SC - Grapes and needing help

[Philip & Susan Troy]

ChannonM at aol.com wrote:
> 
> 1.What properties (taste) would result from pressing these grapes at or about
> the time they reach the size of a chick pea (approx. a third of an inch in
> diameter)?

I would _think_ you'd get a very little sour juice. Have you eaten such
grapes? Since these are not only unripe, but also downright immature,
they'd be pretty insubstantial, I think.
 
> 2 Can a sweet product be derived from unripe grapes- say those harvested
> before mid July (or and I quote- when still covered in the first bloom),
> barring any drying of the grape beforehand and on the first press.?

Well, the trouble is that any sugar there is (and there won't be that
much) would tend to require some kind of concentration, either by drying
or by cooking, normally, and the problem with that is that you'd be
concentrating other chemicals as well as the sugar. The ratio, then, of
sugar to acids and astringents, would be unlikely to change. It'd still
make you pucker a bit, to say the least. 

> 
> If said product from either of  these processes is condensed (as in boiled
> down to a third its original volume) would it become sweet or sweeter than
> its predecessor?

No change, AFAIK. See above.

If you've got a literary reference, say, to sweet grapes at about that
size, I expect you and the author of whatever has the reference are
talking about different varieties of grape...

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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