Maple strawberry wine(?)

[dnr]

Brewed and bottled my first beer as soon as my job shut down due to this pandemic. I had to use Baker's yeast though, so I wanted to test it out to get a feel for what it likes.
Having one of those fake maple syrups that's mostly corn syrup, some frosting that was mostly sugar and corn syrup and a few frozen strawberries, I made a must?
1 gallon water, 3 cups "maple syrup", .5 cups frozen blended strawberries, 2 tbsp red frosting. Bright to a quick boil them somewhere to evaporate excess liquid. Pitched 1 tsp instant dry Baker's yeast.
It's been going crazy for the last 24 hours. I don't expect it will taste great, but it's mostly an experiment and kind of smells like funky waffles with syrup and old, tart strawberries.
Anyone else done anything like this?

 

[bernardsmith]

In a pinch bread yeast works fine - especially if you are not aiming for the yeast to enhance the flavor of the fruit (there is not much here) or to enhance mouth feel through its production of glycerols. There are a lot of faery tales out there about bread yeast not being able to ferment to 10 or 12% ABV. But bread yeast is exactly the same beast as wine yeast except it has been bred for bread baking and not for wine making, so it's a bit like asking a Clydesdale horse to race the Traverse. It'll finish the race but it won't come in among the first three.

 

[dnr]

When doing research, I saw that they're both Saccharomyces cerevisiae. I mean people call beer a liquid bread. When the world gets back to normal, I'll buy proper yeast, unless I gain a wonderful understanding of this yeast's habits and performance.
It'll be like my Conan.

 

[Dr_Jeff]

Amazon has lots of varieties of dry yeast available, and the best part, it gets delivered to your door or mailbox.

 

[dnr]

Amazon is also putting certain items at a month wait for delivery, so at the time, I used what I had.
Ultimately, that's the plan, but I found this crazy guy on YouTube who makes "wine" and "mead" out of anything with sugar in it.
I think I'm gonna test a few things with this Baker's yeast.

 

[bernardsmith]

Two good ways to think about making wines and meads from "anything" to hand. You might check out historical country wines (wines from fruits and vegetables made at home by (usually) women. These recipes included wines from tomatoes, peas, beets. These were a great way to "preserve" the garden crops for months. The other thing you might check out is Buhner's classic Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers: The Secrets of Ancient Fermentation. Buhner tends to view all alcoholic beverages as "beer" but he looks at brewing and wine making not so much historically but culturally - That is how different cultures across the planet used the fruits and vegetables and plants for wine. As Jack Keller has said: just because you CAN make a wine from some substrate does not mean that you should. Some things taste like crap and making wine from crap is still crap, but some things that you might not think would make a good wine can make delicious drinks. I am thinking about heather wine (and ale) and cowslip wine - and I routinely make wine from elderflowers.

 

[dnr]

I mostly have a bunch of leftover Christmas candy.
That's what I plan on experimenting with. Maybe add some fruit that's gonna go bad.
I plan on using scraps and leftovers.