Skeeter Pee

No offense but just had to share my opinion, there's something wrong with Splenda. It's nasty and gives me enough gas to power a small city... All artificial sweeteners have a "unique" taste, and some don't agree with odd folks like myself...

Atek said:

No offense but just had to share my opinion, there's something wrong with Splenda. It's nasty and gives me enough gas to power a small city... All artificial sweeteners have a "unique" taste, and some don't agree with odd folks like myself...

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I HATE the taste of diet drinks, but I have to say the gas aspect shows promise! Maybe I'll have to give it a try after all......

The gas is not durived from the splenda compound itself. Splenda is the same as sucrose or glucose that have been bonded with another molecule that makes it harder for the sugar to be broken down. There are no or redused calories because splenda just passes through you undigested.

When the body encounters a substance that is not being digested it produces additional enzymes to try and break down that substance. Depending on your diet those additional enzyme would however react on the digestible food and creat additional by products like gas.

Sorry if I burst a bubble with the additional gas idea for carbonating and also for if this got a little off topic.

To each his own, use splenda or the like or sweeten and pasteurize as long as you can time it right.

Better yet get the equipment and force carb!

Stevia works well also. Though I cannot find the amount I added, I have 1/8th the amount of amount you would typically backsweeten with in my head. Not using Truvia or the like(it has an additive that keeps it from clumping) but 100% white powdered stevia. Need to try and find my notes, but easy to do a tasting trial.
I used Splenda in the past, but noticed an aftertaste in a 6 month old bottle. I have stevia sweetened bottles that are at 12 months and taste great.

saramc said:

Stevia works well also. Though I cannot find the amount I added, I have 1/8th the amount of amount you would typically backsweeten with in my head. Not using Truvia or the like(it has an additive that keeps it from clumping) but 100% white powdered stevia. Need to try and find my notes, but easy to do a tasting trial.
I used Splenda in the past, but noticed an aftertaste in a 6 month old bottle. I have stevia sweetened bottles that are at 12 months and taste great.

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Thanks for the recommendation!

Just whipped up my first batch of this. I was amazed that 7lbs of sugar could dissolve in 8 oz of water and look so clear while your heating it up. First time using a power tool in alcohol making ( wine whip and drill). Lots of fun! Currently sitting with a towel on top waiting for me to rack my apfelwein in 2 days

I've made three batches of this so far and have back sweetened every batch with regular sugar without any issues. By the time you add the sorbate and kmeta, the fermentation should have stopped. I always wait another few weeks then back sweeten with regular sugar. I add 7 to 8 cups to make it a little sweeter than the recipe calls for. It does not improve with age, but if you add sparkloid with the sorbate and kmeta it will be pretty clear after waiting the extra two weeks. The longer it sits, the clearer it gets. I made a batch back in August and its almost crystal clear right now, it has a slight yellow tint to it, but beside that its extremely clear.

yum! can I use my Apfelwein slurry for this?

good11s said:

yum! can I use my Apfelwein slurry for this?

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Yup, that's what I'm doing!

HopHeaven said:

Yup, that's what I'm doing!

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What ABV is your Apfelwein? Using slurry from a high ABV batch can be asking for trouble......

DrHops said:

I've made three batches of this so far and have back sweetened every batch with regular sugar without any issues. By the time you add the sorbate and kmeta, the fermentation should have stopped. I always wait another few weeks then back sweeten with regular sugar. I add 7 to 8 cups to make it a little sweeter than the recipe calls for. It does not improve with age, but if you add sparkloid with the sorbate and kmeta it will be pretty clear after waiting the extra two weeks. The longer it sits, the clearer it gets. I made a batch back in August and its almost crystal clear right now, it has a slight yellow tint to it, but beside that its extremely clear.

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Ya but if you want to carbonate and aren't kegging or have the ability to force carb then you'll run into problems with the k-meta and sorbate.

501irishred said:

What ABV is your Apfelwein? Using slurry from a high ABV batch can be asking for trouble......

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The OG from the batch was 1.055 but I'm racking at 1.05 so the yeast shouldn't be too stressed correct?

If you go to the website skeeterpee.com they never mention carbonating, probably because as you said the sorbate and kmeta will mess with that. Fortunately I keg all of mine so carbonation is not an issue for me. You can buy all the equipment that you need to force carb 2 liter bottles for around $100. You'll need a regulator made for a paintball tank (or a regular one with the adapter) a paintball tank of co2 and a carbonator cap. I've tried skeeter pee not carbonated and even though its very tasty I prefer it carbonated. I gave some to a few of my cooks that I carbonated in a bottled water bottle and they said that it tasted like lemon Champagne!

