Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Mandarine trees full and almost at end so thought I'd have a go.

was hoping for a Controu type of liqueur .WineGlass had suggested suspending above the alcohol but as all other recipes soak fruit in alcohol,I figued I must have miss-understood .

So anyway having shit loads of Mandas to play with I've done this .

900mL Neutral at @ 93%
900ml hot filtered water
1 cup sugar dissolved in above water then added to neutral
About 12 mandarines broken into sections and skins of 2 manderines

Its just what I felt was OK.I've never done anything like this before so what ever will be.

Please let me know if you have any other Ideas as I still have plenty of Mandarines and neutral ATM

Don't reckon you want any of the white bit of the skin in there (pith)

Usually just zest some of the outside of the skin

That's going to be really bitter. Really all you want is the essential oils from the skin.

OK thanks .I tasted it and it is bitter already after only 12 hours so will piss off the skins

Has nice mandarine taste already though :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Whats a typical soaking period ? Is there are typical fruit to booze ratio ?

If you can zest the skins and add the zest of about 6 to a litre of 40% neutral that will give you a better result. The skins contain that oil you want, just avoid any pith.

Pretty hard with mandarin, so get a zester. I'd say two - four weeks for lemon or orange so same for mandies.

suspension will work very well. i have done it with an orange, and it. is. amazing.

u could always use the zest like lemoncello, depending on how thick the skin it. i recall reading somewhere that the higher % alcohol the better/quicker it will draw out the oils. then dilute down after with sugar+water.

Andy wrote:suspension will work very well. i have done it with an orange, and it. is. amazing.

u could always use the zest like lemoncello, depending on how thick the skin it. i recall reading somewhere that the higher % alcohol the better/quicker it will draw out the oils. then dilute down after with sugar+water.

The only issue I have with this is how you get your ABV accurate after it has picked up a lot of quite heavy citrus oil. I get to drinking strength and just wait patiently rather than rushing it at 95% and guessing your way to a more accurate ABV,

BB ,what is a zester ?

Andy, whats the suspension method ? Is that what EG was referring to

Howdy,

BB ,what is a zester ?

They are usually a small(micro) plane kind of like a grater but cut is directional to avoid clogging. A medium size grate will do but light on the skin pressure till you find the right depth....no white pith.

keep soaking mandies fruit no biggy, it's done when it oxidises and starts change colour ie winter bout 1.5 weeks as a guess?

I's recommend a small change here. Zest or grate skin to a smaller separate high avb sub batch to extract the real pungent oils/taste. Once you water back the main batch this can then be added to taste adding some zing rather than the whole lot being possibly overly strong/bitter.

As a side issue a white melted thinned chocolate, dark thinned chocolate/Baileys/Yellow Vok/Amaretto/Vanilla bean whipped cream/ Frangelico would be killers with one....

bt1


bt1

BackyardBrewer wrote:
The only issue I have with this is how you get your ABV accurate after it has picked up a lot of quite heavy citrus oil. I get to drinking strength and just wait patiently rather than rushing it at 95% and guessing your way to a more accurate ABV,

If you macerate the zest etc in a known percentage alcohol it should be fairly easy to calculate final ABV after dilution and adding sugar. I like to macerate at about 50% and dilute 1:1 with a water and sugar syrup giving a final percentage of 25% for liqueurs.

Went to a lunch yesterday and a friend brought in a bottle of strawberry and white rum liqueur. Very nice. Lots of the other guests were surprised that he had made it himself and were not sure how to react to the fact that he is a moonshiner. When another guy and myself chimed in with the fact that we shared the hobby the others were amazed that there are so many out there.

A bit like when I went to a boutique commercial distillery for a tasting a few years ago and the guy said that there are only about 20 distilleries in Australia. I replied that there might be 20 legal ones but he was dramatically wrong with the actual number. He was suddenly much less interested in discussing his recipes. I think I have improved on most of the things I tried of his anyway.

Cheers,

Richard
(5 o'clock)

BackyardBrewer wrote:The only issue I have with this is how you get your ABV accurate after it has picked up a lot of quite heavy citrus oil. I get to drinking strength and just wait patiently rather than rushing it at 95% and guessing your way to a more accurate ABV,

Not too sure what you mean. if u know its 95% then you macerate, add X amount of sugar and X amount of water, you would know your ABV just as accurately if u dilute to 30% then add your oils and sugar. less liquid, less zest, and thus filtration would work more efficiently.

Yummyrum wrote:Andy, whats the suspension method ? Is that what EG was referring to

WineGlass posted
"Take 1 litre of 40% neutral.
Add and disolve 1 to 1 1/4 cups of sugar.
Place in large jar, suspend 1 orange or 2 mandies above the surface of the sugared neutral. Don't let them contact the fluid as that can cause bitterness.
Come back in 3 months."

The way I did it was took 50% neutral and placed it in a jar with a shot glass and rested the orange onto of the shot glass. i left it for about 10 weeks. the orange had faded a great deal. then I diluted it with some sugar syrup to 30%.

So Andy ,are you saying that the Orange was soaking in the alcohol or held above it .I get that it was above the bottom of the jar but was it above the level of the booze ?

Gave Yummymummy a taste of this .She's a bit of a booze wanker.

She said "it tastes like just like Cointreau , Hurry up and make some more while the trees still full"

Still going to let this soak for a bit longer.Haven't done the zest thing yet but thinking might do what bt1 said and add to taste after.

Yummyrum wrote:So Andy ,are you saying that the Orange was soaking in the alcohol or held above it .I get that it was above the bottom of the jar but was it above the level of the booze ?

It was about 1cm above the liquid. if it comes into contact with the liquid you are going to get the bitterness from the pith.

Cheers for that Andy.Must say it sounds really bazzar that so much flavour can transfer with no direct contact.Any Idea how this works?

My guess would be the booze vapor is extracting the flavour.

In a sealed container there would be a high vapor concentration.