Apples and Oranges - A 1-gallon batch

[Oberon67]

So today I got a wild hair and stopped off at the store, where I picked up four 12-ounce cans of frozen apple juice concentrate. The ingredients listed were "apple juice, ascorbic acid." Sounded good to me.

At home I got out my manual veggie slicer... a "mandolin," they call it... and shredded the peels of two navel oranges. With the shredded peel, the juice of one orange, one cup of table sugar and about a quarter cup of additional water, I boiled the mix on the stove until the orange peel was translucent, like marmalade. I figured by then I had an orange-flavored invert syrup, more or less.

I plunked that in the fermenter. I plunked all four cans of concentrate in the fermenter. I plunked a teaspoon of Fermaid in the fermenter, filled it to 90 percent full with tap water, and pitched a packet of dry D-47 yeast. I shook it vigorously to aerate, and popped a cap and blowoff tube on it.

Like an idiot I did not get an OG reading on this, but if it was under 1.100 I'm Queen Victoria. The D-47 has its work cut out for it, but I trust it will manage. That's one tough yeast.

Now for the long wait...

 

[Dominic1920]

Look forward to hearing how it turns out I've got a grapefruit wine going right now, kind of did the same with the rinds, but the zest was really dried out since these were fallen fruit. No telling how long they had been on the ground.

 

[Oberon67]

Grapefruit, eh?

One wonders, if you dry-hopped it with Cascade hops, would anyone notice?

 

[Oberon67]

As expected, the D47 is bubbling away like a champ today. It has carried all the little pieces of orange peel to the top of the fermenter, and you can hear the hiss of the bubbles breaking.

 

[Oberon67]

So this primary started to throw off some sulfur odors, so I dosed with a bit of Fermaid to sweeten it up again.

My 10-year-old daughter was curious. I explained to her that the yeast nutrient was necessary for the yeast to properly digest.

"Yeast digest?" she said, surprised.

"Yep," I said. "See the bubbles moving through the that tubing?" I said, pointing to the poly tube coils I was using for an airlock. "That's carbon dioxide from the yeast metabolism."

"Oh," she said, pondering. "...Yeast farts."

Yep. Yeast farts.

 

[phug]

What else would be so stinky. Yeast farts indeed.

 

[Oberon67]

Sampled this batch today... fermentation is still chugging along, but the sugar in the brew is just about gone. The dominant flavor now is a vomit-like sourness. That's to be expected in the first week of fermentation, I suppose, but now I am reminded of why many cider-brewers avoid juice with added ascorbic acid.

So I have a couple options. I could continue to add sugar until the D-47 runs out of alcohol tolerance (somewhere north of 16% or so), or I could rack to secondary for a bit, then kill the fermentation and back-sweeten. Not sure which option I prefer just now.

 

[SkewedBrewing]

Can we get some pictures of this process?