I have always started picking grapes when I started seeing some grapes dropping. I just read a description of this grape as being golden and "honey sweet". Mine are green, I look for a white colored dullness to the skin, but I really have a hard time telling when they are ripe by sight. Am I picking too early? How long a period do the grapes ripen over? (I live within Portland.)
I have too many grapes for fresh eating. My dehydrator won't heat. Can I jst try cutting the bunches, and hanging them up on a line? (With a sheet underneath them of course.) I really don't have the freezer space for juice and I gave all my canning jars away, because I wanted to do some home repairs, and they were just cluttering things up.
Can I make a wine with them? Where can I find a recipe?
Many of the vines climbed up onto the house roof. The easiest way to harvest these is by hacking at the vines. Will remove these canes hurt the plant? (I would say the about 3/4 of the plant is "out-of-bounds." Quite a few of the grapes I removed today were okay, but from past experience, they soon decay if left alone.
Thanks,
Mary M.
If you've got Himrod, and live in Portland (my hometown), yours will be ripe before mine – in Yamhill County’s "Wine Country." I actually spent most of the day in a vineyard talking grapes! Pretty nice, till the propane cannons start up! I just taste-test ours. In different locations of our yard they'll ripen at different times! Poorer soil, fewer leaves = earlier ripening; rich soil, dense leaves, later... Just pluck a berry. The good thing, or 'a' good thing about Himrod (a 'Sister grape' of Interlaken) is they're green, and the birds don't notice them! They also have loose clusters and are less prone to powdery mildew. And, they ripen early.
So you're thinking raisins? "Sunmade raisins?" ...If they don't ferment! I'd consider yellowjeckets and hornets potential problems too, they love sweet! I've never tried that, but then there's a lot of things I've not yet tried..
My Sister will occasionally freeze extra grapes, individually on a tray, then bag them. The 'individual' part takes space, but the bags compact well. They're great crunchy treats next summer... I've pressed mine in an apple press, but lacking one would be a lot of work. Worse case, we take them to work / school and give them away to neighbors...
I suspect the wine process is online, but you'll still need to extract the fresh juice. You can't cook it out and make wine. Got a big wooden barrel, clean feet, and one of those ruffley French dresses 
Grapes are wonderfully resilient. I wouldn't hesitate (when they're ripe) hacking them high and getting them off the house, while doing your best to salvage the clusters. Grapes need heavy pruning ... I'm 3 years behind on mine... Grapes don't last long unrefrigerated. It doesn’t look like I'm any help at all! Just cut & gobble 
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Grapes will last off the vine given the right storage, it used to be done in the UK, and I believe there's a region of Belgium where it's still done. Basically you cut the whole bunch with a good bit of stem and put it into a bottle of water, there used to be special bottles for this.
Can't remember where I read this though 
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