Skeeter Pee

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I'm going to be starting this Skeeter Pee very soon and I have a question. My Ed Wort Apfelwein will not be ready for two more months. I thought about making a lemon free starter with part of the sugar the recipe calls for; get that bubbling and use that, but what would be the best yeast Montrachet or EC 1118
 
I know lots will jump in and say ec-1118 and that is because it is a beast that ferments anything with ease. I would actually suggest K1v-1116 as a tough fermenting yeast because it ferments a bit slower, preserving aroma and if fermenting on the cooler side it imparts some flora notes.

I just started a mead version of SP and what I did for a yeast slurry was take a 1 gallon glass pickle jar and dumped in 4 11.5oz Welch's juice concentrate, a tbs of tea, pectic enzyme, Nutrient and energizer & Lalvin 71b-1122 yeast. Two weeks later I threw it in the fridge and less than one week later it was crystal clear with a 1/2 in. of yeast sediment. I racked off the slurry and dumped that into my SP must. My SP is rolling on great now. So if you are ok to wait the you can make a $12.00 1 gal wine and have all the yeast needed to pitch into your SP in under 3 weeks.
 
Whsoj said:
I'm going to be starting this Skeeter Pee very soon and I have a question. My Ed Wort Apfelwein will not be ready for two more months. I thought about making a lemon free starter with part of the sugar the recipe calls for; get that bubbling and use that, but what would be the best yeast Montrachet or EC 1118
Click to expand...

I used Montrachet and did the starter with some of the sugar. No problems at all.
 
Oak_Brook_Brewing_Company said:
I used Montrachet and did the starter with some of the sugar. No problems at all.
Click to expand...

How did the final product turn out? I like Montrachet yeast for meads and such, but it ferments slightly sweet, so I was wondering about using it for the skeeter pee. Did you like how it turned out, and did you backsweeten it?
 
homebrewbeliever said:
How did the final product turn out? I like Montrachet yeast for meads and such, but it ferments slightly sweet, so I was wondering about using it for the skeeter pee. Did you like how it turned out, and did you backsweeten it?
Click to expand...

Well I have to admit it isn't quite done yet... I just started it about a week ago, but it is moving along quite well. Overall it's chewing up sugar and making alcohol. Last night's gravity was 1.033 down quite a bit from 1.072. I do have to say that there is a sweet Concord grape smell to my skeeter pee but I believe that is due to the tannin I used.
I will be transferring to a secondary in the next week or so. I am a firm believer that if there is still yeast action going on then it needs more time. I have it sitting at about 72 degrees on average.
 
I am on day three with SP no yeast action. I have used two packets of Red Star Pastuer Champaign. Started the first in quart jar with water and it was working along fine when I added to SP. 48 hours later nothing. I started another packet and added it last night. Still nothing. Our house averages around 65 degrees.. it worked in the jar why not the fermenter?
 
PDWhite it may start in the next 24 - 48 hours from now but if not since you have already put the must together and it is a bit late to make a full yeast cake then I would do a different kind of starter. In a one gallon container add in 1/4 gallon of white grape juice and mix in 1/2 tsp of yeast nutrient. Pitch a new pack of yeast and wait for bubling to start. Then add in 1 cup of your SP must. Wait 2 or more hours and make sure bubling does not stop. If it does not stop within the 2 hours then pitch another cup of must. If it does come to a stop then shake up the starter to degass and aerate and wait till it bubbles up again. Repeat this process over the next 10+ hours and when you have a full gallon of bubbling must then pitch that.

This should gradually acclimate the yeast to the SP must and give them a fighting chance. Good luck and let us know how it goes.
 
I checked and the lemon juice has sodium bisulfate.. Is the yeast dead or is that just the reason for slow.

So I need to get some white grape juice and build a better batch? Or do I just have a big bucket of lemonade ready for the summer?
 
Sodium bisulfate will not kill commercial yeast. Heck I use the generic Walmart brand real lemon juice rather than the "real lemon" brand and that stuff has sodium benzoate in it which is twice as hard on yeast than sodium bisulfate. And with a good yeast cake I get a nice healthy fermentation. So build that starter like I outlined and your red star yeast should power through this.
 
Remember that the prescribed wait time before pitch is there to allow for preservatives to break down a bit too. The contact with the air will help make sure that they aren't full strength when you pitch in your yeast starter.
 
One week update:

OG: 1.072
FG: 0.095!?

Tried it as it was going into the secondary, awesome! Added some sugar, awesomer!

