are far more acidic than beer and have a far higher alcohol content than beer. They tend to resist oxidation more than beer and anyway, most wine makers are adding K-meta each time they rack to inhibit oxidation. But perhaps more importantly, grain in and of itself is full of lactic bacteria and brewers have to be constantly on guard that they are not creating conditions that favor their activity at the expense of the activity of the yeast. Wine makers are dealing with different sugars, and quite different colonies of bacteria and yeast and because of the low pH and high concentrations of alcohol, spoilage seems to be far less problematic among wine makers and certainly be a far less cause of anxiety. You have to work quite hard to spoil a wine - and degassing is not part of that picture - unless of course what you call degassing is really no more than whipping air into the finished wine...