Smoothie-like juice??

[mywifehatesmybeer]

Hey guys. I have no idea where to post this, so I'm going to post it here first and then maybe cross post this to other sections of this forum to find some answers.

Background: SWMBO LOVES LOVES LOVES mangoes. We live down here in Florida, USA and she has recently discovered that her favorite (by a LOOONG shot, mind you) fruit is the mango.

Recently, when down at Publix, I noticed there was a brand of mango juice that was 2 for $4 at a quart/liter a piece. Upon noticing its ingredients (mango, water, sugar and NADA ELSE) my interest was peaked...but they only had one. Yesterday, we went back and hey! there are four! Bought 4, gallon batch, heck yes, SWMBO will love me.

Here's the tricky part - when I get home, my plan is to take a gravity reading, save some raw stuff for the lady, then dump it into a gallon jug for fermentation. This stuff is THICK. It was pretty thick when I opened it and moreso after I shook the stuff off the bottom. The bottle says it's 50% juice, but to me it looked and tasted like a mango smoothie (suuuuper tasty, SWMBO would probably choose it over me). When taking the gravity reading, my hydrometer basically stayed right around where I left it since the "juice" is so damn viscous.

What the heck do I do?? I pitched some US-05 into the mix just to see what would happen but... is there any way to gauge the gravity of this? What do you guys think I can expect out of this?

FOR REFERENCE - This is the stuff in question: http://www.fooducate.com/app#!page=product&id=FC668992-5B41-11E2-AD7C-1231381A4CEA

I'm super grateful for any help and will give updates as requested. Thanks in advance!!

 

[mywifehatesmybeer]

Hey guys. I have no idea where to post this, so I'm going to post it here first and then maybe cross post this to other sections of this forum to find some answers.

Background: SWMBO LOVES LOVES LOVES mangoes. We live down here in Florida, USA and she has recently discovered that her favorite (by a LOOONG shot, mind you) fruit is the mango.

Recently, when down at Publix, I noticed there was a brand of mango juice that was 2 for $4 at a quart/liter a piece. Upon noticing its ingredients (mango, water, sugar and NADA ELSE) my interest was peaked...but they only had one. Yesterday, we went back and hey! there are four! Bought 4, gallon batch, heck yes, SWMBO will love me.

Here's the tricky part - when I get home, my plan is to take a gravity reading, save some raw stuff for the lady, then dump it into a gallon jug for fermentation. This stuff is THICK. It was pretty thick when I opened it and moreso after I shook the stuff off the bottom. The bottle says it's 50% juice, but to me it looked and tasted like a mango smoothie (suuuuper tasty, SWMBO would probably choose it over me). When taking the gravity reading, my hydrometer basically stayed right around where I left it since the "juice" is so damn viscous.

What the heck do I do?? I pitched some US-05 into the mix just to see what would happen but... is there any way to gauge the gravity of this? What do you guys think I can expect out of this?

FOR REFERENCE - This is the stuff in question: http://www.fooducate.com/app#!page=product&id=FC668992-5B41-11E2-AD7C-1231381A4CEA

I'm super grateful for any help and will give updates as requested. Thanks in advance!!

 

[mywifehatesmybeer]

Hey guys. I have no idea where to post this, so I'm going to post it here first and then maybe cross post this to other sections of this forum to find some answers.

Background: SWMBO LOVES LOVES LOVES mangoes. We live down here in Florida, USA and she has recently discovered that her favorite (by a LOOONG shot, mind you) fruit is the mango.

Recently, when down at Publix, I noticed there was a brand of mango juice that was 2 for $4 at a quart/liter a piece. Upon noticing its ingredients (mango, water, sugar and NADA ELSE) my interest was peaked...but they only had one. Yesterday, we went back and hey! there are four! Bought 4, gallon batch, heck yes, SWMBO will love me.

Here's the tricky part - when I get home, my plan is to take a gravity reading, save some raw stuff for the lady, then dump it into a gallon jug for fermentation. This stuff is THICK. It was pretty thick when I opened it and moreso after I shook the stuff off the bottom. The bottle says it's 50% juice, but to me it looked and tasted like a mango smoothie (suuuuper tasty, SWMBO would probably choose it over me). When taking the gravity reading, my hydrometer basically stayed right around where I left it since the "juice" is so damn viscous.

What the heck do I do?? I pitched some US-05 into the mix just to see what would happen but... is there any way to gauge the gravity of this? What do you guys think I can expect out of this?

FOR REFERENCE - This is the stuff in question: http://www.fooducate.com/app#!page=product&id=FC668992-5B41-11E2-AD7C-1231381A4CEA

I'm super grateful for any help and will give updates as requested. Thanks in advance!!

