Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

The allergens should denature or be unable to carry in the distillate. Like how people allergic to grain can drink all grain vodka.
To remove fine cactus hairs buy some women's waxing strips. Work well.

It's down to 1.059 this morning. I had to move it to a 60lt storage container, as it was shooting smile out of the airlock. It smells pleasantly peppery and tastes fruity and peppery.

Ran the fruit/leaves wash last night. Strip and spirit run. I took cuts in jars down to 30% it started to get very soapy after that. I ended up with 1100ml of 75%. It has a fruity/veggie taste. I can see why they say it tastes like tequila, but it definantly isn't tequila. It needs wood and age. I have it on toasted apple wood, and I put some in the microwave to rapid age. Hopefully it turns out good :)

If you have fruit In there and you only strained it you probably have prickles still in there so be careful. The fruits have super fine prickles. So much so they can become airborne and breathed in which is very painful.

Your wash is looking excellent though and I hope it taste great

Pugdog1 wrote:If you have fruit In there and you only strained it you probably have prickles still in there so be careful. The fruits have super fine prickles. So much so they can become airborne and breathed in which is very painful.

Your wash is looking excellent though and I hope it taste great

I had some advice of this from the master distiller at Castle Glen. He said that the spikes are dissolved during the fermentation, and contribute to the nutrition of the wash, of course, this does not affect the nutritional value of the distillation, but is interesting all the same.

That is very interesting indeed. Does cactus fruit have high pectin in it at all?

Pugdog1 wrote:That is very interesting indeed. Does cactus fruit have high pectin in it at all?

No it doesn't. I had some leftovers I tried making jam with. 2 packs of jamsetta, and still no gel. Also, very little heads

I have tried jam made from this fruit (they didn't elaborate on the recipe) but it was quite delicious. Shame your jam didn't turn out.

Be very interested to see how your brew taste as well

After 4 runs in the microwave on 15g p/litre of toasted apple wood, the result is quite nice. A bit harsh, but that should go away with some real age. Reminds me of rum, but that could be the cane sugar I used. Made for a very nice daiquiri.
The experiments continue. This weekend i'm running the recipe given to me by Hill Country Distillers (Just the leaves).
I'm going to start a toasted leaves run and a fruit only run aswell.

Ran the leaves and wow, so much different to the fruit run. A very strong herbal taste. Not bad, but needs to mellow on some oak to get rid of the harsh flavors. This is the birth of "Cactus Jack"

Love the name hahaha

I noticed the vodka didn't have much body. Kinda felt like cheap liquor in the mouth. So in the spirit of experimentation, I mixed it with some white dog 100% corn whisky and decided to make gin. I was aiming for tanqueray no.10 so I steeped 1.5 litres of 80% with a white grapefruit, a lime and a Valencia orange (all quartered), diluted, then ran it through the pot. This tasted amazing! I wish I had more to keep separate.
I added 2 tbsp of crushed juniper, 1 tbsp angelica, licorice and coriander seed, 2 tsp black pepper, and 4 tbsp of chamomile. I sealed it in a jar, and put in the sous vide at 60c for 5 hours, then diluted and distilled. Let it air overnight, then dilute to 47.3%

OH MY GOD! It is so good. Juniper up front followed by citrus notes accompanied by a subtle sweetness from the corn. There is a lingering herbal and chamomile sweetness on the tongue, with a hint of the prickly pear leaf taste.

I only ended up with 1.7 litres after 5 distillations. No regrets. Amazing straight up, and even better in a apple, fennel cocktail.

Hows the stuff on oak going? :-B

bluc wrote:Hows the stuff on oak going? :-B

Not bad mate. Has a weird tang to it on the backend that I was hoping would diminish with age. I put it down to the yeast I used (Lowans) I'm going to try it again with something a bit more neutral.

How did this project end up have you done more? :-B

Did you skin the pads and fruit before mushing them up or just used them skin and all?

I think my plan will be to grab a few kilos of pads, (maybe 3-4 kgs in a 50L ferment? The more the merrier?), dice them into cubes a couple inches square, cook them over charcoal for a few hours, (more for flavour than anything else), then mush them, add water and sugar, pitch some bakers yeast and see what happens. Don't know how much sugar I'll use, I'll just keep an eye on the SG and wing it. Just have to run some UJSSM through the still to free up a fermenter. Hopefully this weekend if it's finished by then.

I tried doing an agave based spirit once but never got it to ferment properly. Possibly too much agave in the ferment for the bakers yeast or the EC 1118 to handle. Hopefully won't have the same issue with this stuff.

Cheers,
Dave.

It mentions the needles dissolving, so I dare say you keep the skin

Better late than never! Sorry I've since moved to Brissie into a unit, so my dirty big keg still was put in storage. I have a mate with a backyard now! So full steam ahead.

Yes, leave the skin on. After a year, the stuff on oak turned into a fantastic sipper. Truly worthy of the Cactus Jack name.
Ain't too many cacti growing in Brissie, so my cactus experiments are over.

The "whisky" from the leaves took a very long time to mellow out, but was quite nice after a year. The brandy from the fruit was the real winner.

Thanks for that. I haven't kicked this one off yet, we've had a decent amount of rain recently so the prickly pear have all been in flower. I'll hold off until the fruit is ripe and I can do batch with the fruit as well.

Cheers,
Dave.