A little sulfury in the nose from the montrachet, but I imagine the degassing it just got will help.
 
"Inverting sugar" is causing the sucrose to split to glucose and fructose which are easier to ferment. That is done with heat and a mild acid ... exactly what you did. Although, the recipe said 1/3 CUP not bottle, and did not say boil it said near boiling ... so where else did you deviate?
 
LBussy said:
"Inverting sugar" is causing the sucrose to split to glucose and fructose which are easier to ferment. That is done with heat and a mild acid ... exactly what you did. Although, the recipe said 1/3 CUP not bottle, and did not say boil it said near boiling ... so where else did you deviate?
Click to expand...

Howdy Lbussey.
 
I finally read all 1200 posts and I want to start a batch of this in a few weeks. I have only made cider and beer before so I am opting to make a starter. I have seen white grape juice suggested but could I use apple juice as well?

I also like the idea of making a 5 gallon batch and flavoring individual gallons. I am thinking about a can of limeade concentrate for one gallon and maybe something like fruit punch for another gallon. Is a can of concentrate a good amount?

I also want to bottle carbonate this batch because my wife is a champagne fan. I have xylitol and Splenda as options to backsweeten and I was thinking about using a lemonade concentrate to prime. How much of each should I use? I read that 1 cup Splenda is equal to 6 c sugar. Not sure if xylitol is equivalent to sugar or not.

I also do not plan on using finnings, tannins, or chemicals to stop fermentation since I plan on bottle carbing. Will that affect flavor?
 
Mine is in the fridge now with a dose of sparkaloid. It's in a BB with their proprietary valve/airlock and that had an unexpected benefit - as it cooled it created a vacuum and I guess finished the de-gassing. :)

Fermentation was so fast it was scary - I am hoping it drops clear quickly as well. I have a keg all ready and waiting for it.
 
Buckeye,

One can per gallon is good. Limeade eas our favorite. If you don't use sorbate and sulfite you will have bottle bombs unless you pasteurize them. Good luck.
 
buckeyeintexas said:
I finally read all 1200 posts and I want to start a batch of this in a few weeks. I have only made cider and beer before so I am opting to make a starter. I have seen white grape juice suggested but could I use apple juice as well?

I also like the idea of making a 5 gallon batch and flavoring individual gallons. I am thinking about a can of limeade concentrate for one gallon and maybe something like fruit punch for another gallon. Is a can of concentrate a good amount?

I also want to bottle carbonate this batch because my wife is a champagne fan. I have xylitol and Splenda as options to backsweeten and I was thinking about using a lemonade concentrate to prime. How much of each should I use? I read that 1 cup Splenda is equal to 6 c sugar. Not sure if xylitol is equivalent to sugar or not.

I also do not plan on using finnings, tannins, or chemicals to stop fermentation since I plan on bottle carbing. Will that affect flavor?
Click to expand...

OK first off not using finnings is fine but tannins are important for the recipe. It helps to balance the flavor and add a little body. Dont just not use the tannins. If you have no grape tannin on hand I actually use 1 TBS of Black tea in my SP for tannins. I just dump the dry tea right into primary.

If you are just wanting to make a quick starter then any juice should work really. But I suggest making a simple 1 gallon wine and get a real good healthy yeast cake that you can dump into the SP must. That will have much better results. For my Last SP I did just that. I made a simple White grape peach wine as follows:

4 cans concentrate
1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
1tsp yeast nutrient
1/2 tsp yeast energizer
1tbs Earl grey loos leaf tea
Yeast (Lalvin 71B-1122)

If using concentrate you can use any flavor you want. If using strait juice then you want to add table sugar to get your OG up to about 1.08 or so. The above recipe and yeast takes about two weeks to ferment completly and then you put the jar in the fridge and 1 - 2 weeks later it is crystal clear with a real thick yeast cake on the bottom you can rack off of.

If you split this into one gallon batches and flavor them then one can of concentrate should work out. If you want to make these sparkling when you bottle then make sure to rack when fermentation is active but not completly done so that when you add the concentrate it ferments through those sugars appropriatly and you can know fermentation is complete to properly prime the SP for bottling once clear.

I would just prime with sugar to be honest becaus there are calculators on the web that tell you how much Sucrose or Dextrose is needed to prime and not bottle bomb. For Sucrose in a 1 gallon batch you are looking at about 17.69 grams needed to prime the gallon before bottling.

