How to Stomp Berries or Grapes for Wine Making

Take your home wine making to another level of intrigue. Stomp your own fruit!

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Large Food Grade Bin
• Terri Cloth Towels
• Feet
• Food Grade Buckets or Jugs

1. Fruit Preparation: De-stem all berries or grapes prior to stomping. If your goal is to extract the juice and ferment it OFF the fruit, then the small stems can stay in. If you are going to ferment ON the fruit, remove as many stems as possible.
   
   If you have wild fruit or backyard fruit that is completely free of chemicals and pesticides, feel free to stomp the fruit without washing it. Nature adds some fantastic characteristics to wines. However, if you purchased your fruit or know it to not be completely organic, wash it thoroughly. A small amount of pesticide will ruin a lot of wine.

2. Equipment Preparation: Use the same chemicals that you clean the rest of your wine equipment with to clean all of the buckets and jars you will be using. For the towels, run them through the wash if they are new so that you don't get any fuzz.

3. Feet: NO SMELLY MAN FEET! That being said, wash your feet well. Hit them with a chemical wash and rinse right before you put them in the berries. This will prevent any contamination from this step. Also, removal of any calluses, boils etcetera, may be a good idea.

4. 
   Just to share, here is my wife stomping berries in the bath tub while she was pregnant with our daughter.

   Stomping: Stomp away. Make sure every single berry is smashed. When you think you are done, do some more.

5. Straining: At this point, if you are fermenting on the fruit, transfer the must to your primary fermenter and proceed as you normally would. If you want the juice out now, say for a white wine, take the towels and squeeze the berries dry to extract as much juice as possible. The terry cloth towels can withstand an immense amount of pressure so you can nearly squeeze them dry if you want to.

Tips & Warnings

• If after you squeeze for a bit you find a lot of berries are still whole, do some more stomping.
• Do this outside if you can. It has the potential to make a huge mess.
• NO MAN FEET! Seriously it's bad luck.

[tylamac]

on 1/4/2009 I always wondered why you only see women doing this in the movies. Now we know. No man feet allowed. Wonderful!

[GreenGardenChic]

on 3/18/2008 No man feet.. got it. So funny, thanks.