I have an interesting question.

[DEREKsims]

I can't find much if any real solid information on this but I'm about to experiment.

Has anyone every pitched a yeast into a fruit punch, store bought or homemade, let it do its thing and then aged it say 3-4 months?

Or any other juice for that matter? Any of the popular cran-apple or cran-cherry or any weird mixture? I'm about to buy some nottingham ale yeast or something. I want to maintain some of the real fruit flavors.

I want to make several batches of semi sweet and dry fruit punches lol.

Anyways just wanted to get anyone's thoughts on it and/or recommendations for anything.

 

[Blacksmith1]

I have been making most of my ciders and wines from store bought juices. Store brand, Mott's, Juicey Juice, Welch's, Ocean Spray, etc.
They work well but you need to check the Sg as some are weaker than others. And even if you like cranberry juice you should dilute it by half to ferment it. Swmbo loves it but prefers the wines diluted. This is based on cran-rass diluted and cran-pom done as a freeze concentrate. If in doubt do one gallon of each.
Diluted will require the addition of sugar to raise the SG.

 

[Kent88]

It sounds like something that someone has done at some point. I've seen a thread or two that people have fermented store bought juice, besides apple juice (which I think is rather popular).

As Blacksmith said, figure out what gravity the juice is, and I'd recommend you avoid any juice that contains stabilizers like sorbate or sulfates.

 

[Blacksmith1]

Yup juice only. Ascorbic acid, vitamins, and carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) are fine and won't impair your ferment. But definitely avoid preservatives.

 

[DEREKsims]

Sweet. Thanks guys. I still cant find any info or picture of someone aging a store bought juice like a fruit punch or something for a long time. So my plan is get a gallon of fruit punch with zero preservatives in it. Regular white sugar and I think maybe nottingham ale yeast and get to it. I plan on making a couple of 1 gallon batches and aging one for atleast 3 months racking it as much as I need to and the other maybe 6 or more. Who knows.

 

[Blacksmith1]

If you are adding sugar use a wine yeast. And yeast nutrient no matter what yeast. I aged one 6 months most of my gallons were gone by the time they were 4 months old. I have just recently started doing 5-6 gallon batches so now I can start trying to age them.

 

[MaxStout]

Sweet. Thanks guys. I still cant find any info or picture of someone aging a store bought juice like a fruit punch or something for a long time. So my plan is get a gallon of fruit punch with zero preservatives in it. Regular white sugar and I think maybe nottingham ale yeast and get to it. I plan on making a couple of 1 gallon batches and aging one for atleast 3 months racking it as much as I need to and the other maybe 6 or more. Who knows.

I have made several batches of EdWort's Apfelwein, using store-bought apple juice. I fermented with wine yeast, then racked into secondary and bulk-aged there for 3 months or so (aging smooths out the flavor). You should have no problem aging for the 3-4 months you mentioned.

 

[mirthfuldragon]

I want to make several batches of semi sweet and dry fruit punches lol.

Truly dry (1.000 to 0.998 SG) is really dry in fruit wines. So much of fruit flavors come from sweetness. Be prepared to stabilize (potassium sorbate and campden / potassium metabisulfite) and back-sweeten. Most wine yeasts will have no problems taking fruit juices and blends down that dry. Yeast nutrient helps because there is not a lot of trace nutrients in fruit juices (or honey) to give the yeast what they need to multiply.