Bootleg Pyment

[a_merryk_hunt]

While not necessarily fitting the definition of "bootleg," thought it sounded better than "hobo pyment."

I'm sure most people with at least a passing interest in fermenting, or just getting drunk, are familiar with cheap wine made from grape juice, table sugar, and bread yeast. Intentionally made with a decent amount of residual sugar to make it drinkable while very young.

Figured I'd try a variation on that for my next experiment and turn it into a pyment (I can hear wine and mead purists grumbling in unison already); then combine some rehydration, nutrient, fining, and stabilization techniques.

Had to jump through some minor hoops to figure out how much honey was needed to roughly match the fermentable content of the sugar. Recipe I had called for sugar by volume, not by weight.

The sugars in the honey and juice were a little off from beersmith estimates, but should still work out nicely.

1 gallon white grape juice with no preservatives or sugars added. (Pic of SG for juice added for the sake of determining exactly how much sugar was added by the honey, and to dial-in the values on beersmith)
1.5 lbs wildflower honey
7 grams Red Star active dry yeast (entered this as lager yeast with alcohol tolerance of 10%, to roughly match the upper average for bread yeast)
8.75 grams Go-Ferm
2.5 grams Fermaid-O

OG: 1.108 SG
Anticipated FG: 1.034 SG
ABV: ~10.1%

Planning to add bentonite to primary once fermentation picks up. Will add sorbate, sulfite and sparkolloid when fermentation is done and I rack to secondary.

As always I'll update this along the way.

 

[gunhaus]

Neat, I have put this together a few times:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/joes-quick-grape-mead.57190/
I don't consider it "cheap" - nor would i groan about it! It comes out pretty nice with a bit of age on it. I am sure you will enjoy yours. I have never done the white version and i look forward to hearing how it comes out for you.

 

[a_merryk_hunt]

Interesting, I was unaware of this recipe being posted.

I've never seen it done with white grape juice either, usually see frozen concord concentrate. My fiancee wanted white though, so I decided to give it a shot with this stuff:

 

[a_merryk_hunt]

24 hours: 1.100 SG. Was figuring this might take a day or two to start up, unlike wine yeast, but I was wrong. Already chewed through 8 points worth of sugars, and have decent offgassing. Very thick layer of foam formed when degassing and aerating. Just eyeballing it, was probably around 1/2 gallon worth of space in the bucket.

 

[a_merryk_hunt]

48 hours: 1.088 SG. Bentonite added. Might have gone too light on the nutrients, getting some pretty pungent sulfurous gorilla farts from this.

 

[a_merryk_hunt]

72 hours: 1.078 SG. Sulfur-like smell which goes away when degassing still present. Added additional gram of Fermaid-O. Will see if underfeeding was the issue if smell still present at next check.

 

[a_merryk_hunt]

5 days: 1.054 SG. Sulfur smell greatly diminished, almost unnoticeable.

 

[a_merryk_hunt]

1 week: 1.038 SG

9 days: 1.025 SG

Well, this has blown past where I expected. Seems to be slowing down quite a bit. Just gotta wait and see where it finishes.

 

[a_merryk_hunt]

11 days: 1.016 SG

 

[Blacksmith1]

Steady creeping down. You've already passed your target FG.

 

[a_merryk_hunt]

Steady creeping down. You've already passed your target FG.

Oh well, the joys of bread yeast lol. Higher ABV and more back sweetening required, no biggie.

 

[Blacksmith1]

even wine yeasts will do that to you.

 

[a_merryk_hunt]

Yup.

 

[a_merryk_hunt]

13 days: 1.008 SG

 

[Blacksmith1]

I'd bet this is going all the way to dry. 0.0998 or lower.

 

[a_merryk_hunt]

I'd bet this is going all the way to dry. 0.0998 or lower.

Possibly. It is slowing significantly though. What's throwing me off; is that the wine yeasts I've used went strong down to 1.000, then stopped like they hit a brick wall.

 

[a_merryk_hunt]

Little late on the update, but here goes.

Day 16: Stopped out at 1.006 SG (13.8). Racked onto sulfite, sorbate, and backsweetened to 1.058 (approximately 1.5lb of honey). Added sparkolloid.

(pic from day 14)

Day 31: 1 racking after secondary (forgot to record this in beersmith, date unknown. Presumably about 1 week after adding sparkolloid) crystal clear. Yeast apparently got active again, finished at 1.056 SG. Racked onto small amount of sulfite as an O2 buffer, and bottled.

After crunching some numbers, backsweetening should have diluted the abv to approximately 10%

 

[a_merryk_hunt]

Pic snapped by my fiancée, using her favorite backdrop. The glass is very foggy from being chilled hiding the clarity, but still a solid job on this one (both the drink and the pic).

 

[NeverDie]

Pic snapped by my fiancée, using her favorite backdrop. The glass is very foggy from being chilled hiding the clarity, but still a solid job on this one (both the drink and the pic).View attachment 621332

How does it taste?

 

[a_merryk_hunt]

Very sweet for my tastes, especially when chilled, but still quite nice.

When chilled: very sweet from the excessive backsweetening, kinda thick and coats the mouth. Long finish with the back-end being slightly tart from the white grape juice used. At room temperature: still sweet but less in your face and thick, with a munch stronger and more apparent tartness.

The grape juice held up well without developing many wine-like qualities.

Don't think the bread yeast really had much, if any, negative effect. Nice outcome from a random experimental batch.

 

[NeverDie]

Did you backsweeten to 1.058 on purpose? That's pretty high, even for a sweet mead. I ask because I'm about to start a similar experiment with the same kind of HEB white grape juice (because, unlike Welch's, it doesn't have metabisulfite in it). I'm planning to plug it into Joe's Quick Grape Mead recipe.

For your reference, according to: https://www.bjcp.org/2008styles/meadintro.php
most sweet meads are 1.025 to 1.050 SG.

 

[a_merryk_hunt]

Did you backsweeten to 1.058 on purpose? That's pretty high, even for a sweet mead. I ask because I'm about to start a similar experiment with the same kind of HEB white grape juice (because, unlike Welch's, it doesn't have metabisulfite in it). I'm planning to plug it into Joe's Quick Grape Mead recipe.

I was actually aiming for 1.060, figured 2 points was an acceptable variance. This was mostly a project for my fiancée to drink and she likes things very sweet. Tbh though, the grape "twang" really cuts down on the percieved sweetness. Tastes about half as sweet as it really is.

 

[NeverDie]

By the way, since you live where I do, have you found a good source for local honey?

 

[a_merryk_hunt]

By the way, since you live where I do, have you found a good source for local honey?

Still exploring options. If you're ok with wildflower only, round rock honey isn't bad (a little pricy though. Had some decent results with Walker also, they would probably get my vote, purely for price and having varietals.

 

[NeverDie]

I recently read that "wildflower" is code for anything goes. Not really what I would have thought, based on the name itself.

 

[a_merryk_hunt]

I recently read that "wildflower" is code for anything goes. Not really what I would have thought, based on the name itself.

I guess that's one way to put it. My understanding is that the pollen/nectar sources are unknown and/or uncontrolled.

 

[Blacksmith1]

Hence "wild".

 

[Blacksmith1]

I keep.many local.weeds.growing in.my yard because the bees here like them. They also get access to my lemon tree, the grape vine, my tomatoes, anything else I may be growing and that's just my yard. Any hives around here are going to be getting a mix of plants including truly wild stuff.

 

[a_merryk_hunt]

Sounds like a tasty combo though