Sparkling sangría technique

Hello intrepid cooks,

I'm trying to make a sparkling white sangría for an engagement party this weekend. However, I'm wondering how to do the fruit infusion while preserving the sparkle. The recipes I've seen call for adding club soda (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/27/dining/271drex.html) or Sprite (http://www.housewifebarbie.com/2009/05/white-sangria-with-soda-and-wine.html) as a way to add back the lost fizz. (For you German winos, I guess it's a Sektreserve.)

Ideally I would avoid fillers such as carbonated sodas. I have a carbonator (used for beer) that I could use to carbonate the infusion, but it would take few days, and I'm worried the wine will oxidize in the meantime. We're not exactly talking molecular gastronomy here, so I'm throwing it out to you: how have you made sparkling sangría?

Walt

I haven't tried this before, Walt. It does seem that it would be next to impossible to get a good infusion while maintaining the spritz. I wonder if you could do an overly concentrated infusion into still wine and then use cold sparkling wine to thin it out rather than something like Sprite?

I have no idea whether this would really work, but I suppose you could do the infusion into still wine, filter it well, and then put it in a seltzer bottle and squirt it over fresh fruit. I'd imagine you'd have to be pretty careful with the filtration to avoid gumming up the seltzer bottle, but it would be fun to show it off to guests!

Walt - I assume you're referring to s process similar to this: http://www.ehow.com/how_2133132_use-co-carbonated-beverages.html. While it recommends a week, I think that for carbonating a Sangria for 3-4 days would be adequate and purging the container beforehand should be adequate to prevent oxidation. Personally, when I make Sangria, I use "5-Alive", a Minutemaid product of frozen, concentrated citrus juices and reconstitute using club soda, and blend that half and half with the red wine.

Walt, we add a sparkling water, often a lime-flavored (but NOT sweet) one. But keep in mind that you don't really have to infuse for a long time. First of all, the alcohol promotes extraction just as it does in wine, and secondly you can macerate some amount of the fruit to promote extraction.

Mark Lipton

I haven't tried this before, Walt. It does seem that it would be next to impossible to get a good infusion while maintaining the spritz. I wonder if you could do an overly concentrated infusion into still wine and then use cold sparkling wine to thin it out rather than something like Sprite?

I have no idea whether this would really work, but I suppose you could do the infusion into still wine, filter it well, and then put it in a seltzer bottle and squirt it over fresh fruit. I'd imagine you'd have to be pretty careful with the filtration to avoid gumming up the seltzer bottle, but it would be fun to show it off to guests!

Mike, your first suggestion is a good one, and I'd be a fool not to take it. What could be easier than substituting more sparkling wine for the club soda? Unfortunately, I am such a fool, so I like your second idea. I'm wondering if I could filter out all the fruit and then add a few select pieces as garnish. Say, a cherry and peach slice in each glass.

Walt - I assume you're referring to s process similar to this: http://www.ehow.com/how_2133132_use-co- ... rages.html. While it recommends a week, I think that for carbonating a Sangria for 3-4 days would be adequate and purging the container beforehand should be adequate to prevent oxidation. Personally, when I make Sangria, I use "5-Alive", a Minutemaid product of frozen, concentrated citrus juices and reconstitute using club soda, and blend that half and half with the red wine.

Exactly. Thanks for the reminder to purge my plastic keg. The idea of adding a fruit concentrate is a good one. Maybe I could make my own juice and just add it to sparkling wine.

Walt, we add a sparkling water, often a lime-flavored (but NOT sweet) one. But keep in mind that you don't really have to infuse for a long time. First of all, the alcohol promotes extraction just as it does in wine, and secondly you can macerate some amount of the fruit to promote extraction.

Sort of a bellini, adding a puree. Interesting.

