[Sca-Cooks] Verjus question

[Pixel, Goddess and Queen]

On Wed, 25 Jul 2007, Stefan li Rous wrote:

> I thought period verjuice was unfermented or didn't ferment. If they
> didn't have a problem with the juice fermenting, why would Margaret?
> Because you fear Margaret's grapes are more ripe? Or a different
> type? Or something else? Was medieval verjuice used so quickly that
> it didn't have time to ferment?
>
> I can see, at least for the first experiment, using freezing or
> canning to simply help make sure there is no contamination by the
> wrong beasties though. Or perhaps preserving one half of the batch
> and not using any preservation techniques on the other half, just to
> see if it will ferment or spoil.
>
> Stefan

As Selene said, any fruit juice will ferment. I rather suspect that 
medieval verjus was used such that it didn't have time to ferment, 
or that the amount of sugar it contained was small enough that 
fermentation took much longer than it would with sweet juice (again, 
allowing it to be used before it fermented to the point where it was no 
longer considered verjus).

For that matter, do we have any mention of verjus fermenting? I imagine 
that it would stay sour regardless of alcohol content, and given what my 
schedule has been like I also imagine that I'll be able to give a report 
on what fermented verjus is like in a couple of months. ;-)

Margaret