Don't tease me

So, after brewing beer and mead, and making apple wine, I was talking with a friend at work who doesn't drink much at all. He came up with the brilliant idea of making Kool Aid wine. Yes, I know, Kool Aid.

Anyway, I am not trying to make hooch. I have been on these forums awhile looking for fun recipes and whatnot, but I thought I would indulge him and see what we came up with. Here is our amazingly complex recipe:

5 gallons water
10 packs Black Cherry Kool Aid Mix
6 pounds cane sugar
1 pack of yeast (can't recall which type)

Anyway, it's fermenting now, smells sweet and good, kind of like Kool Aid.

My questions are as follows:

1. Will this need to be back-sweetened? My prediction is yes, as Kool Aid is normally very sour, until the sugar is added, and with our sugar being fermented out, you know.

2. How can I estimate the OG for this "wine"? I didn't take any time or care, because I felt dirty making something like this, but I figure I should at least know what the content is going to be.

Thanks for your help. Hopefully my previous topics and questions will shunt anyone calling me a kid wanting to get drunk for cheap and easy. Just wanted to help a friend out.

1: Doesn't matter if you backsweeten or not, it's going to taste like liquid ass. No amount of sugar is going to save it.

2. (OG-FG) * 130 = aprox ABV%.

Haha, fair enough. It smells decent so far, but time will tell. The question I had is not how to calculate the ABV, but rather an estimation of the OG, since I didn't check it with my hydro. Any ideas what pure cane sugar adds to water gravity? 6 lbs sugar in 5 gallons water?

For 6 lbs sugar beersmith gives an OG of 1.050 for 5.5gallons final volume (1.055 for 5.0gallons final volume). I've never done it before, but I'm pretty sure you'll need to neutralize the yeast (ie kill-em) if you intend to backsweeten with anything fermentable...
If you're too lazy, you could always backsweeten with splenda.

its gonna taste bad. pure cane sugar, fermented, with fake koolaid flavors...it'll taste like rocket fuel IF you are lucky.

you would use potassium sorbate and some potassium metabisulfate to kill off the yeast and stabilize for back sweetening with a fermentable sugar or simple syrup.

splenda certainly won't ruin this batch if you go\ that route

I don't know how regular yeast will take that much sucrose it isn't too good at metabolizing it if I recall. Anyway, yes this will taste disgusting, hell I don't even like regular kool aid.

Yeastie said:

I don't know how regular yeast will take that much sucrose it isn't too good at metabolizing it if I recall. Anyway, yes this will taste disgusting, hell I don't even like regular kool aid.

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Oh, wine yeast love sucrose, and metabolize it just fine. I use table sugar in almost all of my fruit wine recipes, to provide food for the yeast to get alcohol out of it.

I've made a boat load of different wines (even fermented lemonade) but never considered kool-aid. Sounds gross, but let us know how it turns out.

Just a thought in an edwort apple haze here, but I think malkore is right
"pure cane sugar, fermented, with fake koolaid flavors." I haven't looked at whats in koolaide but maybe it could taste more like what you are thinking by adding the koolaide mix after you ferment "pure cane sugar" just water and sugar. I am guessing the potential for off flavors with all of the chemical trash has got to be in the mix....

This might be a bit tart. I remember they used to use koolaid to clean the dishwasher at a restaurant I used to work at. Apparently there's quite a bit of acid(s) in the stuff. Good luck. Regards, GF.

The lack of yeast nutrients means strained yeast and more off flavors.

I think your ABV is going to be just over 7%. I would let it age in as secondary for a few weeks, backsweeten with splenda and prime it with table sugar.

With luck, you will have a heavy, diet alchopop.

how'd this turn out?

JSomps6 said:

how'd this turn out?

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OP's last activity was about 3 weeks after starting this thread, feel free to speculate

Good point, didn't notice that... perhaps fermented kool aid is deadly... or so bad he gave up on fermenting things...

sounds like it will turn out something like cherry dimetapp

I bet he blew up

danculwell said:

I bet he blew up

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OH YEAH!!