What can I do with this alcohol?

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Sephnroth

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Hi all! I wasnt entirely sure where to post this so I hope this is okay.

I keep fish tanks as a hobby and enjoy trying to grow aquatic plants - to that end I have been building a DIY CO2 reactor to provide CO2 for my plants. What this actually is as far as I can tell is an alcohol .. brewer .. (I lack the vocab!) that produces CO2 as a by product. Water, sugar, yeast and baking powder go into an air tight bottle with air line out the top to take the co2 off elsewhere.

Someone said replace the water/sugar with apple juice and you have a rudimentry apple wine being made - I looked into it and it immediately captured my attention and I'm going to start trying to make some of these simple wines as a separate thing! However people have cautioned not using anything except the basic recipie as mentioned above (the baking powder is to slow the process down so you get more long term CO2) for fish tanks as the CO2 can be too erratic and cause problems in your tank.

So, long story short, every 3 weeks or so I will end up with a bottle of I guess quite flavourless alcohol .. product .. and I'm wondering if there is anything I can do with it except pour it down the loo? I do like my drinks so if there's anything fun I can make with it.. I seek your expert advice! :)

Thanks!
 
oh, I got confused! its not baking powder I use at all! its "baking soda" which in UK money turns out to be bicarbinate of soda! Glad I checked x_X
 
The obvious question is, is this fit to drink? You could add sulphite to kill off bacteria. Next question is, how much percentage alcohol? There are flavour kits to make it taste like gin, etc.
 
well I don't know! :)

I have never home brewed before so I dont know what you "get" if you leave 1.75 liters of water, 2 cups of sugar, 1 tsp of yeast and a pinch of bicarb in a bottle for 3 weeks.. apparently alcohol from what i've read here and there but whether its suitable for drinking or perhaps can be filtered/altered/refined into something better I have no idea which is why I came searching for help :D
 
Strangely I'd wondered about doing a 'flavourless' brew by just using water, sugar and yeast to see what it is like. So like your mix but without the bicarbonate.

I was thinking you could mix it with dilute fruit juice to make an on-demand alco-pop of your own choice. A bit like using a soda stream.

If you wanted fizz you'd have to transfer it to a sealed container before it had stopped fermenting or transfer it after it had stopped and add more sugar.

As co2 would naturally be in the brew to a small amount it would be slightly sparkling without the second fermentation.

As long as everything was clean it should be drinkable but not necessarily palatable without adding some flavour. My guess would be it would taste like yeast/bread.

I'd be interested in the result, or I could do a small zero flavour brew this weekend and let you know in a few weeks.
 

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