 

[raysmithtx]

Deleted

 

[bernardsmith]

Check the nutrition label for the amount of sugar per serving (probably in grams) and the number of servings in the bottle. If you multiply those numbers together you will determine the sugar content of each bottle. Multiply that number by the number of bottles you are using to make a gallon. That is the total quantity of sugar. Convert the total to ounces and convert that to pounds.
Each pound of sugar will result in an increase of 40 points (more or less) and if you multiply the total number of points (2 lbs = 80; 2.5 lbs = 100 points) by 131 that will give you the likely potential ABV.
As the must ferments the pulp will begin to clear and your hydrometer will give you a fairly good estimate of how well the yeast is doing.
My experience with mango is that about half the wine will end up as sediment and lees. You may want to add nutrient to ensure that the yeast have enough nitrogen. You may want to make a second batch using 71B or D47 or QA 23 yeast (all wine yeasts) but I am pretty certain that the US-05 will be OK although there may be too much fermentable sugar in the mango juice to enable the yeast to ferment out all the sugar...

 

[mywifehatesmybeer]

I make a Lemon Lime beer that would probably be pretty easy to convert to mango. As a matter of fact I just kegged my 5th batch of this beer today.

The recipe is below. Note that the OG does not take the addition of the fruit juice into consideration and is about 5 points higher than shown. The water additions are for RO water. For Mango I would probably use Orange zest instead of the lime since it's a much closer flavor.

Sorry Ray, but that does not answer my question. I was asking as to the gravity readings and the yeast's capability to eat through the thickness of the product. Thank you for your input, though.

 

[orangehero]

Make serial dilutions until you can measure with a hydrometer and then multiply.

The thickness shouldn't be a problem for yeast. The attenuation will depend on the yeast strain, how much fermentable sugar is actually in the drink, and if enough nutrients are present.

 

[kev211]

I dont see why the yeasties couldnt ferment it, but you probably dont want to drink an alcoholic fruit "smoothie" (or maybe you do ) so you could always cut it with water to thin it out and make it more of a juice. You could also try straining it through sanitized cheese cloth (or something finer) to extract just the juice and leave the pulpy stuff behind.

Chances are the thickness of it will interfere with a hydrometer reading, so I would use a refractometer if you have one to get the SG

 

[1977Brewer]

Commercial juice has the sugar content on the label. There's math involved, but that's your OG.

I do not know the math involved.

 

[mywifehatesmybeer]

Oh excellent, thank you so much for the info. Yes, I did add nutrient yesterday when I pitched and will probably add more within the next few days. Do you have any recommendations as to the schedule of additions? It looks like I'm looking at somewhere around 18 ounces of sugar for that one gallon batch, but I wasn't sure how the thickness and pulp would affect the sugar levels or fermentation.

 

[mywifehatesmybeer]

Okay. I have done the math and I'm looking at around 18 ounces for the gallon, but I wasn't sure as to how the thickness would affect it. It worried me that the CO2 bubbles were going through the solution slow as molasses

 

[bernardsmith]

I don't have any science behind my opinion here but the pulp does not affect the fermentation. That is simply the fibrous fruit. Certainly, you may want to ferment this in a bucket and stir a couple of times daily to make sure that the cap that forms on top (pushed up by the production of CO2) is continually soaked and not becoming a bed for bacteria.
At 18 oz sugar /gallon sounds like your mango wine will be a lot like a cider - about 5% ABV (+ /- half percent or so).
What you may want to do in the future is to add pectic enzyme to further break down the fruit before you pitch the yeast. (Yeast, I think inhibits the pectic enzyme's work) but you could still add about twice or three times the recommended dose of the enzyme after active fermentation is over and that will help clear the wine...
As to adding nutrient - mead makers often add nutrient at the 1/2 and 1/3 or 1/4 mark in the fermentation process - so if your nominal starting gravity is say 1.050, add nutrient after the yeast has started , at 1.025 and again at about 1.012. (or you could simply add 1/3 total nutrient nutrient once a day for the first 3 days or so..

 

[DoctorCAD]

Just remember that all of that sweetness will be gone when it turns to alcohol. The final product may taste nothing like mangos.

 

[microbusbrewery]

The problem is there's too much pulp (solids) to allow the hydrometer to float freely. A refractometer should work, but I'd pull a couple drops out before shaking it up; that way you're measuring just the sugar in solution.

 

[Maylar]

Maybe you should have strained it first?

 

[bransona]

You could consider cutting it with some cider. Your consistency would be more liquidous, maybe letting the pulp settle out and the yeast to move around. Awfully curious how this goes

 

[bernardsmith]

Just remember that all of that sweetness will be gone when it turns to alcohol. The final product may taste nothing like mangos.

Indeed, and you might want to back sweeten the wine to bring out more of the mango flavor. My mango wines have been very flavorful but they needed to be back sweetened (4 oz of sugar will raise the gravity of 1 gallon by 10 points so you may want to bench test to see if you prefer this wine to be sweet enough at a gravity of 1.000, 1.002, 1.004 , 1006, 1.008 or 1.010 or greater)..