BeerBorg

hi all
i've been trying my hand at brewing beer but my aunt sent me a recipe for champagne that i'd like to give a try.
it's pretty straight forward, but calls for 1 pkg yeast.. it doesnt specify how much or what type to use, just 1 pkg.

heres a rundown on the recipe if that helps
3 oranges quartered
3 lemons quartered
2 sliced bananas
2 lbs chopped raisins
5 lbs sugar
and 1 pkg yeast

put fruit in cheesecloth
dissolve sugar in 3 qts boiling water
pour over fruit.
add 2 more quarts water
when lukewarm add yeast

any help is appreciated

DeBus wrote:hi all
i've been trying my hand at brewing beer but my aunt sent me a recipe for champagne that i'd like to give a try.
it's pretty straight forward, but calls for 1 pkg yeast.. it doesnt specify how much or what type to use, just 1 pkg.
any help is appreciated

One 5g. pack of Red Star Premier Blanc Dry Wine Yeast should be more then enough for that size batch. $1.00 most everywhere

It will be interesting to see how this turns out. Where did she find the recipe?

It's a recipe she was given 30+ years ago by my cousin's piano teacher..
Don't know if she's ever tried making it...

Going to start a batch hopefully this weekend since it takes about 50 days of fermentation. 30 days with the fruit in it and then 20 days afterward before bottling.

Which leads to my next set of questions. Would I, should I need to prime the bottles for carbonation to get that pop? How much sugar if any? Would / should I need to let it bottle condition at all?

Planning to let it ferment in my LBK unless that sounds like a bad idea to folks here.....

Very interesting recipe. Looking forward to hearing the results.


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DeBus wrote:It's a recipe she was given 30+ years ago by my cousin's piano teacher..
Don't know if she's ever tried making it...

Going to start a batch hopefully this weekend since it takes about 50 days of fermentation. 30 days with the fruit in it and then 20 days afterward before bottling.

Which leads to my next set of questions. Would I, should I need to prime the bottles for carbonation to get that pop? How much sugar if any? Would / should I need to let it bottle condition at all?

Planning to let it ferment in my LBK unless that sounds like a bad idea to folks here.....

Fermenting in the LBK will be fine, although you're tying it up for a while .
In terms of carbing, that's where this gets interesting. Champagne is carbed to about 7 volumes of CO2, IIRC. I think most glass beer bottles are only rated to 3.5-4.0 volumes.
And I have no clue what the PET bottles are rated for, but I can say with a high degree of confidence that they aren't that high.

You're likely going to need to get some bottles rated for higher carbonation. If you're not familiar with all of this talk, Google things like "CO2 volumes for beer" (or champagne, etc. and do some reading on bottles are pressure ratings).

DeBus wrote: Which leads to my next set of questions. Would I, should I need to prime the bottles for carbonation to get that pop? How much sugar if any? Would / should I need to let it bottle condition at all?

Yes should bottle condition and longer the better. Yes will need to bottle prime to get the carb & "pop" and more then you would with beer. As Kealia said you will need bottles and a cork or capping system that will hold that pressure other wise might go boom in the night. I have never tried making Champagne but have done wine off and on for years and don't carb it unless I put it on tap now. Your recipe sounds interesting and I am following to see how it comes out.

PET bottles rated to 10 vols

HerbMeowing wrote:PET bottles rated to 10 vols

Good info to know Herb but you think the caps can take that much pressure ? Not sure what champagne is at but know when open one, it will blow the cork across the room.

I've never made wine of any kind, but I'm going to toss in a few comments, anyway.

That looks more like a recipe for prison wine than champagne.

I'm not saying it will taste bad, but I'm not sure I'd expect champagne.

Technically, for something to be called champagne, it has to come from a particular region in France. Otherwise, it's sparkling wine.

Now that I've been a Debby Downer, I'll point out that there are yeasts that are made for champagne.

berryman wrote:

HerbMeowing wrote:PET bottles rated to 10 vols

Good info to know Herb but you think the caps can take that much pressure ? Not sure what champagne is at but know when open one, it will blow the cork across the room.