Here is my plan: Purge 6 liter keg with CO2. Make fruit puree (nectarines, cherries, green apples, and mint) for maximum extraction. Mix sparkling wine, spirits, and fruit puree in keg (I don't think I'll need a sweetener beyond the fruit and orange liqueur.). Let macerate for a few hours. Use coffee filter to remove fruit solids. Return to keg, carbonate for a few days. Decant into serving pitchers, pour over slice of nectarine and half cherry.

I'll let you know how it goes. Now I just have to convince my wife I'm not crazy.

Walt

P.S. Any ideas for what sparkler to use? $10 is about my maximum for this application.

P.S. Any ideas for what sparkler to use? $10 is about my maximum for this application.

How cheap can you get Gruet for?

Mark Lipton

Gruet is $13 here, I hadn't thought of that. I think I'm going with Cristalino, which has the spiritual advantage of being a Cava.

Walt

I would have suggested Prosecco, maybe, but Cristalino ought to do nicely.

Walt - let us know how it turned out.

Roadblock. I can't find my carbonator. Plus all my plastic kegs are full of beer. I have to use other means to preserve or re-introduce the sparkle.

Dry ice will carbonate a beverage! I asked my smart chemist wife to calculate how much dry ice would be needed to bring soda up to 2.5 atmospheres (atm). There's a great Wikipedia page on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonic_acid that says you need 0.084 moles / liter. The molecular weight of CO2 is 44 grams/mole, so to carbonate one liter I would need 3.7 grams of CO2. For some reason I was thinking it would be a lot more. My whole six liter batch would need just 22 grams, less than an ounce. However, I am dumb. Very dumb. Why am I that dumb? Those of you with more mischievous childhoods are smiling and nodding, but I had just proposed a dry ice bomb. The dry ice, upon combination with the liquid, would immediately turn into gas. The solubility of CO2 in liquid is slow, so all that gas would need somewhere to go. Boom! Instead of 2.5 atm in 6L, I would get 300 atm in my headspace. Don't try this at home, for Pete's sake.

However, I found recipes for making root beer using dry ice in an open container. Much safer. They call for 110 g/L, so most of the CO2 sublimates rather than dissolving, but that's no big deal. I'll report back.

Also, instead of Cointreau knockoff, I'm going to try poire William eau de vie.

Walt

Walt,
Your chemist wife should also have reminded you of that age-old method for generating CO2: acidifying baking soda. Most children have at one time added some vinegar to baking soda to get it to fizz. Classic seltzer water was created by adding hydrochloric acid to sodium bicarbonate (baking soda): you get CO2 and sodium chloride (table salt), which is why seltzer was so salty. The trick is finding a food-grade acid that won't adversely affect the flavor of your sangria. My choice would be citric acid, which will add a nice citric tang to your sangria and comes in USP form. As both are solids, they can be weighed out ahead of time and added immediately before you seal up the pressure-stable container. Because both take a little time to dissolve, you have a small induction period before it generates much CO2. You can even mix the two solids ahead of time and just dump in together, which is basically how Alka-Seltzer works (baking soda + aspirin).

Have fun!
Mark Lipton

Hi Mark,

When I add the citric acid, what will I get? Sodium citrate? What does it taste like?

I'll probably have to experiment with the proportion of citric acid, as my supply is from an Indian spice store, and definitely not USP, let alone helpfully labeled "anhydrous" or anything like that.

Walt

Hi Mark,

When I add the citric acid, what will I get? Sodium citrate? What does it taste like?

I'll probably have to experiment with the proportion of citric acid, as my supply is from an Indian spice store, and definitely not USP, let alone helpfully labeled "anhydrous" or anything like that.

Walt

Sodium citrate is commonly added to prepared foods to make their taste "livelier." It basically adds a bit of mouthwatering tartness. And if you got the citric acid from a spice store, you should be good to go. The one uncertainty is proportion: because citric acid is a tricarboxylic acid, you can use, in principle, only a third as much as the sodium bicarbonate. This is molar quantity, of course, so in weight terms, that'd be 2.5 times as much citric acid to baking soda for a 1:1 molar ratio, 1.67 times as much for a 1:2 ratio and 0.83 times as much for a 1:3 ratio. See which works the best from a visual as well as organoleptic basis.

