About Scott Jamerson Expertise I can answer most questions about partial-mash brewing (not all-grain), and brewing of wine, mead, ciders as well. I can also answer most questions about how to do things `outside the book`, creative ways to bew due to lack of recources, or funds.
Experience
Hello, I've been brewing beer, wine mead and cider for about 6 years now. While I dont do it so often anymore, I've worked my way through just about any problem a novice might have, so feel free to ask!
Question would you have to add extra sugar to apple juice and then brewer's yeast to get a decent amount of alcohol? also i put 5 cup's of raw sugar into 5 gallons of na beer and then added the brewer's yeast. it foamed for about 2 days and then nothing and it smells like crap. what could i have done wrong-----------------------
Followup To
Question -
Is it possible to add sugar and brewer's yeast to na beer and get an alcoholic beer? I know that you have to prime the bottle's by adding a pinch of sugar to get carbonation. Have you even heard of such a thing?
Answer -
I'm pretty sure ive been asked this question, a couple years ago by a soldier in iraq. I can't remember exactly what i told him. You would have to add a decent amount of sugar, let it sit in a different container and then re-bottle it. If you just added sugar into the NA bottles, the amount you would need to add to make alcohol would just explode the bottles. But after re-bottling, yes you would want to prime it with a little sugar to recarbonate it. I have a feeling if you did this, it would taste like crap. That said, the only reason this wouldn't work is if the NA beer had preservatives in it that would stun or kill the new yeast you added. Its worth a try I guess, if you have absolutely no access to malt. You can make alcohol out of just about anything if you wanted. You could add that same yeast to a gallon of apple juice and have some decent tasting cider in a week.
Anyway, like I told the last guy who asked, let me know if you try, and what it tastes like.
Answer with store bought apple juice and no sugar you would get about 3-4% alcohol, somewhat less than beer (ive done this and it wasnt too bad). if you used organic juice (with pulp sediment and all) or cider bought straight from the orchard and no sugar it would be 6% or so, slightly more than beer. adding sugar will always make it more alcoholic, the problem is, sugar just tastes BAD when used for brewing. when i make cider i buy organic juice and add 1 lb honey and 1 lb organic brown sugar to each gallon, and the end result is something that tastes like dry apple juice, but has you walking into walls after 2 bottles. its probably %12 alcohol or more.
if your na beer foamed for two days, then it was making more alcohol. it probably smells bad because sugar is bad for brewing, in general. have you tried it yet? maybe it did make beer.
usually when brewing anything, the 'foamy' stages lasts for 2-3 days then things slow down. the foam recedes but the concoction should still continue to release c02 as alcohol is made. this second part of the process lasts 5-10 more days.
