Winemaking topic: Have acorns ever been used in winemaking?

Here's one for the winemakers among us, and anyone else who might follow those topics.

Of course, most use of oak centers on the use of either barrels or oak chips or shavings to impart desirable flavours and tannins to the wines - in good measure, of course. How about acorns, which are essentially oak nuts? Acorns from Quercus alba are similarly tannic and have a nice, mild flavour ... Has anyone ever heard of the inner nuts being ground up and added to homemade wines?

There are lots of resources online for people wishing to make culinary use of oak nuts; mainly the use seems to center on grounding them for flour and leaching the tannins out to make the flour less astringent/bitter. How about leveraging the tannin content of acorns in one's homemade wine?

I might try this with a small, separate batch of my red this year just to see what happens.

Here's one for you - Acorn Wine
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/acorn.asp

Thanks Howie

It appears that the local oaks are going to put out a bounty this year, so I will have to set a day aside and do some foraging.

Many years ago, I did just that - collected acorns, shelled them at home and tried boiling the tannin out to make them edible. Unfortunately (and I didn't know this at the time), when changing the water, you have to add them from boiling water to boiling water; going from hot to cold will lock in the remaining tannin and the nuts will be permanently bitter. That's what happened the last time.

This is probably also suitable for the Kitchen forum, since acorns have been used for flour as well.

Packing nuts away for winter, Paul?

You could say that, Joe. In fact, I hope to try my first batch of acorn bread this year. I have wanted to make that for ages.

Here you go Paul B...............!!!

http://www.scarysquirrel.org/page1.html

Guess if two different squirrel species interbreed, you have a hybrid.