Yeast + Juice = drinkable alcohol?

Alright, I was sitting in my night class, trying to stay awake drinking a "Rockstar: Juiced". If you don't know it's like Red Bull, but with something like 70% juice. It dawned on me that with a slight beer taste and some alcohol, this would be a lot better (chemistry makes me want to drink heavily). So I guess my question is, if I added yeast to this and let it ferment, would I have booze? I'm not worried about it tasting like crap, worst case scenario I'm out a few bucks for yeast and the Rockstar. I'm more worried about this being bad for me healthwise. I don't see why it would be poisonous, but I figured I'd ask.

Why would you want to add alcohol to something that's supposed to keep you awake?

Would you take speed and qualludes at the same time?

homebrewer_99 said:

Why would you want to add alcohol to something that's supposed to keep you awake?

Would you take speed and qualludes at the same time?

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Hell yeah I would dude!!!! :rockin:


Seriously, RedBull and Jaeger (or vodka) is a good mix. Especially in a club on a friday night after a looong day of work when you can't quite get into the spirit... a little pickmeup and some booze combined works some wonders.

homebrewer_99 said:

Why would you want to add alcohol to something that's supposed to keep you awake?

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I'm not the first to have the idea, theres a beer called BluCreek Zen IPA that's an energy beer. It was just one of those bonehead ideas that I get when I'm bored. I'm still interested in pursuing it though.

giant016 said:

Alright, I was sitting in my night class, trying to stay awake drinking a "Rockstar: Juiced". If you don't know it's like Red Bull, but with something like 70% juice. It dawned on me that with a slight beer taste and some alcohol, this would be a lot better (chemistry makes me want to drink heavily). So I guess my question is, if I added yeast to this and let it ferment, would I have booze? I'm not worried about it tasting like crap, worst case scenario I'm out a few bucks for yeast and the Rockstar. I'm more worried about this being bad for me healthwise. I don't see why it would be poisonous, but I figured I'd ask.

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I think your basic premise is sound. HOWEVER, my only concern is with the funky ingredients and how they would react to the yeast (guarana or whatever that stuff is called, and whatever else). But hey, if it makes you blind, you'll have a great lawsuit on your hands.. so I say go for it!

I dont have a can in front of me but my guess is that the ingrediants will contain a preservative that will keep the yeast from sucessfully converting the sugars into alchol.

I'm with the above; probably won't work and if it does you won't want to drink it.

If you want a simple, cheap, very drinkable [apparently], alcoholic [8-9%] "juice" try making some of EdWorts Apfelwein (basically apple juice wine). See the Wine forum for the 10-20pg. thread.

At least the apfelwein has no risk of 'making you blind' as someone stated above.

Toot said:

...But hey, if it makes you blind, you'll have a great lawsuit on your hands.. so I say go for it!

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What lawsuit? No lawyer would take the case. It's a simple YOU changed the product and the maker is no longer liable...laughed out of court...

This reminds me of the home winemakers that try making wine out of Welch's grape juice. I can't even imagine how bad that is.

I'm pretty sure you'd have an alcoholic beverage because it must contain massive amounts of sugar, but I'm definitely sure that I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole.

homebrewer_99 said:

What lawsuit? No lawyer would take the case. It's a simple YOU changed the product and the maker is no longer liable...laughed out of court...

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"I performed bizzare chemistry experiments on their products, drank the results, and incurred injuries. I demand restitution!"

Dang...looks like a no-go. There's no amount of $ worth going blind for, but I'm willing to bet that I could at least get a settlement. On top of that, I'm sure there are preservatives as somebody said. I'll look into the EdWorts Apfelwein, but the few wines I've had I wasn't crazy for.

You're not going to go blind by drinking fermented juice - you have to make methanol for that. It will most likely taste awful, though.

I have a batch of Apfelwein going right now but haven't tried it yet. I've made cider many times before, though, and it doesn't necessarily taste like wine. At least with this you can make 1 gallon or so to see if you like it, and if not you're not out much.

I guess it depends on what the definition of "drinkable" is. If you mean "putting it in your mouth and swallowing" then yes its drinkable. If you want it to taste good while going down, then no its not drinkable.

The chemistry and biology are the easy parts. Getting good flavor takes a bit more work.

You won't blind unless you mess up while distilling. If you're not distilling, you won't have a high enough concentration of methanol to cause any health affects.

