Fermenting a liquid that already has alcohol in it.

[woozy]

Hypothetical Question: Take red wine, add a bunch of sugar, pitch yeast. What happens?

So I toying with the idea of experimenting with a sparkling fermented mulled wine beverage. So a 3/4 of a gallon of red wine, a sugar syrup of cinnamon and cloves and lemon juice, and sugar. And I figured I'd have to boil the wine to burn off all the alcohol. My partner asked why, and I said surely we cant have alcohol in the must and she said why not and I said well, that just doesnt seem right does it, and she said, well, nothing about this idea seems right, does it? A long as you are being weird why not just be weird. .... I didn't really have a response.

 

[MrPowers]

It's not the existing alcohol that is going to be the problem, the problem will be any residual sulfites/preservatives that are in the wine. You can remove sulfites via oxygenation, but if they used other preservatives, they might not be so easy to remove.

If you do this, make sure you pick a wine that doesn't have preservatives. Pick yeast with a high alcohol tolerance and give them plenty of nutrients.

 

[Cyclman]

I would ferment the beverage and flavors you want to add separately, then add the wine.

 

[Yooper]

Alcohol is poisonous to yeast- you'd be hard pressed to add sugar and get any fermentation to a wine since it's already at about 12% ABV.

 

[doug293cz]

I have successfully fermented beer to ~16% ABV using Lalvin EC-1118 champagne yeast to finish up. Yeast nutrient is critical.

Brew on

 

[Transamguy77]

Anyway to force carb? You could add all the flavors you want and then force carb it up and enjoy.

 

[woozy]

" Alcohol is poisonous to yeast- you'd be hard pressed to add sugar and get any fermentation to a wine since it's already at about 12% ABV. "

Yeah... that's what I thought. But what if I boil the alcohol out of the wine, add sugar and referment

 

[Kickass]

Reading this, I can’t help but be confused with what the intent/desired outcome is. That being said, I’m interested to see what direction this goes and what the perceived outcome is.

 

[bracconiere]

" Alcohol is poisonous to yeast- you'd be hard pressed to add sugar and get any fermentation to a wine since it's already at about 12% ABV. "

Yeah... that's what I thought. But what if I boil the alcohol out of the wine, add sugar and referment

??? because that would be stupid.....if you want some cinnamon flavor just dry cinnamon it, with soaking some sticks......but if you're worried about 'significant others' opinons....but a cheap air cooler water still, distill the alcohol out, and make your tincture with that and add that back to a bottle to make a fortified wine.....

 

[woozy]

>> Reading this, I can’t help but be confused with what the intent/desired outcome is. That being said, I’m interested to see what direction this goes and what the perceived outcome is.

If you take a liquid high in sugar, add yeast, then bottle with priming sugar you get a carbonated alcoholic beverage.

If the sweet liquid is ancient hop grain juice the result is beer, if the sweet liquid is apple juice you get cider, and if the sweet liquid is Kool-Aid you get prison hooch.

And if the sweet liquid is sweetened mulled wine you get a crack-pot idea that came to me in the middle of the night. I figure the thing about crack-pot ideas that come to one in the middle of the night is the results can be curious.... or pointless... or silly.

Basically I'm wondering if this might be an interesting alternative to cider. Or it could be just pointless.

 

[NGD]

Would have shook my head before I tried a 7% kombucha that was moderately carbonated and I like it. What the hell, go for it.

 

[yaakov]

>>
If the sweet liquid is ancient hop grain juice the result is beer, if the sweet liquid is apple juice you get cider, and if the sweet liquid is Kool-Aid you get prison hooch.

you made me laugh! Lol!