Difficulties removing CO2

After fermentation you normally add a stabiliser to your wine and shake vigorously to remove the CO2 left in the wine. Sometimes it can seem as if the CO2 comes back over and over again even if you wait for days.

These are the possible causes and solutions:

• If you haven't used a stabiliser (some wine kits does not include it and some people prefer not to use it) your wine is probably still fermenting slowly. Add the stabiliser to stop it or wait until it stops even if it takes weeks.
• If your wine is sweet it is more difficult to stabilise. The reason is of course that there still is "food" (sugar) for the yeast cells so they hang in there for as long as they can even though there is both a stabiliser and alcohol present. You can try to increase the stabiliser dose by half a sachet and/or chill the wine.
• If it doesn't stop after all this - stay calm, the yeast cells will eventually give up - defeated by alcohol, lack of food and possibly stabiliser. It may take weeks but it will stop in the end. This is unusual though unless you make sweet high alcohol wines.

If you have CO2 problems after you have started the fining procedure, i.e. added one or more fining agents - you will probably need to add new finings. Rack off your wine before you start shaking to remove CO2 and repeat the fining procedure when the CO2 is gone.

If you use "Super Finings" (two sachet fining agents not containing gelatine) you should only add the second sachet next time.

Read more about fining problems here.

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