Jack said:

This reminds me of the home winemakers that try making wine out of Welch's grape juice. I can't even imagine how bad that is.

I'm pretty sure you'd have an alcoholic beverage because it must contain massive amounts of sugar, but I'm definitely sure that I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole.

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I actually make Welch's juice into wine, and it's pretty darn good! I make it dry as a table wine, and no one knows (until I tell!) that's it's simply Welch's 100% grape juice that I've fermented. It's just a wine made out of concord grape juice. You could use 100% pineapple juice or any other juice, too. Apple is probably the best. But I think every wine I've ever bought in the store is made out of........Yep, grape juice.

Lorena

giant06, are you legally able to purchase alcohol or are you trying to find a way to circumvent the system? There are several energy alco-pops out there: Sparks, B^e (Budweiser), etc. You're better off buying one of those rather than wasting a perfectly good (??) energy drink.

giant016 said:

Alright, I was sitting in my night class, trying to stay awake drinking a "Rockstar: Juiced". If you don't know it's like Red Bull, but with something like 70% juice. It dawned on me that with a slight beer taste and some alcohol, this would be a lot better (chemistry makes me want to drink heavily). So I guess my question is, if I added yeast to this and let it ferment, would I have booze? I'm not worried about it tasting like crap, worst case scenario I'm out a few bucks for yeast and the Rockstar. I'm more worried about this being bad for me healthwise. I don't see why it would be poisonous, but I figured I'd ask.

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Poisonous? Sure. But that's got nothing to do with the yeast or the resultant alcohol. Those "energy" drinks are poison before you ever open the can. If anything, a little alcohol would help.

Though, I'm not sure why you'd go through the trouble, given how easy (and probably better tasting) it would be to just add some Aristocrap vodka to the can instead. Plus, god only knows what all those ****ing chemicals and "herbal energy supplements" would do to an otherwise perfectly peaceful yeast cell. You may end up with evil wacky mutant yeasts that eat your face off when you get close enough.

Any kind of sugar molecular chain that is, I believe, shorter than 4 links long, can be consumed by beer yeast and turned into alcohol and CO2. That's the basic idea. So, given that, anything that has sucrose or fructose or maltose in it can be converted to alcohol. That doesn't necessarily mean it should, just that it can.

Cheesefood said:

giant06, are you legally able to purchase alcohol or are you trying to find a way to circumvent the system? There are several energy alco-pops out there: Sparks, B^e (Budweiser), etc. You're better off buying one of those rather than wasting a perfectly good (??) energy drink.

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I take pride in doing things myself, or at least trying to. That's the reason I got into homebrewing in the first place.

giant016 said:

I take pride in doing things myself, or at least trying to. That's the reason I got into homebrewing in the first place.

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That doesn't really answer his question now, does it?

I thought the same thing when reading this thread - sounds like an 18 yr old trying to make hooch. Perhaps you're not, but it's a legitimate question.

We haven't had any obvious minors around the site since when, beginning of summer vacation?

Toot said:

Hell yeah I would dude!!!! :rockin:


Seriously, RedBull and Jaeger (or vodka) is a good mix. Especially in a club on a friday night after a looong day of work when you can't quite get into the spirit... a little pickmeup and some booze combined works some wonders.

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Here, here.

rdwj said:

That doesn't really answer his question now, does it?

I thought the same thing when reading this thread - sounds like an 18 yr old trying to make hooch. Perhaps you're not, but it's a legitimate question.

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I was trying to explain why I didn't just go out and buy Sparks. I'm 22, but I wish I would have known that you could buy brew supplies at any age earlier. I'm pretty surprised that nobody thought of this in highschool, but then again most kids are too lazy to brew it when pretty much anybody who can will buy for you anyways. None the less, no offense taken, I'm a dumb kid at heart, and it was a pretty dumb idea.

lorenae said:

I actually make Welch's juice into wine, and it's pretty darn good! I make it dry as a table wine, and no one knows (until I tell!) that's it's simply Welch's 100% grape juice that I've fermented. It's just a wine made out of concord grape juice. You could use 100% pineapple juice or any other juice, too. Apple is probably the best. But I think every wine I've ever bought in the store is made out of........Yep, grape juice.

Lorena

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Jack Keller - the home winemaking masta - says welches grape juice makes fine wine. If it's good enough for him, it's good enough for anyone!

the_bird said:

We haven't had any obvious minors around the site since when, beginning of summer vacation?

