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Experimental Fermenting Things

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U

USMCMatt

NewBee
Registered Member
Feb 23, 2012
18
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0
Orlando, FL
Thought it would be fun last night to ferment some juice. Whatever you choose to call it, I've had some great stuff and some horrible stuff in the past. Thought I'd start making start making several batches over the next couple months and see where I end up for a summer slammer.

#1 Ocean Spray Cranberry
1.75lbs Corn Sugar
Raisin Mash
Half Pack of Red Star Champagne yeast

#2 Ocean Spray Cran Grape
1.75lbs Corn Sugar
Raisin Mash
Half Pack of Red Star Cote des Blancs yeast

Also will make a Apple Cocktail using beer yeast that hopefully will drop out around 9-10%

Ferment 2 weeks then cold crash, bottle. Not sure if I'm going to carb them or not yet. Probably won't this time until I get the mix right with the yeast I want to use. Keeping them cold in case some stray yeast wants to start back up (boom)

For reference if anyone needs - the bungs are #8's for this container.

Also finally found a reason to use the MrBeer funnel/strainer thingy.

1.jpg

Bunch of Raisins in 1/2" of water mashed up simmering hot

2.jpg

Corn Sugar

3.jpg

Yeast Food

4.jpg

Both Starting after 7 hours, blurp blurp


edit:

The Red Star Cote des Blancs has taken off and is fizzing and gas escaping at a good clip, however, the Red Star Champagne is on fire, almost 3 airlock pops to the cote's one. Darn near looks like the juice is going to break out into a boil lol.

No foam at all, but lots of fizzing

Whole closet smells like Champagney odor now

edit:

I have also started a batch of Apple cocktail somethingorother and used a pack of general brewer yeast.

So between the three of them I should get an idea how the 3 yeasts taste.

I'm still not sure how I'm going to bottle. I'm sure the beer yeast will drop out and be over taken with abv but with the other yeasts I'm not sure if I should add potassium to stop the yeast before bottling or what to avoid some bombs.
 
Those sound good. And you've made fruit wine our "country wine", if you want a name for it, that's where I started before I got into meads... I used a really nice pomegranate juice blend with honey one year, was one of my nicest creations at that point. And mixing juice with honey uses a LOT less honey than making a mel from the fruit!

If you're going to bottle-carb, make sure they're DONE (SG 1.000 or less and not moving) before you bottle. If you're force-carbing, you might want to stabilize them just in case 2 weeks didn't get all the sugar converted.
 
That pomegranate and honey sounds really good, wouldn't mind trying that sometime.

I might carb I might not but I'm leaning towards not doing it this time around just to get a feel for the yeasts first and tweak around before adding a bunch of extra steps.
 
Pomegranate does sound good. I have to be near Trader Joe's this week, might go in and see what juices they have. I think most stuff I checked at our local grocery stores had additives in them.
 
Sadie Lady said:
Pomegranate does sound good. I have to be near Trader Joe's this week, might go in and see what juices they have. I think most stuff I checked at our local grocery stores had additives in them.
Click to expand...

Trader Joe's is great for juices. A bit pricey (though 100% juice tends to be), but it definitely makes for great mead. I tend to use things like the tart cherry juice as "filler" in my melomels. As CG pointed out, saves on some money, but is still good enough for me.
 
I have some tart cherry juice for my next batch. I have some fruit frozen from last years garden and found some intriguing recipes on-line that I'm co-mingling into one based on what I had frozen, blackberries, raspberries, etc,
 
I guess we're pretty lucky to have a good selection of 100% juice blends in the grocery stores, and when they say that they also mean no preservatives... but yes, always check the labels and stay away from anything with potassium sorbate in it. Citric acid is OK though.
 
Interestingly enough the Champagne has slowed down and the Cote des Blancs now has taken off after one week.

The Apple blend I did with beer yeast is still rocketing strong
 
Cranberry with the champagne yeast is delicious warm, ok cold

Grape with the cote is ok warm and better cold, but tad of an odd flavor in there

Apple cocktail mix with beer yeast is disgusting and gross. It went down the drain, had a weird dryness to it like sucking on an old mattress.

I'm not sure how I'm going to bottle it, or just keep it around racked off another plastic jug. Threw some sorbate in there and called it a day.
 
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