Trying something crazy.

So since I'm under the weather I decided not to try and undertake my first full all grain batch until I'm feeling a bit better. Not wanting to waste a good brew day I decided to try something different. I'm making an apfelwein from juice concentrate. My goal is to bottle in 12oz with corn sugar to carb/condition them to make sort of a wine cooler type concoction that perhaps SWMBO will like. Below is the recipe, this is a one gallon batch by the way.

2 cans old orchard apple juice.
1 cup sugar
1 gallon water
A small packet of safale US-05 ale yeast I had laying around.

My OG ended up around 1.054 which was a bit lower than I wanted but fine for the wine cooler goal. I honestly planned on using a bit more sugar but halfway in found that all we had left was 1 cup.

I boiled for about 15 minutes to ensure it was sanitized and break down the disaccharides of the common sugar to easier to ferment monosaccharides.

I know that perhaps this should be called apfel-hooch instead but it was whipped up in an hour or so with stuff I had laying around.

I also added 1 teaspoon calcium carbonate before my boil to lower acidity. This is something my dad taught me from his hooch making days before he learned to make good wine.

I know it's crazy and if it taste's like ass then I'm out maybe 5 bucks for the juice and yeast so no biggy. Just trying something different. Any guesses as to what it will taste like?

Straight up fermented apple juice is not very impressive. Now if you back sweeten it with some apple juice concentrate it drastically improves it. You have to keep in mind if you don't stabilize it the new apple juice will ferment. I don't know that you needed to raise the ph, it helps to have some tartness.

I've made wine with concentrates before, some good, others not so much. Anytime I haven't done something to reduce acidity I can't get but around 2 drinks in before my acid reflux puts me down for a half hour or so. I've also thought about doing some other flavor enhancers on the backend, racking onto a secondary with fruit in it or something. Who knows, plenty of time to decide that. Right now I'm just wondering what ale yeast will taste like in substitute for a proper wine yeast.

How would you stabilize it to keep new juice from fermenting btw?

Dave11980 said:

Anytime I haven't done something to reduce acidity I can't get but around 2 drinks in before my acid reflux puts me down for a half hour or so.

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LMAO! The girlfriend almost killed a 2 liter of mine when I first made some, her acid reflux tore her up.

Potassium sorbate, same stuff to stabilize wine so it can be sweetened.

of course, if I stop fermentation to add other juices I can't carbonate in bottle.

Dave11980 said:

I've made wine with concentrates before, some good, others not so much. Anytime I haven't done something to reduce acidity I can't get but around 2 drinks in before my acid reflux puts me down for a half hour or so. I've also thought about doing some other flavor enhancers on the backend, racking onto a secondary with fruit in it or something. Who knows, plenty of time to decide that. Right now I'm just wondering what ale yeast will taste like in substitute for a proper wine yeast.

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I use Nottingham ale yeast for my apfelwine and it is delicious once it is a little back-sweetened.

Dave11980 said:

of course, if I stop fermentation to add other juices I can't carbonate in bottle.

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It's only a gallon, bottle in a couple 2 liters. When it's time to serve sweeten the bottle and don't worry about the stabilizer. Keep the partial bottle in the fridge and if it ferments slightly it'll just add back some of the lost carbonation.