Purple Hooch

I really wanted to brew another batch of beer before a two week business trip/vacation but ran out of time. I wanted something yummy waiting for me when I got home, though, and had a 'hey, I can ferment that' moment at the farmer's market with SWMBO this morning. I've heard of celery wine and I've head of beetroot wine. I don't have any idea if this will turn out, but it smells good cooling off, waiting for a yeast pitch as I write:

Binkman's Purple Hooch:
1 bunch of celery stalks
6 medium beetroots
1.1 gallons water
2.25 lbs refined sugar
1 small lemon's juice
1/5 (i.e. 1 gram) from 5 gram pack of dried montrachet wine yeast

Cut stalks off beetroots, if attached. Peel and slice thinly. Your hands, cutting surface, and shirt will turn red. You have been warned. Now rinse and cut bottom off celery stalk. Cut into roughly 4-5 inch pieces. Put water, beets, celery, and sugar in pot. Juice lemon and add it, too. Bring to boil and hold for 15 minutes, stirring until sugar has dissolved.

After 15 minutes of boil, strain out solid chunks and pour into 1 gallon glass jug. Cool to room temperature and pitch yeast.

My OG before pitching: 1.094
Assuming approximately 80% attenuation with my wine yeast will yield a FG of 1.002 and 12.3% ABV. I'll keep you posted, if anyone is interested.

See you in two weeks. :rockin:

It sounds interesting. Hopefully it wont come out tasting like pickles (but hey, I loved pickled beets!)

that's going to taste bizarre. bizarrely awesome.

That yeast strain may go below 1.002. If it's happy, you can easily go to 14%+. It'll stop at .990 or so is my guess.

As an aside, you should pitch a whole package of yeast. They are good for "1-6 gallons". Once opened, they don't keep so you'd might as well use it.

Definitely interested!

subscribed!

Hey, its been two weeks....

I just wanted to know how this tasted???

Sorry guys, still in Scotland. I'll be back in Maryland on the 13th and I'll let you all know then.

Okay, back in B*more, but I notice the wine is still bubbling. This is going to be some dry dry stuff. Needless to say, I haven't tried it yet, and it looks like it will be a couple more weeks yet until I do. I will keep you all posted, though.

Over a month and it still seems to be going...

How does the airlock smell? I get the oddest looks from the SWMBO when I do that.

FYI, I made up a batch of this as well using your same recepie. The only tweak I made was pitching an entire pack of wine yeast and using 2.5lbs of sugar. It has been in a primary for about 10 days now and is nearly ready to bottle.

Yours may be fermenting slowly because you pitched less yeast???

Possibly, but there is a healthy layer on the bottom. Let us know how yours turns out. I think I might just take a hydrometer reading and see if those bubbles are still indicating fermentation or not.

My hooch is still fermenting. I took a sample out today and tested the gravity: 1.004, down from 1.094 giving ABV of 12.1% and attenuation of 78.2%. It's plugging along slowly, and I'm sot sure when it's going to stop but I have racked it off the (pink) yeast cake that was in the jug. I suspect this yeast will eventually finish below 1.000. I'm not sure why it's being so sluggish. It's possible there just weren't enough nutrients in the beetroot/celery tea that went into it.

I poured the sample off into a wine glass and had a sip. My first impression was a very strong sweetness, but my palate must have been a little off. SWMBO tried it and noted the initial sweet and fruity flavor but said it mellowed out on the tongue and finished very dry. That's good. This is mostly for her and she likes it dry. It certainly is 'fruity'. Not a lot of flavors that I can pick out. It tastes like fruit punch. Maybe some peary and grapey kind of notes. I'm going to share it with friends and get some more opinions on it when it's done. It shouldn't be so sweet by then.

Nonetheless, for my first non-malt fermentation project I'm pretty happy so far.

Almost forgot. The picture doesnt quite do it justice. It's a kind of bright pink/magenta around the edges.

Subscribed

subscribed, looks delicious!

I just bottled mine this weekend. It looks exactly the same and was stopped for a couple days at .998 when i degassed, and 1.092 when I started. I used a montrachet (spelling?) yeast. I sense the fruit up front and a very strong vegetable taste on the middle of the tongue (maybe my imagination), and finishes very dry indeed!

I am going to age this one a bit in my brewroom and see if it improves. (Yes I have an entire room in my house dedicated to brewing...don't judge me!)

Grimace *approved*

Question: Can you sense any vegetable flavors in the hooch?

Just made the OP's recipe today. Used dextrose instead of table sugar and threw in some yeast nutrient. I also followed yooper's lead and pitched the whole packet of Montrachet

OP, great recepie! I have to say this stuff turned out phenomenal! Very strong celery flavor. Kudos to you brother.

what temp did you ferment at? I've got mine in the fermentation chamber with a batch of porter that I'm fermenting at 62. It's chugging away happily

Mine fermented at ambient basement temps. I had a LCT on the jug and it stayed between 72 and 74.