Mark Lipton

Walt -

Will you add some sugar to counter the lack of sweetness in the eau de vie? I would think it would be needed given the difference between that and Cointreau.

(Go for the seltzer bottle!!!! )

Walt,
I've made sparkling Sangria a few time. I always use Cava. It's a no brainer. It doesn't cost much and it is in the spirit of the genre to use Spanish wine.

Here is what I do. I macerate the cut fruit (peaches, apricot, orange, tangerine, etc.) in a very light sugar syrup with a splash of brandy to keep the fruit from browning. You might add a squeeze of lemon, or some other citrus juice. It only needs 30 minutes, but up to a couple hours is fine.

Just before serving, put the fruit and marinade into a pitcher and pour in 1-2 bottles of Cava. You can adjust the flavor with more fruit juice or sugar syrup. But don't disguise the Cava too much.

Bernie

"I'll take 'Four Feet' for $600, Alex."

"What is the distance Walt can spray cherry juice up the cabinets?"

"Correct!"

Progress is always messy, I guess. I got my fruit pureed/mashed, and added it to most of the Cava. I've now got 9L of mash. It is ugly. God, I hope this works. The final mix was 3 kilos white nectarines, 800g cherries, and 375mL poire William to 5.5L Cava. Mike, I didn't add any sugar because I'm going to taste the infusion when I filter it and correct with simple syrup. The nectarines were mature but not ripe, so it could use some. I'm aiming for a dry-ish fruity beverage with fizz.

Bernie, I'm sure your way is easier, and probably just as good. Here's hoping my method is worth it. Mark, I used the baking soda reaction to purge my kegs so the Cava wouldn't oxidize. I've heard you can also make bath bombs this way...

Walt

"I'll take 'Four Feet' for $600, Alex."

"What is the distance Walt can spray cherry juice up the cabinets?"

"Correct!"

Ack!! That reminds me of my first day in lab when I sent a fountain of hydrogen peroxide and lye straight to the ceiling of my fume hood, a good 2-3'. Overall, that was probably easier to clean up than cherry juice.

Bernie, I'm sure your way is easier, and probably just as good. Here's hoping my method is worth it. Mark, I used the baking soda reaction to purge my kegs so the Cava wouldn't oxidize. I've heard you can also make bath bombs this way...

Oh, the fun you can have! My darling wife of 20 years spent every year of Science Fair making volcanoes out of baking soda and vinegar (sugar and sulfuric acid works much better, though). Such is the path to fame and fortune in science...

Mark Lipton

A while ago I thought about making a sparkling wine in the manner described. I figured that to do it I would dissolve citric or tartaric acid in the wine, put it in champagne bottles and chill it. Then dissolve the baking soda (or potassium bicarbonate - found in wine making supply shops) in a small quantity of water and freeze it into mini ice cubes that would fit in the neck of a champagne bottle. Then drop one of the mini ice cubes into the bottle and cap it before it had a chance to thaw. I never tried it though.

I'm declaring a qualified success. The result was cloudy, not clear, even when passed through a coffee filter, so I skipped that and just used a fine strainer. The color was a pretty pink, thanks to the cherries. I poured the 7L of liquid into a punch bowl, chucked in 5 lbs. of dry ice to carbonate it an hour before the party. The bubbling got some comments, but it kept the punch cold without diluting it for a four hour party. It also cracked the punch bowl, so next time I'll get a spacer to keep the dry ice away from the glass. Unfortunately, it didn't carbonate it to the degree I had hoped, only a slight sparkle. However, it also didn't require tending, which was a big advantage. To get a real sparkling punch I think you have to mix juice and cava a couple liters at a time.

The real test: the punch was gone at the end of the party. The average guest had two glasses!

Thanks to everyone for your help. I have a picture of the punch at home.

Walt