The easiest soft drink that I make
Jun. 10th, 2008 10:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
So, I brew soft drinks sometimes. Well, I guess technically, they're "small beers" -- beer-like beverages with only trivial amounts of alcohol, too little to get you drunk in any practical way. The carbonation, though, is from fermentation, rather than whatever the thing is that they do to most soft drinks and seltzer.
So, I've got this one recipe which doesn't even deserve the name "recipe" it's so easy.
Costco sells these bottles of ruby red grapefruit juice -- "Apple and Eve" brand, "Made in the Shade Ruby Red Grapefruit Juice Cocktail." Notice the "cocktail" bit there -- they've got a whole BUNCH of high fructose corn syrup added, making it too sweet for my tastes. Lis likes it that sweet, though.
When you buy it from Costco, you get two 96-ounce (three quarts, about 2.85 liter) bottles. I leave one unmodified for Lis, take the other one, open it, drink one glass of juice from it (that's not strictly necessary, but it adds a little airspace to the top of the bottle, which can be useful), and sprinkle a pinch of bread yeast in.
Then I seal it up, put it on the counter, and wait. Yesterday was a heat wave, so it was nearly ready today. Usually, it takes longer.
The longer you leave it to ferment, the less sweet it gets. The yeast will eat all the sugar, leaving it tasting like fizzy unsweetened grapefruit juice. Or you can drink it at any point before then.
And that's the easiest soft drink I make.
So, I've got this one recipe which doesn't even deserve the name "recipe" it's so easy.
Costco sells these bottles of ruby red grapefruit juice -- "Apple and Eve" brand, "Made in the Shade Ruby Red Grapefruit Juice Cocktail." Notice the "cocktail" bit there -- they've got a whole BUNCH of high fructose corn syrup added, making it too sweet for my tastes. Lis likes it that sweet, though.
When you buy it from Costco, you get two 96-ounce (three quarts, about 2.85 liter) bottles. I leave one unmodified for Lis, take the other one, open it, drink one glass of juice from it (that's not strictly necessary, but it adds a little airspace to the top of the bottle, which can be useful), and sprinkle a pinch of bread yeast in.
Then I seal it up, put it on the counter, and wait. Yesterday was a heat wave, so it was nearly ready today. Usually, it takes longer.
The longer you leave it to ferment, the less sweet it gets. The yeast will eat all the sugar, leaving it tasting like fizzy unsweetened grapefruit juice. Or you can drink it at any point before then.
And that's the easiest soft drink I make.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-10 03:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-10 03:44 pm (UTC)Does your kid get a bit of wine with Kiddush? If so, this should absolutely be fine. I grew up on Manischewitz in preference to grape juice whenever I could get it, so I'm in favor of not worrying TOO much about how much alcohol small children get, but you're the parent, so it's your call.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-10 03:57 pm (UTC)I'll have to try it when she's not around and see how strong it feels to me, and then let her have a little bit. This sounds more like as fermented as the stuff her great-great-aunt makes in Croatia by fermenting some tiny tree flowers from a particular plant in water for a while, which I never even considered as potentially alcoholic.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-10 03:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-10 04:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-10 04:51 pm (UTC)Apples naturally have a certain amount of yeast on them so they ferment quite nicely on their own. However, the pasturization kills that yeast, and the bread yeast isn't quite right. I understand that champagne yeast is better, but I don't have any.
The reason cider is always pasturized, of course, is worries about e-coli infection, especially when using "drops" -- apples that fell to the ground on their own. Those ferment the best, but also can pick up bacteria. The thing is -- the bacteria they pick up tend to be very susceptible to alcohol, so taking non-pasturized cider and fermenting it is perfectly safe. It's just non-pasturized SWEET cider (also known as "apple juice") that's a problem.
I don't know of a place to reliably get unpasturized unfiltered apple juice with its natural yeasts intact.
But I did find out, from this really cool book that Lis got me, that "jacking" is the process of concentrating alcohol by allowing your beer or wine or whatever to freeze, then removing the water ice, and that "applejack" was originally jacked cider.
I am going to have to try this at some point, making my own alcoholic cider, then jacking it.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-10 06:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-10 07:18 pm (UTC)I knew about freeze distillation, and now that you mention that you, who I believe know more about booze than any other person of my acquaintence (and I've known a few bartenders, not all of them in my capacity as a former bouncer), learned about jacking from a book, I wonder how I picked it up, because I don't think I've ever read up on the subject. Maybe from fiction. I had the impression that the scumble of the Discworld was applejack, but Wikipedia claims otherwise, so my acquaintence with the process apparently precedes my reading of whichever book Nanny Ogg's Suicider is mentioned in. I have definitely seen one example in fiction: in Neil Gaiman's American Gods a shaman consumes some mushrooms and then jacks her own urine to create a hallucinogenic drink.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-10 07:28 pm (UTC)I knew about the process before -- I just didn't know the verb, and therefore hadn't understood the connection between the process and the booze.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-10 07:44 pm (UTC)I just didn't know the verb
Oh, I see.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-11 01:00 am (UTC)How about making sourdough starter from grapes, then freeze-drying it, as a substitute for the champagne yeast? I have instructions, if you want to try it.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-11 09:57 pm (UTC)Duzzy
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-11 12:48 am (UTC)http://shop.zatarains.com/zatarains%AE-root-beer-extract-p-1586.html
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-11 09:59 pm (UTC)Duzzy