High Stength Rose Wurzel

[Amadeus]

DAY 1

Ok, this could end in tears and be bloody awful but here is an attempt to make a 21% proof Rose Wurzel. I've already done 5 gallons of Wurzel, and have 5 more of wurzel with peach clearing nicely so I thought I could take a chance here and see what happens.

The ingredients


1 packet of Gervin High Alcohol Yeast French Strain (GV4) (GV26)
5 litres of don simon pure orange juice (which = 1kg of sugar)
3 litres white grape juice (which = 489 grams of sugar)
2 litres red grape juice (which = 326 grams of sugar)
2.5 tsp tannin
5 tsp pectic enzyme
5 tsp glycerin
15 tsb Tronozymol
4KG sugar (to start with)
Water up to 5 gallons.

The result

The is SG.1.100 and when the SG has dropped to 1.00 I will add a little more sugar and let the ferment out and repeat until the yeasties cannie take no more

Thanks Wurzel for given us the original recipe. And Thanks to you and Moley for the help with the maths.
:thumb:

Also pasted on another forum, need all the feedback I can get!

 

[Moley]

I may have checked the sugar calculations, and Wurzel and I have advised on method for feeding a fermentation to produce high alcohol wines, but just for the record:

Just because I back up the maths doesn't mean I would want to try it myself, or endorse the exercise. As I see it, the whole point of a Wurzel is that you can produce a very nice, well balanced white table wine of around 12-14% in 4-6 weeks at around 40p a bottle.
 
You're on your own with this one mate, but do keep us informed.

Hope it turns out good for you Amadeus, but a 21% rose? ...... jury is still out on that one
 
Let us know

 

[Amadeus]

why do I get the feeling that I should be in a castle dungeon with a assistant named Igor shouting "It's alive! aha hahaha" whilst the townsfolk storm the gates armed with pitchforks etc?

 

[Moley]

Hey, I hope you know by now never to take me too seriously

It's good to experiment, even though

this could end in tears and be bloody awful

 

[Amadeus]

Heh, well we'll see how this works out...

At least it's not one of those "brew your own spirt" kits where you add some whiskey flavouring etc :sick:

 

[Amadeus]

Foam head looks about 5-6 inches high in the FV and moving about like a special effect from Dr Who. :)

Gravity is now 1.042. Thats over half the sugar fermented in a few days!

The FV is getting warm, is this normal? The Temperature of the room is 19c whilst the brew is 28c.
I took both temperatures with the same thermometer.
Worried about putting the heating on in case the yeasties cook themselves!

[edit] looks like the heats normal for this yeast.
cheers Wurzel :thumb:

 

[Amadeus]

From last night
DAY 4
SG down to 1.00 time to feed the beast....

Added 1.2KG sugar dissolved in water. Was going to only add .6kg but can't get home tomorrow night. As soon as sugar syrup added huge amount of foam produced. Those yeasties must have been hungry.

Estimated SG now 1.020 which gives me a total cumulative gravity of 1.120. Giving me approx 17.7% if I let this ferment out to .990 but I think we can do better...

Will wait until SG is back to 1.000 or a little under before adding more, at this rate that will be day after tomorrow.

Burps are a steady one every 3 seconds

[update]
DAY 6
SG is now .995 Still 1 burp every 3 seconds.

Adding 1.2kg of sugar which will give me a cumulative gravity of 1.140
Was planning on only added .6kg but worried about it running out of sugar as I am not home tomorrow night. (next time I make this will be when the girlfriend moves in I think!)

Trying to decide if to let this go dry or stop it at a medium. :-/
Then again it may decide for me by running up the white flag!

DAY 7
Down to 1006 with no signs of slowing. At this rate it'll be down to 995 again tommorow. Total volume of the FV his just over 5.5 gallons now. I suppose this is down to the amount of sugar and water that's been added. When the actions over i'll have to add up all the sugar against the new volume to work out the final alc%

Just done my sums for the adjusted volume..
8.215 KG of sugar in 25 liters (5.5 gallons) gives me 328.6g per liter and a SG of only 17%

Dammit, thought I was nearly there. :-/

Day9
Just got down to 1.000.
It's been getting cold at night in the front room so suspect that might have slowed things down.

Moved the FV into the bedroom where it's warmer.

Checked it this evening at it down to .996 Have added 1.2kg of sugar boiled in 1 pint of water.

 

[theboytony]

Hi, how is this going now

 

[Amadeus]

Hi Tony, it stopped at 1.006 so left it a little too sweet for my taste.
At first it tasted of nutrient so I thought that was the whole batch ruined but that taste has almost faded now. It's an ok Rose that's very drinkable.

Wouldn't do it again though, too much work to keep topping it up and checking levels etc.
The reason it went too sweet is that I couldn't get home for a few nights and tried to guess how much sugar it was going to use up in that time. :nono:

 

[Varnish]

http://www.byo.com/stories/techniques/a ... grain-beer

A bit late for your experiment, but still an interesting read.

 

[Ken L]

I just had to go and look up "Tronozymol". For a moment there I thought you were brewing wines with the Rohypnol already in it.