I'll drink it if it kills me

Picked the grapefruit tree of an old acquaintance and filled 3-4 boxes of huge yellow spotted fruits. Juicing them resulted in a tart, bitter drink. I have no experience making wine, and very little in brewing beer for that matter, but I decided to try my hand at a grapefruit wine.

Juiced the suckers until I had about 1/2 gallon of grapefruit juice, added a couple cups of juiced apricots, roughly 2 pounds of assorted sugars laying around the kitchen, and brought it all to a boil. I figured these grapefruits were very acidic, supposedly around 3.5, and I had a vague notion that baking powder was a fairly harmless basic compound - so in went a couple teaspoons of that. The only yeast I had around, were a couple containers of washed ale yeast I had in the fridge. After I cooled down the grapefruit concoction to around room temperature, I pitched the yeast in a 1-gallon wine jug and hoped for the best.

Any possibility of success?

Ummm...any idea what the OG of the juices, GF+apricot, were before adding the sugar?

Any idea what the SG of the concoction is now?

Two pounds of sugar added to a one gallon batch is probably so sweet that any fermentation is now stalled!

I would have warmed the juice to add the sugars, myself, rather than boiled, but thats just me.

And, I would have used calcium carbonate, instead of baking (powder?) soda, to reduce the acid levels...and, I would have at least used ph test strips, if not a ph meter, to adjust the ph, rather than just making a stab in the dark...but, again, thats just me.

I'm thinking that this will never be drunk, at least as it sits now!

Pogo

Didn't bother with the gravity, just thought I'd let it ferment and see how it tasted. It's bubbling a bit slow at a bubble/4sec after ~9 hours. I think you're right about the sugar, especially with that much juiced fruit, although I don't think our grapefruits had much sweetness to 'em. Thanks for your input, we'll see what happens.

Baking soda is a base, and will help counter the acids.
Baking powder is mainly baking soda and cream of tartar. Done right, it's ph neutral. When you add water, the two ingredients mix and put off carbon dioxide. It's used to leven ph neutral batters, like biscuits.

I just can't stomach much grapefruit. In a soda (like Fresca) the flavor's pretty pleasant. I just can't eat 'em plain.

I vote bottle condition/keg this beast so it sparkles. Then serve over ice cubes and 7up (and more sugar, damn this stuff'll be tart).

I came to check in on my grapefruit wine, in it's one gallon jug, and the fermentation was extremely active. It had filled my airlock with grapefruit juice which mixed with the rum I had filled it with. Luckily the pressure from the C02 kept the airlock liquid from draining back down into the wine. Considering I reused the recommended ale yeast for my IPA, I was wondering how long I should let it sit. Since its an ale yeast, I figured it wouldn't take as long as most fruit wines.

I made a grapefruit wine according to a jack keller recipe, it's good, but I don't like grapefruit so it's not to my taste. Before you ask, my wife is a big fan and I did it for her, so far most people who've tasted it go crazy for it and it's only three months old. In a year it'll rock the shop.

Brewster2256 said:

Any possibility of success?

Click to expand...

ummm, ...in what? It killing you if you drink it? I'd say the chances are great!

IDK, kind of reminds me of taking all the paints in your palatte that you plan on using for your masterpiece, then deciding that since they'll all eventually be on the canvas in certain proportions anyhow, why not just blend them all together now and plop it on and call it good?

What the heck, you can always label it, "Shepherd's Pie Wine" or "Goulash Wine."

A lot of activity coming out of that little one-gallon jug. I love really-really bitter drinks, (espresso/black coffee/whiskey and of course grapefruit juice) so I'm hoping that it'll turn out as an alcoholic version of the same taste. How long should I let it sit? Should I bother with a secondary fermentor?

Let it sit until it is no longer fermenting, of course! Use your hydrometer as your guide. I would only rack to secondary if you plan on aging this beast a looooooong time.

Racked it to secondary over a week ago, and bottled it a couple days ago. Definitely bitter, and fairly thick. Clogged up my tube while siphoning, making it difficult to bottle. So I figured I'd give it a second go, with a recipe in mind and taking notes in case it turns out decent.

For a 2-gallon batch

120 oz grapefruit juice (fresh from white grapefruits, juice and strained)
1 gallon of bottled water
1 liter White Labs English Cider starter
~4 lbs refined cane sugar
1 juiced lemon

Cooked the grapefruit juice+water+sugar+lemon for half an hour without bringing it to a boil. Cooled using submersion in ice water and pitched the yeast starter at room temperature. Tasted the fruit concoction and it tasted decent, but definitely sweet.

Came out to around 2.3 Gallons with an initial gravity of 1.085
Using 1 gallon glass jugs for primary, and fermentation took off within 12 hours.