However I like a challenge and still ended up doing some conversions for lemon concentrate. Looking at nutritiondata.self.com I figured that Lemonaid concentrate is about 44.97% sugar. Doing a little math that comes to 39.33 grams needed to prime or 1.07 fl oz. :)

Laslty back sweeting with splenda is about 1cup splenda per 3 cups sugar. My SP before last used about 2 cups splenda to get it to the appropriate sweetness.
 
Arpolis said:
PDWhite it may start in the next 24 - 48 hours from now but if not since you have already put the must together and it is a bit late to make a full yeast cake then I would do a different kind of starter. In a one gallon container add in 1/4 gallon of white grape juice and mix in 1/2 tsp of yeast nutrient. Pitch a new pack of yeast and wait for bubling to start. Then add in 1 cup of your SP must. Wait 2 or more hours and make sure bubling does not stop. If it does not stop within the 2 hours then pitch another cup of must. If it does come to a stop then shake up the starter to degass and aerate and wait till it bubbles up again. Repeat this process over the next 10+ hours and when you have a full gallon of bubbling must then pitch that.

This should gradually acclimate the yeast to the SP must and give them a fighting chance. Good luck and let us know how it goes.
Click to expand...

This is going very well.. Thanks so very much! Not to get greedy but I am, if I keep going and get a gallon and a quart could I keep the quart as a start for the next round and build it to a gallon plus then? New to all this and finding yeast very interesting little critters.
 
Arpolis,

Could you please give a ducks and bunnies on how to create a yeast cake? Your how to start from White Grape juice was just what I needed. Now trying to be prepared for the next batch.. all the discussion makes me know this will become a favorite summer beverage.

Thanks David
 
PDWhite said:
Arpolis,

Could you please give a ducks and bunnies on how to create a yeast cake? Your how to start from White Grape juice was just what I needed. Now trying to be prepared for the next batch.. all the discussion makes me know this will become a favorite summer beverage.

Thanks David
Click to expand...

Glad to hear it is working well for you.

If you have a yeast cake started you could keep it in a quart jar in the fridge and feed it over time to keep it alive. Just make a simple wine & let it ferment to completion. Next place it in the fridge & let the yeast all settle to the bottom over the next month. Then siphon off 3/4 of the liquid and replace with 1/3 cup sugar/water/ 1/4 tsp yeast nutrient, stir it up and let it ferment at room temp. should take 1 - 2 weeks. Then place in fridge a month and repeat the process. You can do that to keep yeast alive indefinatly. Any time you want to use the yeast, siphon off as much clear liquid as you can and then you can split the yeast from that batch in half to use in any batch of real wine/mead/beer and just continue the Sugar/water/nutrient step as above in the quart jar.

But a dry packet of yeast is sooo cheap I do not see any real reason to go through all that these days.

Above in a previous post I outlined a simple way to make a 1 gallon batch of wine that will give you as much of a yeast cake as you would possibly need to get a batch of SP ready.

Arpolis said:
I suggest making a simple 1 gallon wine and get a real good healthy yeast cake that you can dump into the SP must. That will have much better results. For my Last SP I did just that. I made a simple White grape peach wine as follows:

4 cans concentrate
1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
1tsp yeast nutrient
1/2 tsp yeast energizer
1tbs Earl grey loos leaf tea
Yeast (Lalvin 71B-1122)

If using concentrate you can use any flavor you want. If using strait juice then you want to add table sugar to get your OG up to about 1.08 or so. The above recipe and yeast takes about two weeks to ferment completly and then you put the jar in the fridge and 1 - 2 weeks later it is crystal clear with a real thick yeast cake on the bottom you can rack off of.
Click to expand...

So about 30 days before you want to make your next SP then follow the above. Use what ever Welch's juice concentrate that you want. I like the white grape peach because it makes a nice dry wine that I can bottle right off of the yeast cake from the fridge. No trouble with stabilizing/pasturizing/back sweetening or anything to get a nice wine. You should get 4 750ml wine bottles out of that gallon batch. Leave the rest of the liquid and that will add a little flavor and uniqness to your SP. I hear the White grape Raspberry is very tart made with most yeasts so is better sweet rather than dry. 71B yeast is good for counteracting some of that tart flavor because it metabolizes malic acid in wines which reduces that awful tart flavor but not sure if that flavor would still be good dry. (Never tried it myself) If using that or if you want a sweet wine then siphon to a second gallon jar and stabilize with Potassium Sorbate and a crushed camden tablet so you can add sugar to taste without further fermentation happening and then bottle. Or sweeten with a non fermentable sugar like splenda. The strait white grape and red grape work fine as well to make a decent cheap wine just for the yeast cake. I have not heard of tasting notes on all the other flavors Welch's has to offer.

