Bag It & Tag It

I haven't posted much about the fermentation process, but here's a bit of info on how it ends.  After 5 or 6 days of punch downs to fully extract color and flavor out of the skins, the yeast eventually dies off because of the alcohol content of the must.  In effect, the yeast dies in its own waste products (alcohol and CO2).

To completely stop fermentation, we simply bag the bins, extract as much air as possible from the bag, slap the bin lids back on top, and package the whole thing up. The bins can then remain stacked while we wait for an opportune time to press the juice out of the must:

Bins full of fermented must awaiting pressing