De-gassing your wine is the number one problem home wine makers have when making a wine kit. The problem is that a kit is made to be bottled quickly. As such, we do not allow mother nature enough time to de-gas the wine for us. If we were to allow the wine to sit for several months, like a fresh fruit wine, gravity would remove most of the gas for us. Since we are in a hurry to bottle and start that next wine, we have to stir vigorously to remove the gas and sometimes, we don't do a good job, leaving a fizzy taste and wine smelling like yeast.

If you are going to drink this wine, all you need to do is decant the wine for 1 hour and the gas should be gone; however, if you are planning on giving the wine away, you probably don't want to explain this to your recipient. As a result, the question is "How do I know if all of the gas is gone BEFORE I bottle my wine?"

We do have a solution and I wish I could take credit for the idea, but I can't; however, I can pass along the technique to you. After you stir your wine and add the fining agent(s), put a carboy cap on top of carboy:

Then, remove the center white cap and replace it with one of the Vacu-Vin stoppers:

Lastly, place the Vacu-Vin on the stopper

and start pumping on the Vacu-Vin. This will create a vacuum inside of the carboy and if you have any CO2 left, it will start coming up the sides like a curtain of tiny bubbles and create a layer of foam on top. If there is no CO2 left, you will see larger bubbles coming up from the middle of your wine. It should be noted that the more air space you have in your carboy, the more pumping you will have to do to create an adequate vacuum. As a result, I recommend that you top off your wine before using these items. In addition, if you do have gas left, you can leave the cap on the wine and repeat the process every hour or two, until the gas is gone.

If you would like more information on this topic, see the "Building a Pressure Siphon: Cellar Dwellers" in the April/May 2006 issue of WineMaker Magazine.