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Whoa man!!! Those threads sound like they would be hilarious to read!!! Do any of them particularly stand out in your mind?

I tried searching for some threads like that, but didn't have much luck finding any. Maybe you remember a username or some keywords that would enable you to perform a better search. The words Minor and under age didn't really help me out...

Oh, man, I'm trying to remember... what the hell was his name... the dude who was trying to make beer and hide it under his bed, the kid we thought was going to go blind... crap...

"MAKINGITGOOD", that was his name...

Ha! That's some funny stuff, there!

I wish I would have known that you could buy brew supplies at any age earlier. I'm pretty surprised that nobody thought of this in highschool, but then again most kids are too lazy to brew it when pretty much anybody who can will buy for you anyways.

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I knew a guy in highschool that would take applejuice, unscrew the lid, and let it ferment naturally for a few months, and then drink it.

He called it nastihol :cross:

I never tried it, but man I bet it was nasty. Some kids will do anything for booze!

As far as making an alcoholic energy drink, fermenting a commercial energy drink probably won't be a big success, but I bet you could probably add your own energy ingredients to the boil/secondary/bottling bucket depending on the ingredient. You could try something natural like ginsing or something like that.

the_bird said:

Oh, man, I'm trying to remember... what the hell was his name... the dude who was trying to make beer and hide it under his bed, the kid we thought was going to go blind... crap...

"MAKINGITGOOD", that was his name...

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There was another one, too. Remember? I think he was on before Makingitgood. They ended up messaging other back and forth! I can't remember his name, exactly. Something like the Munsters. He was hiding hooch in his closet, and then going to try to get some barley from his farm and malt it and make beverages. Pretty funny, especially since they weren't my kids.

Lorena

I searched some of makingitgoods threads. They were pretty freakin funny, but I gotta give it to the kid, he sure was determined and creative... even if his spelling did suck hard.

I also make wine out of Welch's Grape Juice. I've tried both the ready-made bottle and the Concentrate. I can't tell much difference between them. The wine produced is very dry and I don't care much for dry wine, but I have a friend who absolutely LOVES it. I make it to use in Wine Coolers. It's fantastic for this.

I had a friend who asked me to make his wife some hard lemonade. I forgot to calculate the sugars in the concentrate (yes I used lemonade concentrate cause I was a lazy, careless, cheap fool) and it ended up being lemon wine, so i pitched some champagne yeast. One year later everyone wanted this lemon wine... it was pretty damn tastey. This got me stoked so I did the same thing, but with strange concentrate flavors, like Strawberry Mango, and VeryBerry, and AppleKiwi. Just bought 10 or so concentrate cans, threw in some table sugar, and toss in some champagne yeast. They are still aging... but I wouldn't be suprised if they kick some serious butt.

Seriously. I might aswell beer trying to poison these people with my carelessness and disregard to the hobby, and I ended up making the best wine in my life. And it cuts down on costs.. and now my carboys will never sit empty :rockin:

Toot said:

Whoa man!!! Those threads sound like they would be hilarious to read!!! Do any of them particularly stand out in your mind?...

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There was another guy who thought you could ferment sugar water and it would become vodka. When someone explained it wouldn't work that way, he schemed up a way to concentrate the alcohol by freezing the water and fishing out the ice crystals or some such clown act.


Oh, and open air-fermented apple juice - even as a teenager, I'd rather have just stayed sober.

Rockstar brand energy drink already makes an alcoholic beverage. Its called "Rockstar 21". It tastes like crap though. Like you mixed a Rockstar with a 40oz of nasty Colt 45 or any other kind of malt liquor swill.

They sell it at the grocery store by my house. They also sell this junk called "Sparks" that is the same kind of energy drink malt liquor.

It's just plain nasty in my opinion.

I just take shots of Grey Goose, and chase them with swigs of Red Bull if im planning on a drunken night of chaos and sleepless hijinx.

I'd rather drink good tasting homebrewed beer any day of the week though.

I've just made a great Turbo Cider. 10%

And the freezing thing is a recognised and illegal way of destilling alcohol.

Torchiest said:

"I performed bizzare chemistry experiments on their products, drank the results, and incurred injuries. I demand restitution!"

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This is AMARICA BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL

Torchiest said:

"I performed bizzare chemistry experiments on their products, drank the results, and incurred injuries. I demand restitution!"

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That is way funny!!!