Juice ingredients list ... while it ferment?

Hi-

Was at a friend's house who made me a drink with dark rum and some type of juice. It was good and I told them that the berry flavor might make a good wine. Apparently, they bought me six 96oz bottles of it for me to make a wine out of it. I have not seen it yet but its some non-descript BJs or Costco juice or something like that. They told me that the ingredients list says that it has sodium citrate and acesulfame potassium in it and the very last line on the ingredient list says "contains sulfites."

First, does the fact that is has sodium citrate and acesulfame potassium in it mean it won't ferment. Also, has anyone used juice that so generically says "contains sulfites" with any success.

I figured I'd ferment it up and see what happens with some lalvin kiv-1116. it is a hearty yeast but i'm not sure if it is a waste of time, $24 of juice and yeast.

Hm what else does it list for ingredients. Acesulfame k is an artificial sweetener. It probably won't ferment unless it also contains actual sugars such as corn syrup. Sodium citrate I believe they usually add as a preservative. The sulfites might be ok, I mean people use Campden in their musts and then after the sulfur gas bubbles out it still ferments. I would be a little concerned about the taste after fermenting because of the residual artificial sweeteners.

Yes, I have fermented sulfited grape juice. I have added Welch's white grape juice to fruit wines and it does ok. The other stuff in there: quien sabe?

the ingredients are...as listed

water
hfcs (which i have successfully fermented with before...i.e. i made a small batch and added no sugar and still ended up with about a 4.5% beverage using store bought juice)
pear juice from concentrate
less that 2% of grape and blueberry concentrated juice
natural flavor (whatever the hell that means)
acesulfame potassium
sodium citrate
artificial colorant
contains sulfites.

i know the acesulfame k can't ferment because it is an artificial sweetener but will it halt the yeast or just make a sweet drink?

as for the sodium citrate being a preservative, i have no idea what the concentration is. \\

in the end, i didn't pay for the juice so i don't really feel that guilty about tossing in a packet of yeast and some sugar..i have an open fermenter right now anyway...but if someone can confirm it is a waste of time to try fermenting it...please so.

as for the taste...that's kinda the point. with bacardi dark mixed in, it was really akin to a concentrated spicy alcoholic kool-aid for lack of a better description (if that even makes sense) ...the idea is to try to capture that in a wine so the residual artificial sweetness is fine with me if it will ferment. i will just augment the HFCS to get it to dry out

Ace-k is a pretty complex chemical. You'd probably need an organic heist to figure out the interaction of wine fermenting with that stuff in I. Me, I'd make it into punch, dump some vodka in it and throw a BBQ. but make wine with it...?

springmom said:

Ace-k is a pretty complex chemical. You'd probably need an organic heist to figure out the interaction of wine fermenting with that stuff in I. Me, I'd make it into punch, dump some vodka in it and throw a BBQ. but make wine with it...?

Click to expand...

it is wrong that upon reading your post, i...just for a second...thought of mixing some gordon's or some cheap $15 vodka into a batch and bottling it in a wine bottle?

this is what i'm going to do....i've got a 1/4 envelope of ec-1118 sitting in the fridge...i'll just give it a shot in one 96oz bottle. worst i can do is regret it in a few weeks.

The only real way to find out is to give it a try and see what happens.

I have used products that indicate "sulphite" on the ingredients list, and I simply do not use k-meta at the start (unless I am also using fresh fruit, etc) then I just use less k-meta, otherwise the "sulphite" added must gets dosed when I transfer to carboy when O.G. has dropped by 2/3...never had an issue using that method.

What product is this by the way? I think your idea of giving it a try is a good idea, you never know what the outcome will be unless you do it.

make a yeast starter using the juice, heat the juice to 105 degrees add some honey and some yeast nutrient, if it goes off like a bang then pitch it into the rest of the juice and in theory it should ferment.