Really Stupid "wine" Questions

Hello,

I am an experienced homebrewer and am looking to try something of a science experiement. Whilst reading the Apfelwein thread for a long while, I decided that I may try something in a simialr stlye. The wife likes zinfanzel, but I am a DIY guy, and don't want to buy any number of kits.
I got to thiking then: what about fermenting using say a 50% grape concentrate formula, 20% Fruitopia, and 30% (corn) sugar to get something around a 1.060 gravity.

So the dumb questions are....knowing that fruitopia contains some addtives, will still produce a drinkable beverage?

Any other suggetions for fruit? (frozen strwberries, another domestic or exotic Costco pure juice)

Are the rough calculations above ok for a decent drink?

Thanks !

Well, my first thought is just plain "ick". But, what are you trying to do? If you're trying to make a "certain" taste, why not go for that? for example, if you like apple-peach juice, ferment that. Or whatever it is you like. Or the "real" fruit or juice.
Anything with high fructose corn syrup will really screw you up. When you make beer, you use malted barley or that extract. Corn sugar added will taste bad. Well, wine is sort of the same- use fruit or fruit juice. Anything weird will just taste bad.
You can ferment just about any kind of fruit juice and even lemonade. But I don't think Fruitopia sounds like it would work.
And no need for corn sugar- table sugar is fine with wine.

Thank Yooper Chick - I may turn to mostly fruit juice - and just bump up ABV with sugar.

I am reading some of you recipes - and am getting some ideas.

Cheers

After plenty of experimentation, you'll have the most drinkable wines if they are apple or pear based b/c you don't have to mess with the acidity much, and apples and grapes have some natural tannins. That's why grape wine and apple cider have been popular for centuries - b/c they are naturally made for winemaking. So that's step 1. Step 2 is to experiment with small batches b/c if I had to drink 5 gallons of my Libbey's Juicy Juice Kiwi-Strawberry experiment ... it would've been bad.

Jack Keller is one of the foremost if not the foremost expert on homebrew, check out his website http://winemaking.jackkeller.net (I think that is right).

Coffee wine is also a really bad idea. It sounds tempting and interesting but I wouldn't recommend it.

UTDoug said:

Coffee wine is also a really bad idea. It sounds tempting and interesting but I wouldn't recommend it.

Click to expand...

Ya, I also love gravy...and had thoughts of fermenting that

I was also going to suggest jackkeller.net. The site is hard to navigate at first, but it's worth it, believe me! he has literally hundreds of recipes for anything you could possibly ferment, and yeast advice and tips. Awesome site!

Thanks for the sites!

Perhaps I will try a wine instead of making hooch....

Although I am sure the waiting will kill me.

Cheers