I made a gallon of Jalapeno Wine last season from the recipie on Jack
Kellers website and it turned out great. It has an excellant taste and
smells like fresh ripe peppers. I also made a Habanero wine buy
substituting the peppers in the Jalapeno recipie.
It is drinkable but not for the faint of heart because I used the full
16 Jalapeno peppers in one gallon. I have been using this wine mainly for
steak marinades and cooking though it is quite a conversation piece when I
have fellow homebrewers over to taste.
My question is: When I use if for a marinade it does not add the "spice"
that I would like. I end up using additional peppers in the marinade to
spice it up some. I'm growing peppers now for another batch this year and I
was wondering what the effect would be if I doubled it to 32 peppers per
gallon!! Would this cause any problems with fermentation? Would it really
add more heat?
Also, I would like to increase the alcohol level. My last batch was
around 12% but I would like to make one as high as possible without having
any residual sugar. I was thinking about going with a Champagne yeast and
trying for around 16%. Do you think that would be a strong enough yeast to
go to 16% in that environment without stopping prematurely? I haven't any
problems so far with stuck fermentation other than a batch I made from grape
juice concentrate but I think that was a combination of low level
preservatives and the temperature of the must.
Thanks it advance,
Tom