3.1 Punching the Cap

[jasonclick]

I'm currently reading a document on the basics of making wine and I've gotten to the part about punching down the grape skins several times a day for various reasons. I come from the homebrew world where I've dry hopped and would basically add hops to a mesh bag and add weights (marbles) to the bad so it would stay submerged. Can the same thing be done for grape skins or is there another reason to punch down the skins?

 

[sour_grapes]

Jason, are you talking about making wine from fresh grapes, or from a kit? (I am guessing that a book on the "basics of making wine" would be about wine from grapes.)

For a kit that includes grapeskins, you may do as you suggest, that is, put the skins in a muslin bag and weight the bag. (This is what I generally do.)

If we are talking about grapes, that would be just about impossible. There won't be any liquid to speak of initially.

 

[jasonclick]

makes sense. Yes I was talking about from grapes.