when you receive your pail of grapes the first thing I want to do is father it takes about two days in a warm environment in your inside your house you'll want to take the lid off and actually stir them up as soon as you're able to with a sanitized spoon this will break up any cold center core and distribute the temperatures better after they're completely thawed I sanitize my hands and arms and dig through the pail of grapes looking for any stems or foreign objects these grapes are usually very nice and clean though I found a stem here and that's it's you've got a beautiful bucket of grapes ready to be fermented