Fermentable juice preservatives

[thedrunkdutchman]

What preservatives can be present in juice that you want to ferment? I thought that you couldn't use juice with any preservatives, until I looked into the skeeter pee recipe today and it uses the Real Lemon concentrated lemon juice. Which when you look at the ingredients it has SODIUM BENZOATE, SODIUM METABISULFITE AND SODIUM SULFITE as preservatives, so now I'm confused.

 

[Maylar]

Of those, sodium benzoate is the one that should be avoided. Also potassium sorbate.

 

[CKuhns]

With enough nutrients and a very good yeast starter you likely can ferment just about anything including some of the preservatives listed above.

I would recommend you only use juice with Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) anything else although doable could give you trouble and not ferment at all or be rather sluggish.

 

[Maylar]

A friend of mine managed to ferment some juice with sodium benzoate in it by massive over pitching his yeast, but it tasted like crap when done. Stressed yeast are unhappy yeast.

 

[Seamonkey84]

stick with juices that have Vit C or metabisulfite as the only preservatives (if any). If it has a sulfite as a preservative, you should be able to just pour it into a pitcher or your brew bucket and let it sit covered with a towel 24 hours, it’s just like the campden tablets we use to sanitize a fruit/juice before pitching yeast.

 

[second_skin]

stick with juices that have Vit C or metabisulfite as the only preservatives (if any). If it has a sulfite as a preservative, you should be able to just pour it into a pitcher or your brew bucket and let it sit covered with a towel 24 hours, it’s just like the campden tablets we use to sanitize a fruit/juice before pitching yeast.

Bit of an old reply, but I was going through posts regarding preservatives in juices..

I want to put some lemon juice in a ginger beer recipe I have..
I would usually simply use real lemons and juice them, but as odd as it seems, lemons are difficult to get at my current location..so I was hoping to just use some lemon juice from the shop..

Will this be OK? (specs of the juice in attached image)

Cheers

 

[Kees]

Should be OK, only vit C and sulphites. You can leave the amount you are going to use in an open container for a day.
OTOH: I guess you are going to add a small amount of it to a much larger amount of juice. So the sulphites will be diluted so they can no longer harm the yeast.