Boy, that really tickles the nose, doesn't it?

I had a little excitement and danger yesterday. I almost fell into the fermenting tote. You see, things are really cranking at the crushpad. We have about 8 totes of fermenting reds (Merlot and Cab Franc). All of them need daily punchdowns and testing. As usual, I was using the step ladder to maneuver around the totes for punchdown. I can do this without the step ladder, but not having the upper body strength of "Muscles" it's easier to leverage the strength I have from a higher vantage point. After punching down three in a row, I was slightly out of breath and teetering on top of the ladder. This was my first clue to take a break. But I'm all about efficiency(mixed in with a healthy dose of stubbornness). Looking around and seeing how many more I had to punchdown, I thought I could shortcut and punchdown the far side from where I was without moving my step ladder. As expected, I overreached, but then plunged the punchdown right into the middle.....luckily, I caught myself on the "pogo" but my face sort of hovered over the top of the must and I found myself staring at beautiful red grape juice and skins just inches from my face. Well, the CO2 coming off these babies shot right up my nose made me pop upright. Whoa Nelly! If you've had sushi you may be familliar with the sensation. It feels like taking a bite of sushi loaded with super strength wasabi. Eyes watering, sinus clearing shot right up your nose. It's a tickle hurt. Painful tickle? Not pleasant, is what I'm trying to say here. The CO2 is actually something you do have to be careful about. We call them "hot" tanks and fermentations. We don't ever have to go into a closed container, but when you are working around these things, you have to be careful. There are OSHA rules for working with closed containers because you can literally knock out and die if you fall into one where CO2 has pooled. C told me about a few tragic cautionary tales that happened back in the 80s. Sad stories of workers who went into a stainless steel tank to clean it out but were knocked out by invisible CO2 gases and were killed instantly. In some cases, another worker would go in after the first one and they would both die. Not something to take lightly. This is why there are all kinds of rules about working around closed containers. Here, I don't ever have to worry about that since we do not ever need to go into a closed container.