Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Heya guys, I was thinking of making some flavoured neutral.. I have a reflux still so generally my neutral is around the 90 ABV

I have made limoncello in the past, and I found I enjoyed it but it was too sweet.... I kept dropping the sugar until essentially I was just making flavoured neutral...

I tried the same with oranges, also fantastic...

I was thinking of doing some more and making a little suite of ... well not flavoured vodka, but close to...

What other stuff soaks well... was thinking possibly trying Rasberries, Strawberries, Almonds.. any tips and tricks gratefully accepted...

My best "dropper" fruit to date has been blueberries, always goes first
my kahlua dont last long either
Worst thing ive tried has been bacon fat

With the hot weather playing havoc with our fruit trees everyday we check for fallen fruit and our young cider apple tree has been hit pretty hard but has a bumper crop on the branches. So all the fallen fruit is chopped up then dried in a hotbox.

With so much dried apple I decided to put a handful in my mini me pot still boiler, added a bit of cinnamon and it's now soaking in 52% neutral. I've left enough headroom to water it down to 40% and after 4 hours the smell is really starting to show.

Bryan1 wrote:With the hot weather playing havoc with our fruit trees everyday we check for fallen fruit and our young cider apple tree has been hit pretty hard but has a bumper crop on the branches. So all the fallen fruit is chopped up then dried in a hotbox.

With so much dried apple I decided to put a handful in my mini me pot still boiler, added a bit of cinnamon and it's now soaking in 52% neutral. I've left enough headroom to water it down to 40% and after 4 hours the smell is really starting to show.

that actually sounds SOOO good

Strawberry is a winner mixed frozen berries not so much..currently have limonchello in the works and want to do a kaluha type drink.

I have done skittles, XXXX mints few other Lollies. They turn out alright but pretty sweet :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Musk sticks are a winner too.

anyone ever tried chilli?

Professor Green wrote:Musk sticks are a winner too.

Done these years ago after paying $50 for a 500ml bottle at Tambarine mt
The hardest thing was filtering enough to get it really clear of the gum’s that settle out

bluc wrote: and want to do a kaluha type drink.

The recipie on here is good, i use moccona #5, queen vanilla essence and raw sugar in my version, pretty close to the original amounts, very tasty

Boomgate wrote:anyone ever tried chilli?

Ive done a few chillies ones with different types of chillies. It all depends how hot you like it. :obscene-birdiedoublered: there is a recipe using birds eye chillies somewhere on the fourm. My favourite was with reaper's but it was hottttt

I’ve got a Carolina Resper plant growing
Can’t wait to try a Chilli gin

Blackberries is a winner in my house

Thanks for the reminder - just sipping a kaffier lime vodka. Not a regular option, but surprisingly good when I find at the back of the cupboard.

I’ve currently got some small sample bottles with cinnamon sticks in one, juniper berries in another, dried orange peel, cardamom seeds, even trying lollie bananas in one.
All are just flavoured vodkas, but lots of fun.

I've done blueberries twice now, my latest batch I don't think I soaked long enough, maybe 4 days. First time I did it I soaked them at least a week. I think I must have let them go so long cause I forgot about them. Soaked until the berries had lost their colour. First batch was nicer than my current one. Nice straight in soda water and ice. Currently just drinking weetbix vodka with a squeeze of lemon and soda water.

Boomgate wrote:anyone ever tried chilli?

Last year my old Manzano Chilli tree gave me 5kg in one crop, so what better to do with 5kg's of chilli ferment it of course. With the manzano I found the sugar content was 1027sg and after dicing and freezing the sg went up several points. I used EC1118 yeast along with 4kg of sugar and also did a generation with the wort.

What surprised me the heat was hardly noticed and the taste profile of the fruit was just :teasing-tease: amazing :happy-partydance: with the second generation I put 5 litre of 65% with some toasted/charred French oak.

Now at the meet in Tasi last weekend Crow said compared to my chilli vodka the same taste profile just isn't there but it still very nice and your cuts are great. I asked Crow's better 1/2 if she had tried it and after one sip she owned the bottle with more promised back on the mainland.

With that maceration I put down today when I looked this afternoon about a 1/3 had been soaken up by the dried apple and the smell is just out there too :teasing-tease:

I do figure when I run this, once the temp gets up the alcohol stored in the apple will release along with all the flavour and in the thumper I'm going to put a scrubber to help stopping pukes but also allowing the lighter components to go to the pc while the heavier components will fall into the thumper fluid. If this trial works out I'll scale it up for a 5 litre run in my 2" pot still. Now if the taste profile is still there after the 5 litre run it's time for me to buy a few sacks of sugar and tomato paste as I'm going to need a heap of neutral to do a 50 litre run.

Cheers Bryan

Vanilla beans was always a winner here. And peppermint essence then mixed with lemonade made a very refreshing drink for summer.

Has anyone used Elderflower have them growing but the flowers do not have any taste or smell and have not tried to process purchase a bottle of elderflower cordial from supermarket bottle green hand picked elderflower cordial to see what the flavor was and tastes a bit like lychee the flowers can be purchase dried about $50 a kilo may be worth looking at.

We regularly mix elderflower cordial with vodka or gin. The Mrs used to make her own cordial from the flowers back in nz.
I would think they'd make a pretty good flavoured vodka and if I had some available I'd definitely have a crack at it.