Belgians can actually go up to 4 or 5 volumes (the 2.9 or whatever carb levels for Belgians you see on the intrawebs don't match real life bottle conditioned commercial Belgians like Duval, some Westmalle beers, and Orval and similar beers at all, those are often 4-5 volumes easily), and I know the PETs and the caps can take that when they are lightly used. But older PETS that have been used many times will sometimes blow up at those levels. (I know this. Trust me.). PET CAPS in my experience will start to bulge quite nicely at 5 volumes, but they still hold the pressure. And although the bottle can handle that easily, the base can start to become rounded and the bottles will be easy to tip over because of it. So although technically the bottles might handle 10, I don't know if it will be pretty and I can't say that the caps will be ok... The base might become very round... it could become more interesting then I would like.

In glass corked bottles, even at those levels it can blow a cork pretty far if you allow it, and it can gusher if agitated or not chilled well (because beer has the head forming compounds). No way you could do 10 in beer, it would just be a foam gusher 100% of the time.

But it wouldn't be such for this, since it's mostly just sugar. (BPGreen is right that this won't be like Champagne at all except that it is fizzy. That doesn't mean it will be bad though, just don't expect Champagne as you would imagine if you bought some).

Even actual thick high carb Belgian glass bottles with corks, or stubby Duval bottles would likely not be safe for this though if you go that high. If you went with 5 they would be ok though.

Many American beer glass bottles will start to blow up randomly if you try to push even 3 volumes.

So for glass, you would need real Champagne bottles if you go that high, and wired baskets to hold the corks in place, and a "corker" to get the corks in. (I have no idea if you can "cap" any type of bottle that can hold that kind of pressure, I know of no such glass bottles that are capped, only corked, but who knows?).

berryman wrote:

HerbMeowing wrote:PET bottles rated to 10 vols

Good info to know Herb but you think the caps can take that much pressure ? Not sure what champagne is at but know when open one, it will blow the cork across the room.

I've only seen ratings for various kinds of bottles.

Don't know about the caps.
Suspect they may not be up to the task given how I've seen them bulge a bit under normal CO2 vols

I will have to give the bottles some more thought.
I was just planning to use some wine bottles with screw on tops.

Maybe I won't need to or should evern prime since the directions just say bottle. So in that case to call it champagne... IDK, all i know is that is what is written on the recipe note card.

Going to start it this weekend so I will try to give periodic updates but it does call for 50 days of ferment time so it will be a bit before the final results are in.

Appreciate all of the help, as I am but a humble beer drinker. Ok so maybe not so humble but whatever....

DeBus wrote:I will have to give the bottles some more thought.
I was just planning to use some wine bottles with screw on tops.

Maybe I won't need to or should evern prime since the directions just say bottle. So in that case to call it champagne... IDK, all i know is that is what is written on the recipe note card.

Going to start it this weekend so I will try to give periodic updates but it does call for 50 days of ferment time so it will be a bit before the final results are in.

Appreciate all of the help, as I am but a humble beer drinker. Ok so maybe not so humble but whatever....

If you're planning on carbonating at all, you CAN NOT use wine bottles with screw on tops. When you carbonate, you MUST use bottles that are made to hold something carbonated. If you're reusing bottles, use bottles that originally had a carbonated beverage in it. This goes for beer, as well.

If you want this to be carbonated, but not necessarily to champagne levels, you can di that, too.

The recipe doesn't call for adding more sugar at bottling, so I don't think it's supposed to be carbonated.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the people who came up with this were using bread yeast they had on hand.

I just can't wrap my head around this one. 5lbs of sugar water strained over fruit then yeast? I don't do champane, but it can't be this simple, makes my throat want to close and say no way in heck. Remind me, what happens when you put 5lbs of sugar in beer? Especially in one point five gallons of brew? I have to be missing something. Not saying it won't work, but....