I'm gonna try the old fashion yeast way. Ill report how it goes

HopHeaven said:

The OG from the batch was 1.055 but I'm racking at 1.05 so the yeast shouldn't be too stressed correct?

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Nah, that should be fine. The reason I asked is that a lot of Apfelwein recipes have a much higher OG than that.

DrHops said:

If you go to the website skeeterpee.com they never mention carbonating, probably because as you said the sorbate and kmeta will mess with that. Fortunately I keg all of mine so carbonation is not an issue for me. You can buy all the equipment that you need to force carb 2 liter bottles for around $100. You'll need a regulator made for a paintball tank (or a regular one with the adapter) a paintball tank of co2 and a carbonator cap. I've tried skeeter pee not carbonated and even though its very tasty I prefer it carbonated. I gave some to a few of my cooks that I carbonated in a bottled water bottle and they said that it tasted like lemon Champagne!

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hello there...just wondering if you point me to more info on what I would need to look for exactly to do this? thanks a bunch.

Well I was suspecting this. Poured in my slurry last night...and the airlock is going nuts! Gave it a good mix before pitching with the wine whip but nothing since then. And here I was nervous cause the ambient temp in the room is 66

HopHeaven said:

Well I was suspecting this. Poured in my slurry last night...and the airlock is going nuts! Gave it a good mix before pitching with the wine whip but nothing since then. And here I was nervous cause the ambient temp in the room is 66

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Can't go wrong with a good slurry. What yeast was in your first wine?

Arpolis said:

Can't go wrong with a good slurry. What yeast was in your first wine?

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Montrachet from a batch of apfelwein. Racked it at 1.05 to make sure it still had the energy to get the job done

HopHeaven said:

Montrachet from a batch of apfelwein. Racked it at 1.05 to make sure it still had the energy to get the job done

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Awesome I have never used Montrachet before. I used a slurry from 71b and took about 36 hours to start up strong. Just curious as to what yeasts do best in the SP acidic must.

A50SNAKE said:

hello there...just wondering if you point me to more info on what I would need to look for exactly to do this? thanks a bunch.

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here's an ongoing thread with some off the self, as well as DIY solutions.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/better-diy-carbonator-cap-293500/

501irishred said:

here's an ongoing thread with some off the self, as well as DIY solutions.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/better-diy-carbonator-cap-293500/

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thanks soo much for the help.

saramc said:

Can you provide a bit more detail, like:

What was your process when it came time to prime? Did you add k-meta, sorbate? Dextrose to what volume of SP?
When did you prime and bottle? How have bottles been stored since?

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Nope, I knew I was using Splenda to sweeten and planned to carbonate, so I didn't use k-meta or sorbate. 3/4 cup of dextrose to 5 gallons of SP.

Last time I went into detail, the whole thread went silent for weeks!
(Posts 1025 and 1027 in this thread) Here's the gist of it:
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[Did you stabilize the must before back sweeting?]
This is a solid theory, but I didn't use any of those since I knew I wasn't going to be sweetening with sugar. I didn't use the sparkolloid or anything either, for what that's worth. I just waited until it cleared on its own, sweetened with Splenda, added a packet of lemonade Koolaid (unsweetened) and then did the normal bottling procedure with dextrose simple syrup mixed in the bottling bucket.

[How long did it take for it to clear on its own? Also what kind of yeast did you use]
Let's see. I started it on 9-3, added the slurry from a batch of Apfelwein (originally a pack of Montrachet yeast) on 9-5, had good activity by the next day. Gravity was 1.050 on 9-9 so I added the third lemon juice, energizer, and nutrients. Racked it to a new carboy on 9-13. Let that sit and clear until 10-30, which is when I bottled.

If the yeast are dead, can/should I pitch more to try to eat up the dextrose and carbonate it? At this point if I poured it all back into a bucket it'd be a five-gallon batch minus three or four 12-ounce bottles. I'm not sure if this would work, or how much yeast to use for such a job.
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Hi folks, just wanted to know what you thought about me pitching this on a Apfelwein yeast cake made with T-58 and a second made with Nottingham?

Not enough experience to say. Try a small batch with part of the yeast cake and report back. Worst case scenario it doesn't work and you have to buy a packet of EC1118 to finish it up.

