How to De-Gas, Cold Crash, & Rack

How to de-gas your wine:

"De-gassing" a wine, mead, or cider refers to the process of removing dissolved carbon dioxide – in other words, turning it from fizzy to flat. Not only can this improve the taste of your wine by removing dissolved acidity created by CO2, but this can also help to prevent messy accidents created by carbonation.

Some ways to adjust your wine, cider, or mead call for degassing it first. This is because adding powders or liquids to a fizzy wine, cider, or mead can quickly 'activate' all of the dissolved carbon dioxide and lead to a fizzy mess.

1. Method 1: simple agitation. In this method, we simply seal the wine, cider, or mead and shake/swirl. Then, carefully unscrew the cap to release the carbon dioxide. Repeat until you don't hear any more hissing when opening the cap.
2. Method 2: using tools. Those who are looking to store their wine more than one month will benefit from a method that does not introduce excess oxygen. What many home winermakers do is attach a powerdrill to Fermtech's 'The Whip.' Here's a link to check it out. The way this one works is to have a spinning piece of plastic remove all of the carbonation from your wine by creating a vortex.
3. Method 3: time (slow!). In this method, we simply leave the lid off (or loosely off) your wine/cider/mead as it sits in the fridge and it will slowly decarbonate, like soda would do.

How to cold crash your wine:

"Cold crashing" a wine, mead, or cider refers to the process of refrigerating your boozy drink with the intention of forcing all of the sediment, yeast, and bitter compounds to drop out of your wine and settle on the bottom of the container, after which you can separate the great wine from the gross sludge.

1. Put your wine, cider, or mead in the refrigerator with the cap on loosely! Air should be able to flow in and out.
2. Wait 24 hours or more. The longer you wait up to 4 days, the more sediment will fall out and settle on the bottom.
3. Be careful not to disturb or shake your container to keep the sediment on the bottom.

How to rack your wine:

"Racking" a wine, mead, or cider refers to the process of separating your delicious, boozy drink from the yeast sediment ("lees") that collects on the bottom of your container before or after cold crashing.

Racking is easiest after cold crashing, as the cold helps to compact the sediment.

There are basically two ways to rack your wine, cider, or mead.

1. Method 1: Without Tools. In this method, we're simply racking our wine by carefully pouring it from the original container into a new container, taking care to not pour the sediment too. This is easiest done when you can (a) pour so slowly that your wine doesn't 'glug', but instead flows out in one smooth flow. (b) You can avoid sediment making its way into your new container by making sure that – once you tilt your wine over to start pouring it out – you don't tilt it back upright until you've finished pouring.
2. Method 2: With Tools. In this method, you use a siphon to pump wine out of your container into a new container. This method is slower, but can result in a 'cleaner' rack. For this, you'll need a siphoning kit. If you type in "wine siphoning kit" into Amazon, you can find some nice ones that should come with easy instructions.