On Fri, 21 Mar 2008 11:53:21 -0700 (PDT), Wayne Harris
wrote:

On Mar 21, 11:35*am, "Lum Eisenman" wrote:
"Wayne Harris" wrote in message

...

I have not searched the archives of this group, apologies if this has
been covered.

I have neither a Crusher/de-stemmer nor a grape press.

Does anyone ever use a standard basket wine press for both roles?

Can I get by with doing the initial crush with a light pressing in the
basket press?

-Wayne

Wayne,
Small quantities of grapes can be crushed by hand and the stems removed
using the following technique. *Put a clean, plastic milk crate on top of a
suitable container (a new, 33-gallon trash can). *Pickup a few clusters of
grapes in both hands. *Place your hands in the bottom of the milk crate and
squeeze the grapes. *Then make a scrubbing motion and the crushed fruit and
juice will drop through the crate into the container. *Discard the stems
from the crate and repeat the process.
Good luck with your winemaking,
Lum

I plan on making about 75 gallons of Cab this fall. I think that will
require about 1200 lbs of grapes.
Off-hand, that sounds like too much to process in this fashion.
thoughts?

I'm in a bit of a financial funk. 1200lbs sems too much to do by
hand, and too little to justify a 500 dollar crusher/destemmer.

the past couple of years I have been making wine from about 75 Kg (165
lbs) of grapes. It takes about 4 hours to pick out all the stems and
"crush" by hand squeezing with two people working and one person
"helping".

If I could get it here I'd buy the crusher.

Bruce-in-Bangkok
(correct email address for reply)