The easiest soft drink that I make

[xiphias]

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.

Comments

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Depends how sensitive the kid is to alcohol. If there is an actual alcohol allergy involved, then it's a Bad Idea. However, for most people, it should be fine. "Small beer" is the historic term for it; things with similar alcohol contents were called "near beer" during Prohibition, and even today, things with alcohol content that low are allowed to be sold to and consumed by minors.

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.

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

nah, no allergy involved. She likes licking wine and beer off my fingertips, and we're not overly crazy about keeping her away from it (though she *is* only 2 and a half and maybe 30 lbs if that). but she doesn't get wine with kiddush because we don't like manischevitz, and are usually too wiped out on friday nights to open and consume enough of a bottle of real wine to be worth it. She probably would if we had wine instead of grape juice in the kiddush cup though.

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.