cap punching

As long as you're not breaking the skins up too much it shouldn't be a problem.

Dan

Generally, punching down the cap every couple of hours does no harm during the first week of a healthy primary fermentation. In fact, it is beneficial for most reds to keep the cap wet and extracting all the goodies and let the heat caused by fermentation disipate. Some reds, such as merlot benefit greatly from the technique. I use a fan over my primaries when punching down a merlot must. Over time your nose can pick up the faintest H2S odours and aggressive punching really helps. Okay back to your concern. Let's assume you sleep for 8 hours and poke your must every three hours out of the remaining 16 hours. What that around 5-6 times in 24 hours? That is not too much. The recommended minimum is three times a day. Monitor the S.G. and ease up to twice a day below 1.020 S.G. and press when it reaches .995 to 1.000. Cheers Zinman

Dan

Generally, punching down the cap every couple of hours does no harm during the first week of a healthy primary fermentation. In fact, it is beneficial for most reds to keep the cap wet and extracting all the goodies and let the heat caused by fermentation disipate. Some reds, such as merlot benefit greatly from the technique. I use a fan over my primaries when punching down a merlot must. Over time your nose can pick up the faintest H2S odours and aggressive punching really helps. Okay back to your concern. Let's assume you sleep for 8 hours and poke your must every three hours out of the remaining 16 hours. What that around 5-6 times in 24 hours? That is not too much. The recommended minimum is three times a day. Monitor the S.G. and ease up to twice a day below 1.020 S.G. and press when it reaches .995 to 1.000. Cheers Zinman

It doesn't really sound excessive so much as it sounds obsessive or cumplusive. I bet you are new to wine making. But, dang, if we were not all obsessive we would not be paying so much attention to this site.

I don't see how you could be doing any damage as long as you are not mixing too much air into the must. As far as breaking the skins too much, I was taught to squeeze the grapes with my hands as I punched down to be sure that all the grapes were really broken. That is a matter of style I guess.

Ray

Hey, Dan, we've all been through a phase in our lives when we had to punch the cap every few hours. ;-)

Brian

LOL, that reply fits my interpretation, too. ;-)

OK, calm down, enough...

Brian

I use a stainless steal mixer that a friend on mine maid much like the mixer that you would use to mix drywall with. I attach it to a

1/2 inch drill and mix the cap, in instead of punching it down. I am probably introducing some air but I am not shure that it is a bad thing to do.

There are two reasons that I know of to "punch down the cap": To keep the cap moist, and thus discourage the growth of bacteria; and to increase extraction of colour and flavours from the skin. Rather than push the cap down, or spray it with pumped must, I prefer to stir it gently with a large rod. I believe that this provides more extraction than the other methods. The downside is that some alcohol will evaporate --- the more vigorous the stirring, the more loss. I don't believe aeration is a problem at this stage of fermentation (of a highly-tannic red wine), and it may even be beneficial. Your "invention" should work well, providing the drill speed is relatively low. If it is too high, you might get excessive aeration and/or alcohol loss.

Thank you for the suggestion Negodki I never thought about alcohol loss.