Degassing Mead: When and Why?

Degassing is something that when I started making mead I had no idea about. I simply thought
you just put together your ingredients and let it go. Unfortunately it's not that easy, we have to ensure
our mead will complete to perfection by babying it in a sort of way. As the mead goes through the
primary fermentation the yeast will use the Oxygen from the mead and turn it into CO2. This CO2
often times will make it's way out of the mead through the airlock during the primary/secondary
fermentation stages. However, this doesn't always get all of the CO2 out of the mead.

There is a clear difference between degassing and oxygenating a mead. The oxygenation
process happens when you first start your mead and it is just entering it's primary stage. You want to
give the yeast plenty of oxygen to feed on and use for their fermentation process. However, after the
fermentation process is over you really don't want any more oxygen in there. Any left over yeast will
use that oxygen and continue to pump out CO2.

An easy way to degas your mead is to stir it in it's container or lightly swirl it in a carboy. Some
people simply use a wooden spoon to stir or they might have a tool, like a long metal pole with paddles
on the end, to connect to a drill. A tool like this is great for degassing large amounts of mead as stirring
can be strenuous for large quantities. When you are stirring the mead you need to look and see if there
are any bubbles appearing on the side of the container. You might also see some bubbles rising from the
mead itself. This means that your process is working and you should continue to do this until the
bubbles slow down to almost a halt. This will help rid the mead of CO2. One other way people like to
degass is by using a “Vacu Vin Wine Saver”. This is used for storing wine bottles that have been
opened. It will pull the air and CO2 out of meads by creating a vacuum. Ultimately this is a highly
successful tool to use because the vacuum side of it easily pulls out any excess CO2 from the mead.
You will see lots of bubbles as you start the vacuum process.

It's important that you degas your mead because too much CO2 can cause problems with
bottling and storing for long periods of time. If there is a lot of CO2 stored in the mead you might have
a problem with bubbling and exploding whenever you eventually open it to drink it. I highly
recommend that you keep your airlocks on the mead as long as possible because this will act as a
natural degassing tool. Degassing your mead is something that you have to monitor yourself. Many
people will ask, “How often do I degas my mead?” and the truth is there is no perfect answer. The short
answer is that you need to try to degas it yourself and see the results. If there is little bubbling then your
mead is probably fairly well degassed. If there is still a lot of bubbling then there is likely a large
amount of CO2 still in the mead.

Once you've completed degassing, you should let the mead sit for about 8 to 12 weeks. The
mead gets flat after degassing and needs time to recover and re-build it's complexity.

To wrap this up, in short, degassing should be done after the fermentation process. You can stir,
swirl or use a wine saver to pull the CO2 out of the mead. You will know this is working by watching
to see if bubbles are forming as your doing one of these methods. Do this as many times as it takes for
the CO2 to make it's way out of the mead before storing it for a long time. If you do not do this you
could create a problem for yourself in the future when you bottle and let it sit for a long time.