does anyone know which Sydenham shops sell grape juice (white or preferably red).
I've not seen it in co-Op, or Lidl - I'm making homebrew wine, I have 7lbs of elderberries but in only 1 gallon of liquid, so I need to top up with red grap juice, and haven't found any yet.
I'm sure J Sainsbury savacentre / Bell Green will have, but don't necessarily want to have to go that far.
Preferably a shop on the high st on the way home.
Grape juice?
Re: Grape juice?
Try Well Being 19 Sydenham Road
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Re: Grape juice?
Lidl normally stock it. Perhaps you looked on a bad day.
Re: Grape juice?
thanks, I'll try looking harder.
Re: Grape juice?
Tesco sell it online: http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/ ... =268248043 Could get the local Tesco to order some?
Re: Grape juice?
.....or alternatively you could come over and get some of our red grapes which are almost ready to harvest (too sour to eat but fine for wine I think).
Not sure how much you need, have a look when you next pass by (you know where we live... same place as the elderberries!)
Not sure how much you need, have a look when you next pass by (you know where we live... same place as the elderberries!)
Re: Grape juice?
Grapes for making wine do need to be sweet, as well as acidic. It's well worth pruning away any leaves which block the sun from getting to the fruit - in a week or so it will make a noticeable difference to the sugar levels.Maria wrote:.....or alternatively you could come over and get some of our red grapes which are almost ready to harvest (too sour to eat but fine for wine I think).
Not sure how much you need, have a look when you next pass by (you know where we live... same place as the elderberries!)
Re: Grape juice?
Oh is that right? Had no idea, thanks Tim! Shall do....
Re: Grape juice?
I don't personally recommend trying to make wine, because although I have tasted some home made which is drinkable, it's still not as good as a cheap £5 bottle from a supermarkt or off-licence. And I have also tasted some which was foul.
The problem is that you have to be incredibly careful, especially with hygiene, keeping out wild yeasts and all the other fungi and bacteria which can make wine go bad,or vinegary. It's also difficult to get the sugar levels high enough to get an alcohol content - say 11% - which would taste anything other than watery, which is local wine makers I know always add sugar. Commercial growers aren't allowed to do this (there's some clever science behind how this is enforced...) so I have a lot of respect for how they manage to get enough sugar in grapes grown in this country. I recently tasted a decent wine grown in Welshpool, but last year they produced nothing.
Even so, the grapes I produced in 2011, still without enough sugar for normal wine making, tasted very sweet; I can remember the stickiness of the sugar on my lips after eating them.
I think pre-commercial wine making would have been as much as anything a way of preserving the grape harvest, which has the annoying habit of all coming at once. As such, people wouldn't have been so bothered about wine being weaker than we normally expect it to be. In the same way that there used to be something called 'small beer', which was only alcoholic enough to help it keep, I reckon people would have kept such weak wine for drinking because it would have been better than any drinking water they had.
Or it could have been that in pre-modern times, people were just that much more desperate to get drunk, and would accept having foul hangovers as the price.
The problem is that you have to be incredibly careful, especially with hygiene, keeping out wild yeasts and all the other fungi and bacteria which can make wine go bad,or vinegary. It's also difficult to get the sugar levels high enough to get an alcohol content - say 11% - which would taste anything other than watery, which is local wine makers I know always add sugar. Commercial growers aren't allowed to do this (there's some clever science behind how this is enforced...) so I have a lot of respect for how they manage to get enough sugar in grapes grown in this country. I recently tasted a decent wine grown in Welshpool, but last year they produced nothing.
Even so, the grapes I produced in 2011, still without enough sugar for normal wine making, tasted very sweet; I can remember the stickiness of the sugar on my lips after eating them.
I think pre-commercial wine making would have been as much as anything a way of preserving the grape harvest, which has the annoying habit of all coming at once. As such, people wouldn't have been so bothered about wine being weaker than we normally expect it to be. In the same way that there used to be something called 'small beer', which was only alcoholic enough to help it keep, I reckon people would have kept such weak wine for drinking because it would have been better than any drinking water they had.
Or it could have been that in pre-modern times, people were just that much more desperate to get drunk, and would accept having foul hangovers as the price.
Re: Grape juice?
cutting the leaves off grape vines 'to let the sunshine get to the grapes' isn't actually as good an idea as it sounds.
They will need to have air flow around them, so that they don't get certain fungi, disease etc, but the leaves are power producers of the plant, chlorophyl using the suns energy to produce the sugars which are stored in the grapes. Cutting off the leaves just reduces the ability of the vine to produce those sugars.
and thanks Maria, I did see the grapes whilst there picking elderberries, but I have no idea what variety they are, eaters or wine makers, and I've already topped up the elderberry wine with cooled boiled tap water.
[Edit to add] a home economist friend of mine, who also works at The International Wine and Spirit Centre, told me that the first £4 of any bottle of wine is all in the production, cost of processing, bottle filling, labelling, etc, etc, etc, and that only above that value do you notice a difference in quality of the wine the more you spend. Any bottle less than £4 is making a loss somewhere.
yes sugar is a flavour dilutant, and as such one can use grape concentrate, or raisins or sultanas to add the needed sugars to raise the abv whilst also adding body to the wine. or grape juice - which was the point of the original post - topping up without diluting the abv.
They will need to have air flow around them, so that they don't get certain fungi, disease etc, but the leaves are power producers of the plant, chlorophyl using the suns energy to produce the sugars which are stored in the grapes. Cutting off the leaves just reduces the ability of the vine to produce those sugars.
and thanks Maria, I did see the grapes whilst there picking elderberries, but I have no idea what variety they are, eaters or wine makers, and I've already topped up the elderberry wine with cooled boiled tap water.
[Edit to add] a home economist friend of mine, who also works at The International Wine and Spirit Centre, told me that the first £4 of any bottle of wine is all in the production, cost of processing, bottle filling, labelling, etc, etc, etc, and that only above that value do you notice a difference in quality of the wine the more you spend. Any bottle less than £4 is making a loss somewhere.
yes sugar is a flavour dilutant, and as such one can use grape concentrate, or raisins or sultanas to add the needed sugars to raise the abv whilst also adding body to the wine. or grape juice - which was the point of the original post - topping up without diluting the abv.
Re: Grape juice?
This makes sense, although it will matter less for a variety - such as the one I have, Black Hambugh a.k.a. Trollinger - which is very disease resistant. Standard wine varieties, such as Pino Noir, are not, which means that growers are more likely to have to spray. And it's only in the period immediately before harvesting that I'd cut back the leaves.JRobinson wrote:cutting the leaves off grape vines 'to let the sunshine get to the grapes' isn't actually as good an idea as it sounds.
They will need to have air flow around them, so that they don't get certain fungi, disease etc, but the leaves are power producers of the plant, chlorophyl using the suns energy to produce the sugars which are stored in the grapes. Cutting off the leaves just reduces the ability of the vine to produce those sugars.