Wine CO2 explosion in secondary

[Brew-Dude]

If there is another forum post about this, please direct me there.

Hello home brewers, I'm making a wine from a Master Vintner wine Kit for the 2nd time ever. Its a Pinot Noir 6 gallon batch and i've followed most of the direction to a "T". I did make some small additions at the beginning of the wine making process. I boiled 2-3 gallons of water and added 1 pound of corn sugar to it in hopes of getting a higher starting specific gravity as i normally do when making ciders. I cooled it down and added it to the juice in a bag which came with the kit. SG was 1.095 to start with. Added Yeast as directed.

In the primary, there was lots of airlock activity within about 18 hours. Per the directions, i stirred the wine daily and i tried to take gravity readings about every 2-3 days. Gravity continuted to drop as one would expect. At around SG 1.06 i added the yeast nutrient provided by the kit. 3 days later, day 6 of fermentation, i added a bit more beer yeast nutrient in fear that the yeast wouldn't be healthy enough to reach the higher ABV i was hoping to reach. The directions said to move wine into a secondary on day 6 but there was still so much foam and airlock activity going on, so i let it sit for a couple more days. I drew a sample on day 10 and the SG was 1.004 which was below the 1.010 threshold to rack to the secondary set forth by M.V. Tim Vandergrift, But it was still bubbling vigorously. At any rate, i decided to proceed and rack to secondary the next morning.

Today I sanitized all equipment using StarSan no rinse. The wine is still showing lots of airlock activity. A "burp" every 2-3 seconds. The directions said to add oak chips before racking to secondary but due to all the foam in the carboy i chose to add it after i racked so they would not be carried out by the foam. after it was full I added them and used a sanitized plastic spoon to break up the wood chunks on the surface of the wine. Within seconds of stirring, the carboy began to erupt with foam out of the top. I quickly grabbed some FermCap that i happen to have in my fridge to stop the CO2 explosion. This seemed to help almost immediately. Extreme bubbling continued for 30-45 minutes. Then slowed to a bubble every 1-2 seconds from airlock.

I am fully aware that airlock activity does not necessarily mean active fermentation. This being only my 2nd wine, i'm a bit confused as to what the hell is going on.

I'm curious if I've completely messed this wine up or is everything okay and i've over reacting. Is there something i should have done differently or not at all? Thank you for taking the time to read this.

PS I tasted the wine that was left in the bottom of primary and it didn't have any crazy off flavors or jet fuel alcohol tastes. I thought it was pretty good to the taste for being so young.

Thanks
Brew-Dude

 

[HopHeavy]

Did you degas before moving the wine to secondary? Before you added the oak? If the wine is saturated with co2, it can erupt, like a warm bottle of soda, upon being agitated. Also, if some compound was inadvertently introduced, you might see a reaction like that diet coke/mentos bit. I know there probably isn't any aspartame in your wine, but you probably have some potassium salts in there...

Of course, it isn't ruined as long as you can bring yourself to drink it! Good luck with it!

 

[ACbrewer]

I agree with HopHeavy... basically you added mento's to diet coke... ok maybe not as violent. I've had the same myself when adding nutrient to a mead that was going.

A fermented beverage will hold about 1 volume of CO2 dissolved , meaning your 6 gallons of wine has in it 6 gallons of CO2 - or it would if it was in the air.

 

[Brew-Dude]

Hey, thanks! I did not degas before moving to secondary. The directions do not mention degassing until the "stabilizing, clearing & degassing Day 15-27". Which would be considered the 3rd time racking into a different carboy. I will certainly consider degassing before racking into secondary next time i make my wine. Thanks again.

 

[bernardsmith]

The real issue is that when you added oak to the wine the rough edges of the wood allow the CO2 to nucleate and that means that you provided the CO2 with the tools it needed to come out of solution/suspension in the liquid. Normally you need to provide the solution with energy (whipping the wine, or changing the pressure (by creating a vacuum), heating the wine etc. But providing points of nucleation enables the gas to collect and drop out of solution with less energy - and the effect CAN BE just as violent as a a Mentos volcano. Just depends on how much gas is dissolved and how many points of nucleation are in the oak - and how much liquid is sitting above the gas being expelled through the narrow mouth of the carboy (rifling) - in other words if the oak was heavier and sunk faster then there would be a lot more liquid being rifled through the neck of the carboy.

 

[passedpawn]

I don't think stirring the wood into the wine is necessary. It would saturate and sink I think. My instructions explicitly stated not to stir. My instructions also had me degassing only at the last racking, when I added the fining agents.

And yea, like everybody else said, what you are seeing is not fermentation but dissolved CO2 coming out of solution.

 

[ACbrewer]

Yooper talks about "splash racking" to degas. She says she rarely stirs to degas. Basically instead of putting the siphon hose to the bottome of your secondary, you put it pointed up along the side. Thus as it comes out, it the force of hitting the side of the fermenter causes some of the dissolved CO2 to come out, this reduces the amount in solution and helps avoid addition volcanoes. I once nearly painted the ceiling with a mead that way.