Mixing wine and beer

Hangman · 11-16-2011, 06:44 AM

I'm more into Homebrewing beer, but have a wine question.

I have some friends that make wine using the yeast thats naturally on the grapes for fermentation.

Since I have the contacts to get my hand on wine grapes, I want to make a beer as normal with malt and add crushed grapes with it to the fermentor and allow the natural yeast to ferment it.

Do you guys think its a good idea or will I just waste a few gallons of beer? Also how do I prevent any bugs from infecting the fermentation with out killing the yeast on the grapes? Or is it just a chance I have to take?

Christoff

Vinny57 · 11-16-2011, 07:30 AM

Your friends are just lucky that they haven't gotten a bad strain of wild yeast yet.

Dicky · 11-16-2011, 12:53 PM

It is pretty hard to get a good stain of wild yeast. I'm not sure what the grapes with the beer would do either.

Just thinking of the nights out I've started with beer and ended with wine.

Didn't feel great the next morning.

Dicky.

**bluemoose** · 11-16-2011, 05:32 PM

This is a WAG, so take it with a grain of salt.

I would think that the higher sugar content of wine must helps to get rid of the bugs. Where beer it typically lower sugar wort, the bad bugs from the grapes might have an easier time taking hold.
I would echo the above posts as well. The reason we get yeast in packages it because it make consistently good beer. You could get some great wild, or some terrible stuff. It is a risk you will need to take.
That said, you could try to make a yeast starter with the grapes, decant and pitch. That way you would know if you were getting the bad bugs with it, and not have the grapes in your beer.

**Revvy** · 11-16-2011, 05:40 PM

Dogfish heads "Midas Touch" is technically a combnation of beer wine and mead, and has grape concentrate in it.

The Flemish Druivenbier is a beer made with grapes. Looks like some folks have brewed them here.

So I wouldn't shoot the idea down...There's quite a few beers actually;

Quote:

Originally Posted by Morebeer thread

Cantillon Vigneronne and Russian River Depuration come to mind. Wine grapes can works marvelously in a lambic IMO, but not so well in other styles. I've had the Allagash Victor and Victoria beers and both were kinda lackluster. The SA Longshot grape ale that was served at the GABF was not good either. Craftsman, a local brewery in Los Angeles has made their "Cabernale" a few times. It's basically a mild blond ale with cabernet sauvignon grapes in the mash or boil (not sure which). It tastes like a bad wine cooler.

I don't know how good the yeast on the skin would be at fermenting malt sugars. But it would be worth a try.

Hangman · 11-17-2011, 03:03 PM

Rather than putting all my eggs in one basket I think I'll experiment properly.

Split the wort in 3. Then I can ferment 1 spontanously. Sterilise the grapes for other 2 and ferment with wine and ale yeast.

From the ratebeer insert I don't hold much hope for a winner but I'll post the results

solidghost · 11-21-2011, 04:26 AM

There seems to be quite a lot of interest on wild yeasts in the wine making industry recently. The claim is that the taste is more complex because of the different kinds of yeasts. But as others have said, hit or miss kind of thing for the home brewer. However to be realistic, in the past, wines were all fermented using wild yeast and we have been making wine for centuries already.

Wild Yeast in Winemaking

Natural wine making, Wild Yeast Fermentation - YouTube