Operation Grape Expectations, Part the Second

Day Three of the wine from scratch experiment is almost over, and it's been a good one. The fermentation seems to be moving along quite nicely.

You can tell from the before and after picture that things have picked up considerably over in the yeast department in the last 24 hours. The carbon dioxide that's constantly being produced is pushing the skins, pulp, and seeds, (or "cap," as we call it in the business) to the top of the must, and I have to stir and push the cap back down into the wine several times a day.

The cap is now sticking over the top of the fermentor, held together by what I can only believe is a diabetes-inducing amount of sugar and sheer willpower.

The grand mess that I made in the kitchen yesterday has been cleaned up for the most part, although it looks sort of like a good-natured dullard murdered someone and tried to clean it up with a bloody towel. Were this CSI: Franklin Hills, David Caruso would undoubtedly walk in and say "Sometimes...(long pause, removes sunglasses) grapes aren't the only things that get stomped."

But it's not, and I got grape juice everywhere and it's totally sticky.