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