Punching Down Country Wine

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KevinAZ

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Hi Vintners,

I just started my first country wine (Prickly Pear) yesterday. I've got my raisins and my fruit in a mesh bag and it looks like for whatever reason the bag is keeping the fruit about 95% below the surface. There's really just a couple of little mesh "bubbles" sticking up. Would I be able to skip punching down? Or is it better just to do it and be safe rather than sorry? I'm really new to this and just don't want to introduce too much oxygen in the mix.

Now that I'm thinking about this question more, I am remembering that the bubbles from the fermentation could raise up the fruit. Is that right? So punch down and just try to be too violent about it to keep the oxygen at bay?

Thanks,
Kevin
 
Welcome to WMT!

Yeast need oxygen at the beginning, so no worries about introducing oxygen at this point. Many of us use a food grade bucket with a towel over it (to keep out any bugs) for the primary fermentation. This makes it easier to stir and punch down every day or even a couple times a day.

I typically rack to a carboy and use an airlock after the s.g. gets down to 1.010 or below. Sometimes if the fermentation is quick, it ferments all the way to dry before I put it under airlock. It's still releasing enough CO2 for a while to protect it from O2, even after fermentation is complete.

Hope this helps!
 
You will hear skeptics say Oxygen is bad and you will hear folks say it's not an issue. Both will offer their evidence for the statements. Best bet is that you need to do what you think will be best for the best wine. If your ferment is a typical one, it's giving off a lot of gas and unless you are pumping O2 into the wine deliberately, I personally would not worry about your wine getting oxidized during an active ferment. Once below 1.020 or when most of the foam is clearly gone from the wine. (nothing but a few little floating islands of foam) then punching down is probably not needed,.
Personally My punching down is more to make sure the fruit is getting pressed a bit more each time to get every bit of flavor from it.
 
So another question about this batch and a mistake I make last night…

The potato masher I’m using to punch down is washed after each use. I also sanitize it with Star San before use, but last night I messed up and punched down the fruit without sanitizing. What can I do to help ensure that whatever nasties I just introduced die before they become a problem?

thanks again
 
So another question about this batch and a mistake I make last night…

The potato masher I’m using to punch down is washed after each use. I also sanitize it with Star San before use, but last night I messed up and punched down the fruit without sanitizing. What can I do to help ensure that whatever nasties I just introduced die before they become a problem?

thanks again

Probably nothing, but don't fret or worry about it much. Just remember going forward. Since you wash after every punch down, little was left to harbor bacteria, more than likely no harm was done.
 
Wine is a multi variable preservation system. pH, alcohol, CO2 and the fermentable sugars are used up all act as fences to keep infection out
So another question about this batch and a mistake I make last night…

The potato masher I’m using to punch down is washed after each use. I also sanitize it with Star San before use, but last night I messed up and punched down the fruit without sanitizing. What can I do to help ensure that whatever nasties I just introduced die before they become a problem?

thanks again
some of us use our hands and mush it up, ,,, no I have never done star San hands

welcome to WMT
 
some of us use our hands and mush it up, ,,, no I have never done star San hands
Don't use an autoclave, either, it hurts a lot! 😉

Agree, I wash my hands well before touching things. During crush, it's not feasible to do anything to further sanitize hands.
 
My routine with tools container etc is to wash and sanitize right after use. Then sanitize just before I use them the next time - unless that 'next time' is the same day or sooner.

Washing hands etc. just normal home food prep sanitary practices, but; I don't go so far as to use gloves when handling the fruit.
These days if I was concerned that much I would actually stop making wine - who knows what viruses, germs, bacteria I might have on my skin or be breathing out. So I just stick to common sense 'rules.' This current world wide health crisis has proven that no matter how much we think we know about protecting ourselves from disease, we never know it all. So I'll stick with reasonable practical conduct in my wine making.

By the way when I'm sanitizing my buckets I normally swish the starsan around and then use my hands to make sure the entire inside of the bucket and the rim outside are covered with the solution/foam. So far no issues with my skin or my wine.
 

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