From the picture, this tops my list, flaming hot Cheetos… after mentioning it yesterday, my enzyme came in later than expected but I decided to send it anyways. It’s so greasy it’s probably turned me off Cheetos forever. However, science must ensue. Here we have 15 pounds of flamin hot Cheetos mashed with enzymes for an hour and 8 pounds of sugar. Honestly, after tasting the mash, the heat doesn’t come through, and frankly it mainly tastes/smells like a corn mash. Personally I’ll be surprised if I can tell the difference between this and a white whiskey made from straight corn. So, what’s the dumbest thing you’ve done?

  • @poleslavOP
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    32 hours ago

    Yep! My last one was a watermelon wine I made into a brandy. The key is to only get the red guts and avoid anything slightly white. definitely dont boil the juice either or youll get a carrot flavor. Once it’s done fermenting if it was a good fermentation it’ll taste almost like cucumber, a bit of back sweetening makes the watermelon flavor come back with a vengeance.

    • @[email protected]
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      22 hours ago

      The key is to only get the red guts and avoid anything slightly white

      Did that

      definitely dont boil the juice either or youll get a carrot flavor

      I did heat pasteurize, but not boil. Just 160/180F (I can’t remember exactly).

      it’ll taste almost like cucumber

      Eh, I’m not getting cucumber. Maybe? It’s mostly just SOUR with some watermelon notes.

      a bit of back sweetening makes the watermelon flavor come back with a vengeance.

      this is what I’m thinking

      • @poleslavOP
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        22 hours ago

        Ahh, it may have been the heat pasteurization that did it in. If you care to glance at a scientific paper, here’s an interesting source. https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2019/ra/c9ra01533g I want to say I’ve seen a low temp method of pasteurizing (that you have to hold for a good bit longer) but for mine I avoided heat like the plague and did everything cold with a huge starter to ensure the yeast outcompete anything and fill the fermenter with alcohol to handle any potential unwanted microbes