Glad you are enjoying the SP endevor and keep us all updated on how your SP does and any tasting notes for when it is completed. :mug:
 
image-3290227588.jpg

Okay. First transfer into a sanitized carboy. It's slightly carbonated and still working actively. The gravity reading was about 1.012/1.014. My question is should it look like this at the two week mark or am I way off? I have followed the recipe as closely as possible. I haven't added finings yet since it still seems to be working. What do you think?
 
It may just be the picture but it looks less yellow then I remember. At two weeks it will be that cloudy. I think things are going well for you.
 
I have my first batch of Skeeter Pee finishing up now. I have added the sparkaloid and it is just about crystal clear. I used the yeast cake from a one gallon batch of strawberry wine. I was hoping for a pinkish to red color, but it looks like I've made something closer to straw color. Any ideas on how I can get it closer to pink/red during the back sweetening process.
 
If you like strawberry you could always back sweeten with 8 cans of Bacardi strawberry mixer from the freezer case at the store. The only problem is this more than doubles he cost of making it. 6 cans will be more than enough for the color, but won't give you much flavor.
 
Oak_Brook_Brewing_Company said:
View attachment 107182

Okay. First transfer into a sanitized carboy. It's slightly carbonated and still working actively. The gravity reading was about 1.012/1.014. My question is should it look like this at the two week mark or am I way off? I have followed the recipe as closely as possible. I haven't added finings yet since it still seems to be working. What do you think?
Click to expand...
It's working slower than mine did, but it's still working and looks fine. When you say "as close as possible" where did you deviate? That sort of comment always throws a red flag for me. :)
 
The only deviation is that my total volume is higher than 5 gallons and that I didn't make or use an existing yeast cake from a wine. I made a starter with inverted sugar and a small amount if lemon juice.
 
Oak_Brook_Brewing_Company said:
The only deviation is that my total volume is higher than 5 gallons and that I didn't make or use an existing yeast cake from a wine. I made a starter with inverted sugar and a small amount if lemon juice.
Click to expand...

I think that the yeast is why yours may be slower - seems reasonable anyway. Mine was dry in < 7 days, the yeast was from a batch of Apfelwine. Still the color and all that looks exactly like mine did - right to the look of the fermenter because that's what I used as well.

My volume was ~5.5 gallons which I believe is where you end up if you follow the directions. I did end up adding a cup or so of sugar on top of the 7 lbs to get to 1.070. I weighed the initial sugar and should have weighed the additional but did not. Live and learn.
 
Just so I'm clear on this, we need to rack to a clean carboy three times, right?

First, a couple of days after we add the third 32 oz container of lemon juice (and presumably before it is done fermenting); second time after it has completely fermented dry; third time after we have added the kmeta, sorbate, and sparkolloid and it completely clears.

I guess I am wondering why we transfer it the first time before the fermentation has completely finished, or am I just reading the recipe wrong?
 
Reading it wrong, you don't need to rack at all if you don't want to. I do my pee in a bucket for a week. I like air surface ratio. Then when almost done. I rack to Carboy. Then when totally done, I degas, add kmeta, sorbate, and finings. When clear I rack to a Carboy with 1" headspace. Sweeten and let sit til bottling. Kegging. Etc. Salud.
 
Thanks for the clarification. So if I rack it to a carboy (from a bucket) after a week or so, then rack it to a keg after a couple of weeks in the carboy that should be fine, right? I can just sweeten in the keg and blast it with a little CO2 to seal it up and store it for a while. Then when I'm ready for it I'll just force carbonate it.
 
Thanks. One last question though (and I apologize if this is obvious, I've never made wine, only a few batches of beer), why do you rack to a carboy before the pee is completely finished fermenting? Is this standard for wine? Do you leave behind the lees or move it all into a clean carboy?
 
You usually rack off the lees to prevent autolysis. We use a bucket first because yeast in early stages of fermentation love the oxygen and will ferment better when areated better. Racking to Carboy is to reduce the air to wine serface area because as quoted above:

That oxidation is bad for vino.
Click to expand...
 
I'm not a wine maker but wanted to try to blend this with a wheat beer for a shandy type concoction, what on earth is degasing, how do I do it and is it necessary?
 

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