I would love to add some wine grapes to a sour I am making. They seem harder to get then most fruit. Anyone have a good source where you can get 10 or 20 pounds?
I'm lucky enough to have plenty of Farmers Markets in the city that I can pick up fresh grapes from. I've used grapes in two different levels: 1- Mashed the grapes into a must, put into a muslin bag to make bottling/transferring easier. Worked very well. Risk of infection is high though. 2- My preferred method was soaking oak chips in the remainder of the second bottle of Syrah my wife and I couldn't polish off in a night for about a month (longer wouldn't hurt if you have the time) and throwing into the secondary. #2 will definitely add a wine aroma and taste and to make it sour I'd recommend pitching dregs from a sour. I pitched Supplication dregs and it was the best 1 gallon experimental brown ale batch I've made.
Your farmers market has wine varieties? This beer already has Lacto and pedio so "infection" not a problem but the point.
you should be in good spot in Mass to source wine grapes. M&M in Hartford, CT is one of the biggest grape sources outside of the west coast. If you don't want to travel to Hartford, see if your lhbs or produce market (I know of one in Everett & one in Falls River) has some available to order. Many homebrew shops will order some up this time of year.
If you use some campden as directed, and pitch into an already fermented beer, you should be fine. Seeing as the base beer is already sour, probably less of an issue.
I got mine from Jewell Towne in NH, but I only needed 1-2lbs. I'm not sure they are willing to part with a much larger volume. Also, I called at least a half a dozen wineries in NH and the majority harvested much earlier this year due to the hot and humid September we had.
I work as a winemaker for a day job... So I obviously have very good access to grapes... I just added 2.5lb of high end pinot to a saison I brewed with HF Arthur propagated yeast. Let it naturally start re-fermenting and I'm getting great pinot character and beer seems to be souring well. I know that doesn't help anyone here, but I'm excited, first time using grapes with beer. Combining my 2 passions!!!!
Ask around at your nearest Sons of Italy meeting? When I started brewing, the LHBS was primarily a liquor store and supplier of wine grapes for the local Italian and Portuguese Americans who still made wine. Homebrew suppliers were a sideline.
I have plans to blend one of these (edit: Zinfandel) with ~ 5 gallons of ~50/50 Flanders Brown/Berliner Weiss tomorrow night, unless anyone with prior experience wants to talk me out of it.
IME they can be hit or miss and the reason is that you have no idea how old the can is. I made a hybrid beer a while back using a can of barbera, a munich/pils base, kolsch yeast, vanilla bean and oak and it was probably the single most complex and delicious beer I have ever made. After that success I used a chenin blanc can in a biere de garde and ruined the beer. I dumped it in without thinking, and then right before tossing the can I smelled and tasted it - the syrup was super oxidized and tasted horrible. I suggest you do it, but taste the can before you add it, even going so far as to dilute it down a bit and taste (sweetness can cover some off flavor)
Anybody know of a source for lambrusco or trebbiano grapes/or must???? I want to use them in biere de garde as well as starting to make some "balsamic" vinegar in a 5 gal barrel I have taken out of use
OP, I see that you're in MA. If you are close to Woburn go to Beer and Wine Hobby, they are taking orders now for grapes.
