Making something my house-mates will drink

My house-mates do not appreciate good wine or good beer (to a lesser extent). I've made a number of different brewed concoctions that they wouldn't drink. They thought the apfelwein I made was too dry, though I liked the dryness. They do like mixed drinks, however. So I was thinking of what I could make that they would like. It would have to be sweet or they won't touch it. I had an interesting idea that may or may not work: ferment water and 4 or 5 cups of sugar in a gallon jug, then add apple juice concentrate in secondary. The theory is that it would end up tasting like alcoholic apple juice because the alcohol content would be too high for the yeast to continue fermenting by the time the apple juice was added. The high residual sugar content would hopefully mask any rocket-fuel quality that might be present. What do you think of that solution? Do you know of any other beverage I could make that might appeal to these philistines?

I made a White Grape Peach wine with Welches concentrate that was comparable to a dry Fuzzy Navel. If you simply add some sugar to backsweeten after fermentations done, it could be made less wine-like. I guess using something like lalvin ec1118 would also result in a higher abv, so you would still have a kick-you-in-the-teeth drink. I'm also curious to see how it is frozen and blended into a smoothie...

my god the sacrilege...

I've got a welches niagara grape wine going right now and it smells wonderful! I don't think I could bring myself to backsweeten a traditional wine (I like things pretty dry). How's that welches peach wine of yours? it sounds intriguing. Anyway, If I do my sugar-water thing, I'll post results. Thanks for the reply!

I don't see why you would WANT your housemates drinking your booze.

Toot said:

I don't see why you would WANT your housemates drinking your booze.

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If they like it I can trade it for other commodities like milk and ground beef. I'm very hungry...

As for making booze for the housemates, its always good currency. You put about 20 bucks worth of materials and a month or two or time into it and you get something that can be used to buy all sorts of favors and commodities. Econ 101 baby

My peach-wine recipe:
3 cans Welches White Grape Peach, topped to 1 gallon with filtered water, ½ cup dextrose, Lalvin 71b-1122 yeast, nutrient. Mix it all together, stick it in a closet for three weeks, bottle, let it sit for a month, enjoy a tasty treat while pondering your next concoction...

mike

Does it clear in three weeks?

My three gallon batch cleared after two. I just left it in the carboy so it would settle and perhaps clear a bit more for the extra week. It absolutely benefits from a little ageing though. My peach that I've had bottled for a month is much better than the one I just made. As far as wine goes though, thats lightening quick.

mike

I've got some red star champagne and red star cotes des blanc; do you think either of those would work as well as the lalvin? I'm thinkin cotes des blanc would be good, but it's a pretty slow ferementer and I'm not sure how well it clears.

I'm not sure, I've only used the lalvin. Give it a try with a gallon's worth and see what happens. Or better yet, try one with cotes des blanc and lalvin in the other. I've only just started changing my yeast types for my wines to see which is best, so I wouldn't know. I do know that I'll never used k1-v1116 again for my apfelwein (and by extention my peach). It burned through it so fast that it turned to sulfur and I had to dump it.

mike

Mike,

Do you carbonate your wine? I was thinking this would sound good for SWMBO if made into a sparking drink. Kind of like a wine spritzer.

Hehe, not intentionally. I left some pom wine in the closet for a month and lo and behold, it apparently wasn't completely clear of yeast because when I opened it it sounded like a gun went off. Tons of little bubbles, just enough to put some sizzle on the tongue. I think the peach would be stellar carbed, but I'm still very new to this whole thing and I'm not sure how to go about it. Any ideas?

mike

I think carbing with carb drops, cooper drops. 1 drop per 12oz bottle, cap and shake every three days until 2 weeks go by

Maybe carbing like any beer. A standard 5 gal batch of beer needs 5 oz (weight). So an oz per gal outa do the trick. Bulk prime at bottling.

So for 5 gal mix 3/4 cup of sugar and 3/4 cup of water & boil, add this to bottling bucket and rack from the carboy on top and bottle.

You could do cane, beet or corn as long as its gonna get boiled.