Actually, I just thought of something, a few weekss back I made some 'coolers' by merely mixing EC-1118 and sugar, then tossing in Minute Maid cans after fermentation. Could I use this yeast cake instead, I do this regularly in my growlers so its the perfect size for a test.

1118 yeast seems to do pretty well in a SP must with simply rehydrating it so if you have an 1118 yeast cake off of some sugar water I do not see why it would not work. Personally I am not a fan of ec-1118 and would rather use another yeast that is not such an aggressive fermenter that blows flavor and aromatics out the airlock. If you make those wine coolers often I would mix one up but use K1-V1116, 71b-1112 or another non 1118 yeast and use that yeast cake.

I actually just started a 1 gallon starter wine simply based off of some Welch’s concentrate X4, nutrient, black tea and pectic enzyme, 71b yeast and once I get a nice yeast cake in the next 3 - 4 weeks I will rack off it and dump the cake into a SP must. So making a yeast cake for this is not hard using whatever yeast you want and 12 dollars in ingredients.

I used the EC-1118 because thats what was at the Lhbs at like $1.19 a packet, I'll have to see what else the sell

Just clearing a batch of skeeter pee. This is my second batch. I only used 2 bottles of lemon juice this time around as it was quite acidy last time (although it was consumed at lighting speed) haven't tasted it yet. Has anyone else done it that way?

I found it way to acidic with three bottles of juice. Using only two, the flavor seems to be just as intense, but it's not nearly as acidic. It's also really good with one bottle of juice and an equal amount of lime juice.

AreaKode said:

I found it way to acidic with three bottles of juice. Using only two, the flavor seems to be just as intense, but it's not nearly as acidic. It's also really good with one bottle of juice and an equal amount of lime juice.

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Did you add the second amount of nutrients and energizer?

So about two months ago, I made Raspberry/Blackberry skeeter pee. It was a huge hit. Last night I brewed up a batch of Strawberry SP. I used 6lbs of light brown sugar and 1lb of regular white sugar. I rehydrated my Lavalin 1118 yeast in warm water and added the nutrient, tannin, and energizer. I let that sit while I heated the sugar water mixture in one pot and the strawberries (3lbs frozen) in another. I blended the strawberries and poured them into the better bottle, poured in the sugar water, strawberry water and lemon juice. I then topped it off with cold water to bring the temp down to 70deg and poured my yeast mixture in. I capped it off and hauled it to my fermentation room (spare office room) and went to dinner. When I came back (2 hours later) it was doing infrequent bubbles. This morning, it was rocking that airlock.

Gonna be good stuff.

my SWMBO loves summer shandy(yuck) Going to blend this with a light wheat beer. will likely do 2.5 gal of each and then keg it. Anyone done this? if so how did it come out?

vanillabean said:

Did you add the second amount of nutrients and energizer?

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Yep. The only thing I changed was the amount of lemon juice. Instead of 64 oz at the beginning and 32 oz later, I just did 32 oz at the beginning, 32 oz later on. It still has a very lemony taste, just a lot less acid.

I've realized that I have never added the tannins. What exactly do they impart flavor wise? I always thought they would add more bitter, mouth puckering taste which is why I never added them, but I do not know.

Could the tannins impart the acidic taste people are talking about? I never had a problem with the two batches of pee being too acidic.

D_Nyholm said:

I've realized that I have never added the tannins. What exactly do they impart flavor wise? I always thought they would add more bitter, mouth puckering taste which is why I never added them, but I do not know.

Could the tannins impart the acidic taste people are talking about? I never had a problem with the two batches of pee being too acidic.

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Well from everything I have read, Tannin makes for a fuller body. You know how some wines feel kind of empty on the back end. That is supposedly because of too little tannin. Something along the line of it helps in the aging of wine too.

Not an expert. Just using the google-fu

Do you need a blow off tube with skeeter Pee?

adriedel said:

Do you need a blow off tube with skeeter Pee?

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You need a decent amount of head space it really likes to foam up. Got a bucket you could use?

adriedel said:

Do you need a blow off tube with skeeter Pee?

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It really depends on what yeast you are using. I use Lavalin 1118 and havent had to use one. I do leave appropriate head space in my fermenter and there is a good thick pad of kreusen but have not had one blow.

I used champagne yeast but I think i will change my bucket to 7.5 wine bucket instead of 5.