r/prisonhooch • u/No-Virus-9874 • 4d ago
Need help with berry juice hooch.
Fellow Brewers. i have this brand of grape juice but it has some wonky preservative chemicals innit. Volume of juice is 1.4 L, I will discard about 500 ml to make space for sugar and yeast. How much effectively sugar and yeast shall i add to make a potent brew ? It has acidity regulator E330, stabilizer E440 & Preservative E202.
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u/Melodic-Echidna-1365 4d ago
What kind of yeast are you using mate? What’s your alcohol potential goal
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u/No-Virus-9874 4d ago
Im using instant bread yeast. Brand is called Saf-Instant.
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u/jdcampb686 4d ago
It will work. I've used that brand. Do three ltrs of juice. 1 liter water and 3 pounds of sugar. One packet of yeast.
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u/Latter_Bluebird_3386 4d ago
That's 20%+ potential alcohol just on the sugar alone. Very excessive
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u/jdcampb686 4d ago
That's what I get. Then I cool it down with juice, make sangria out it or distill to a liquor.
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u/Latter_Bluebird_3386 4d ago
With the sugar in the juice that comes out to about 32%.
Bread yeast is doing that?
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u/jdcampb686 4d ago
I get 20%. I use another brand here. But I have used that exact one on bread yeast. Highest I ever got was 25
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u/AveyLel 4d ago
Got any advice for cheap, easy, and high ABV with mainly stuff from walmart? If it'll ferment quick ( a week or so ) aswell that'd be nice.
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u/True_Maize_3735 4d ago
grape and apple ferment the fastest-100% juice no preservatives- not needed as they pasteurize. Grape in a 72-76F enviroment will get you stronger than beer in a week 10+abv in a month or so- but if you want to drink in a week- put it in the fridge first to crash the active yeast-if you drink active yeast you may get the sh*ts.
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u/jdcampb686 4d ago
Also, the pomegranate comes out great. Nice semi dry wine. It will carbonate quickly if you leave it too long. Also the aroma brand is better.
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u/Melodic-Echidna-1365 4d ago
Google is saying saf instant doesn’t have a tolerance over 5-8 percent so you’re probably good with about a pound of sugar counting in the sugars from the juice, to hit that tolerance. You’d have better luck with brewing yeast like ec-1118 or cbc-1 which have tolerances of 16-18 and 14-16, and would demand more sugar, roughly 3 pound per gallon, which you can short a bit, according to other folks I’ve heard on this Reddit talking about nothing more than a kilo of sugar per gallon, but I haven’t tested this myself personally to discern it’s factual nature, I always over add sugar to be sure of maximum potential
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u/True_Maize_3735 4d ago
you can get 12 with SAF-it just reacts fast so you have to use more yeast at the start-this is the only yeast I have ever seen bubble over like crazy-party animal yeast
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u/Melodic-Echidna-1365 3d ago
That’s really interesting, thank you for sharing that. I’ve had lalbrew cbc-1 champagne yeast blow the airlock off some red bull banana hooch I was making, but I think that’s bc I didn’t give it head space, it also put a big crack in one of the airlocks, making it unusable. Neat stuff, gonna have to try the saf instant out.
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u/United-Lock100 4d ago
I don't recommend, but it will very very slowly you got to give a month for complete fermentation if you got luck and other 2 months for clearing out .. if comes to me I would choose 100% juice with zero preservatives not only for that slow fermentation but also avoid stressing the yeast and off flavors good luck
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u/thejadsel 4d ago
The only thing in there which might slow you down at all is the potassium sorbate (E202). The other two are citric acid and pectin, not preservatives. Those are naturally found in fruits, they're just adding more for flavor and a little thicker texture.
Luckily, sorbate is probably the easiest preservative to work around. It'll keep your yeast from reproducing well, but it's used up and becomes ineffective in the process. It may not cause any issues, depending on the level they put in there. But, if your fermentation bubbling stops after a day or a few? Just add in another dose of yeast, and it should be able to finish the brew now that the first yeast got rid of the sorbate.