Wine Concentrates

[gometz]

I have raspberry sour going right now, and once I pull it off the berries, I have a base sour ready to put on the raspberries to pick up the rest of their delicious flavors ($60 in berries, going to get all I can out of them).

I got the idea from somewhere to augment the raspberry flavor with some Cabernet must. But now I'm not sure it will be easy to do. The Alexander cans have a gravity of 68 brix, about 1.3 SG. If I add a can to 5 gallons, I'm increasing the SG by 0.05, which is way more alcohol than I want.

Has anyone tried this before? Does it make sense to use the concentrate it should I stick to wine soaked oak? I'm thinking about adding only 1/5th of the can and then putting the rest in sanitized jars (but for what else? Maybe add two jars to my next sour?).

Any advice is appreciated.

 

[NTexBrewer]

Why not dilute the concentrate with water to the same ABV as your beer. Or at least to normal wine ABV.

 

[gometz]

Why not dilute the concentrate with water to the same ABV as your beer. Or at least to normal wine ABV.

The issue with that is that the concentrate is meant for 2.5 gallons of wine, so about 1.100 SG. I'd have to make 2.5 gallons of wine, or almost 5 gallons of weak wine matching the SG of the beer. I have never made wine, and don't want to invest in the bottles and corker.

I need to all around if my parents might be making a red wine anytime soon and see if I can just snag a cup or two of their must.

 

[505-Brewer]

In that case buy a bottle of wine and blend it in at the end?
If you can find one with minimal sulfites that might be better.

 

[gometz]

I've considered that, but not a huge fan of blending in the finished wine, probably just me being difficult. I think my best bet will be to just add some wine soaked oak. I am now debating juicing some pomegranates for it as well.