fermenting Alcohol in ferment

[Fireeater86]

[SIZE=medium]Is it ok to add alcohol to a ferment? I was thinking of using white wine, an apricot brandy, or even an Indian pale ale instead of the water in my ferment. Not sure how this would affect the lacto bacillus. Maybe the alcohol would kill them off? Any one try it? Good results?[/SIZE]

 

[Van]

Hi there I did A red wine with a Habanero  ferment (added the wine when the fermentation was almost done) let it sit for another month.( the ferment did stop ....not sure if the alcohol or just lack of sugars)
Taste was awesome the colour A horrible terracotta burgendy 

 

[slingshot13]

I used Riesling wine as the liquid in my brine.... my processed sauce had a very strong vinegar taste.

 

[AJ Drew]

The makers of many wines, especially the sweet ones, add sulfites to stop fermentation before it would stop on its own.  This way, the wine can remain sweet and not consume the last of the sugar in the fermentation process.  I don't know the answer to your question, but I wonder if the sulfites in a sweet wine might stop the hot sauce from fermenting as well.

 

[hoibot]

i would recommend waiting until after fermentation takes place to add any alcohol. i'm not 100% sure, but I suspect that alcohol would suppress lactobacillus activity; the reason I say this is that when there is alcohol to consume, you may inadvertently select for acetobacter, which will ferment alcohol into acetic acid, thus the vinegary taste someone else described. this also depends on whether or not the fermentation is exposed to oxygen, as acetobacter is an aerobic bacteria (needing oxygen), while lacto doesn't require it. regardless, i think for the process of fermentation to bring down pH for preservation, I would skip adding alcohol until the processing stage.