Last fermenter is about to be empty. This one is my blue razz jolly rancher. Smells amazing. Tastes terrible (without back sweetening) Came out at 11.8% abv. Back sweetening with simple syrup down to 8.5% seems to be the winning combo, if I were drinking it as a wine: smells much stronger than it tastes of the delicious artificial blue razz flavor. Over all a fun YOLO project. Guess we’ll see how it tastes as a spirit in the next few hours + 24 hours for the angels to have their share. Now to determine what to make next… I’m thinking of trying pressure fermenting in the keg for my beer, a wine for my girlfriend, and the third fermenter for whatever meme spirit I feel like whipping up next, which I haven’t the slightest clue of what I’m in the mood for yet.

  • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    23 minutes ago

    I’ve only every made beers, but when backsweetening, I assume your yeast won’t ferment straight sugar because it’s poisoned out by the alcohol level? Normally if you backsweeten a beer or cider, you need to use lactose that doesn’t work for fermentation.

  • plactagonic@sopuli.xyzMEnglish
    2·
    4 hours ago

    Man, I thought about you last week. We got loads of old jams and pickled fruits from our neighbor so we (me and my dad) started some mystery moonshine.

    • poleslav@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      3 hours ago

      Oooh that sounds like it’ll be a blast! A jam moonshine sounds like it would be interesting, and the pickled one sounds just weird enough that I’ll have to add it to my list. Did you get anything in particular that you’re most excited to try?

      • plactagonic@sopuli.xyzMEnglish
        2·
        2 hours ago

        No it is mixed together, we didn’t get enough to make it separate. Problem is that it is too sweet and the gelling sugars for making jams has sometimes some conservative. We had to dilute it to get it started and it still is about 25-30l.

        It is not that weird as it seems, lots of people adds it to normal “moonshines”.

        As for me I won’t be brewing anything any time soon, life happened and I have loads of free time. I want to do something that I wanted to do for a long time - take my bike and ride through Europe.

        • poleslav@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          2·
          59 minutes ago

          Got it, that makes sense here’s to hoping it turns out well! And ooh, that sounds like a fantastic time, enjoy your trip through Europe :)

    • poleslav@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      3·
      18 hours ago

      It turned out not too bad off the still! Early hearts and heads had a nice blue razz flavor, tail ends tasted just like a sugar wash. I’m curious to see how the flavors change once I cover it in cloth and let it air out for 24 hours then blend and proof it down but so far, much better than some of my past endeavors lol