wine from ketchup?

[Christopher Weeks]

I'm attempting to convert two cups of ketchup, two cups of water, and a little brown sugar into wine with the help of a quarter packet of wine yeast. Has anyone here done this? How does corn syrup work in fermentation? The packets of ketchup are up to four years old (I've been accumulating them in my desk for ages and just decided to do something with them); do you foresee any issues with aged (but sealed) ketchup?

[Tim Hall]

Vintage ketchup wine. Nice! Saving those packets up until they've just peaked in age. I'm pretty sure corn syrup is mostly fructose...should ferment just fine. Corn sugar is commonly used to "prime" bottled beer for carbonation.

...do you foresee any issues with aged (but sealed) ketchup?

If that ketchup isn't doing anything else, might as well see what happens. My only modest concern would be the BPA from the plastic lining of the packets. But this sounds like a fun experiment, and that wouldn't stop me from trying it.

I suppose any packets that might be "swollen" could indicate something nasty happening inside.

[Tim Hall]

BTW, I have made wine and beer with fruit preserves. Seems to me ketchup is kind of a tomato preserve...

[Christopher Weeks]

Some of the packets had gotten puffy, actually. I opened them, found the insides to have separated into a thick maroon paste and a nearly clear, slightly gummy fluid. I'm not sure what the gas was, it smelled just fine and I tasted a small amount of it with no ill effects (yet).

[Tim Hall]

Well, considering the ketchup isn't exactly raw or fresh, mixing it in boiling water probably isn't going to hurt. (Unless it's developed some mysterious essence you want to preserve.) You only need to boil it a couple minutes. Just let your must cool down to room temp before you pitch the yeast. Most "off" flavors from the yeast happen up front at too-high temps.

What flavor of yeast do you have by the way?

[Tim Hall]

...found the insides to have separated into a thick maroon paste and a nearly clear, slightly gummy fluid.

I wouldn't worry about separation. The fluid might have been gummy because of pectin from the tomatoes. Also because this will have pectin in it, don't expect your wine to turn out crystal clear...it'll probably be a bit hazy. This happened when I used fruit preserves. If you're concerned about the aesthetic, you could add a little pectinase from your winemaking supplier.

[Tim Hall]

It'd be awesome, if you served this with french fries and ketchup :P

[Christopher Weeks]

I wasn't too worried about the separation, mostly just describing it.

I'm actually not sure what the yeast was. It was one of Lalvin's varieties -- I'll check the fridge when I get home.

The yeast isn't activating. Or at least I'm not seeing any bubbles. The fluid is kind of thick yet at 50% water so I'm considering diluting and transferring it into a gallon carboy from the half-gallon canning jar that I have it in. Do you suppose it's sweet enough as is?

[Tim Hall]

The yeast isn't activating. Or at least I'm not seeing any bubbles.

Some yeasts may take 8-12 hours to see results. I imagine you're already doing this, but be sure to stir/shake it up good to getting plenty of oxygen in it. The yeasts need this for their beginning phase.

Do you suppose it's sweet enough as is?

Don't know how much sugar you used. But even a small amount of sugar will yield some fermentation.

If you let me know what yeast you've got, and if you plan to go up to a gallon, I can give you some fairly simple math to determine if the sugar content is in an appropriate range.

You've already got about 100-120g sugar from the ketchup (if nutritiondata.com is correct). In a 1-gallon recipe that's probably going to yield about 2% alcohol without the addition of any sugar. Using any wine yeast this will come out super dry...no residual sweetness whatsoever.

[Christopher Weeks]

Oh, cool! I'll definitely want to add sugar then. The yeast was in with the ketchup water for about 32 hours this morning when I most recently noticed no action. I've been giving it a good shake when I pass it by to try aeration.