[Avodah] Grape Juice

[martin brody]

"Long ago I heard a shiur from the owner/head/top honcho of some sort of
Kedem. I forget his first name, but his last name was Herzog. He said that
one of the big poskim in EY (he said the name - I forgot it) paskened that
grape juice wasn't wine, because it doesn't ferment. He went to that Posek's
house and told him that it does, indeed, ferment, and offered to prove it to
him. (Obviously, he had a vested interest in people making Kiddush on Kedem
grape juice!) His point was that halachically grape juice is exactly like
wine. Another interesting thing he said about Kedem grape juice (I don't
know if it's true for other brands) is that it's always 100% grape juice.
But if a particular batch is not sweet enough, they mix it with a grape
juice concentrate that has concentrated sugars in it to raise the brix
(sweetness value).

KT,
MYG"

What we call grape juice is a relatively modern invention of Dr.Welch, a
religious teetotal Christian, who wanted a 100% alcohol free drink for
sacramental purposes. The grape juice of the gamara, squeezed before
Shabbat, has already started the fermentation process, so as undetectable
as it is, a short while later, it does have the potential to become wine
and is permitted for kiddush.
Dr. Welsch was using the experimentation of Louis Pasteur as his building
block.The problem with crushing the grapes and then pasteurising them, is
that a tiny bit of fermentation had taken place even in those few seconds.
He figured out correctly, that if he cooked the juice in the skins, before
the crush, there would be no fermentation.And that is the way ALL grape
juice is produced everywhere.(Which BTW is why all stam grape juice is
probably kosher, mevushal, untouched by a gentile. You can all yell at me
about that, but prove it isn't!)( And also Kedem's claim that it does
produce non-mevushal grape juice is a bit lame, because by FDA law and
Kedem's own admission it is cooked at the regulatary minimum which I think
is 160 degrees.Yes, I'm aware of the mevushal/temperature arguements)
 As an added protection, grape juice is then pasteurised 3 more times
during the production/bottling etc.
So the question is, can it ferment after all this pasteurising?
Well, try leaving opened grape juice unrefridgerated for a while and see
what happens! Somethinh horrible happens! However, it is totally
impotatable and cannot be considered wine at all. Vinegar tastes much
better.
So modern day cooked grape juice for kiddush/havdala/weddings/britim/4 cups
is a huge heter., and not permitted in my very strict house.
Hope that's informative,
L'chaim

Martin Brody
310 474 1856
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