Nutrients from food items

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What food items (molasses, honey, brown sugar, types of juice, etc) can I add to a brew to substitute for yeast nutrient? Most of my wine making is funded by food stamps lol and I don't know where the LHBS is yet other than the Italian store across the street and they mostly know about making grape wine. Making sweet tea wine and I know I'm gonna need to add some nutrients for my yeast to flourish. Also what type of yeast should I use? Currently have montratchet but am getting ec-1118 tomorrow and a few more that my dad ordered, not too sure what. Please offer me some advice!
 
A couple of bananas can provide some "substance" for the yeast in non-grape wines. Be careful to go light if using molasses, it might have some minerals and nutrients but also has a very detectable acrid flavor if you use too much. You can't go wrong with honey, considering delicious meads are made without additions. Brown sugar is just white sugar with the molasses (there are some natural brown sugars, but most commercial brands are refined white sugar with molasses added back in). Good luck and have fun!
 
I remember a while back someone was using the cereal Grape nuts as a form of nutrient. I recall they softened it by adding water then nuking it. I wish I could recall how much they used, but I don't. Still, it's start.

Pam in cinti
 
Found it! I'm assuming this is for a 5-6 gallon bucket of wine.

Originally Posted by jamesngalveston
One alternate to yeast energizer is grape nuts...
Mix 1/2 cup grape nuts with 1/2 cup water and nuke for about 1 minute. cool and add to must...It really works well, it will add some umph to a ferment.

Pam in cinti
 
I'm all for experimentation, but I would not add flour and salt to a wine. Again...that's just me.
 
I'm all for innovation, but I'm also respectful of proven science.

Fermaid K can be bought all day long for $15.00 per pound. Converted to metric, that's $15.00 / 453.59237 g, or roughly 3.3 cents per gram. The dosage for winemaking is 25g/hL, or .25g/L. Assuming you are making a 6 gallon (23L) batch, you would need 5.75g, let's go ahead and round up to 6 grams, just for fun. So for your whole ferment, the nutrients will cost you 19.8 cents. Hmmmm, pretty affordable, less than 1 cent per bottle.

Grape Nuts cereal, not formulated at all for yeast, let's take a look at that. There are 10 each 1/2 cup servings in a box of Grape Nuts, which sells for around 4 bucks. Each 1/2 cup serving is worth about 40 cents, twice the cost of the product made to do what you are endeavoring to do, feed your yeast. Still though, just over a penny a bottle, not a bad deal.

I won't even dip my toe into the pool of information about the ingredients not found in Grape Nuts, but in Fermaid K, and needed by your yeast.

If everything feels good to you about putting breakfast cereal into your wine, and you don't mind spending twice as much to feed Junior's breakfast to your yeast, there's lots of boxes of Grape Nuts to be had.
 
It's not all about total end cost. All I really have to work with is food stamps. If I had 15 dollars too spend there are far more important things I would need to spend it on than nutrients for a hobby. The food stamps are pretty expendable as I see fit so long as I'm not going hungry. Probably won't use grape nuts if it comes down to it but banana and molasses. Haven't pitched quite yet but will be paying attention once I do.
 
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There's absolutely no arguing that actual wine nutrients would be a better choice. But if you're going to MacGyver something (for whatever reason...whether cost or experimentation), I'd stick with the fruits and sugars and stay away from anything you wouldn't make a wine out of (like cereal for instance). Nothing we've talked about (except for John's perfect answer of course) will provide the yeast with the nitrogen they need. That's really where the wine nutrient becomes the obvious choice. The thing about making wines like "tea" are they don't have any real substance to them, so adding things like bananas and raisins and other fruits (peaches?) provide some of that. But obviously they will affect the taste as well. Try not to have a crazy hot/fast fermentation and pay attention to the smell...if it starts smelling funky you know the yeast are stressed.
 
BoogieD

pretty sure there is a typo in the last sentence of your last post. I believe you meant you would be playing close attention, not no attention when you do start fermenting. Just saying in case someone took offense somehow by that sentence.


BTW folks say using honey as the sweetener means it will take much longer to be drinkable. At least with mead (wine made with honey) it goes that way.

Good luck with your wine.

Pam in cinti
 
Joe's Ancient Orange Mead uses an orange and a small hand full of raisins per gallon to provide nutrients, acid, tanins etc. I bet that an orange and raisins would go great with your sweet tea wine.

If you haven't tried JAOM you should, all ingredients can be found in the grocery store, including the bread yeast it calls for.
 
Yeast Nutrient is primarily DAP and Urea.

Not sure where you can find those in food.

Phosphorous may be a substitute for DAP, but I don't know. Phosphorous is found in Nuts and Grains, so may be why Grape Nuts works.

I have no suggestion on foods with urea.
 

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