Thank you for my short episode, I’m very impressed. I’m also a bit jealous of the ease at which you can plunge your cap as I’ve spent the past week on the Mornington Peninsula hand plunging open ferments of up to 3500 litres! If only I could just give them a shake!

I have a suggestion for crushing, and Tim I know you’ll like it as it involves Duct tape. So, strain your wine from the ferment bottle into the cocktail shaker (great storage idea by-the-way), then stuff a BMX bike tube (preferably new) into the ferment. Use the Duct tape to firmly tape the ferment together so it doesn’t explode. Drill a hole in the ferment bottles lid for the tubes valve to protrude from, poke the valve through, put the lid on and tape in place. Now, start inflating! My advice would be to inflate to 20psi first, then release the pressure, drain the wine out then start the process again, this time to a higher pressure. Do this 5 or 6 times. Discard the left over skins and uncrushed seeds. The uncrushed seeds are important as if you use something metallic to do your crushing, the seeds will be crushed too and release nasty flavours into the wine.

Good luck and may the force be with you!

Bottle

ps call me if you need more explanation!