Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Has anybody fermented these before ?
I have a ruby grapefruit tree and an orange tree both with good amounts of fruit. I have some EC1118 yeast, yes I know it is slow, and am looking to ferment these fruits if possible. I just have no idea on ratios of fruit to sugar.
Any suggestions would be most appreciated, can ferment in a 60 litre barrel or 200

Wellsy,

I have no idea being a newbie, but maybe follow Mac's Lemon Vodka recipe and subsitute lemon for oranges/grapefruit?

Don’t you just hate it when you miss the obvious lol

Thanks bender

G'Day Wellsy,
Mate if your going into into fruit you do need to get yaself a refractometer so at a glance you can see the brix/sugar content of the chosen fruit. Now by freezing the pulp of the fruit does bring out more of the sugars and from my trials of doing this it does raise the brix a point or 2. :handgestures-thumbupleft: Also put on the shopping list some litmus paper so one can see the PH easily as some fruit can be a tad acidic.

Cheers Bryan

Thanks Bryan
I thought the refractometer might have been a necessary tool of the trade
Looks like I am off shopping again. As for freezing the pulp the grapefruit won’t be a problem but the oranges might be.
The only thing stopping me from eating an orange is having to peel it, and if I have to peel them all then I might be eating as many as I freeze lol

Wellsy these days when I do fruit SWMBO comes home with a couple to a few buckets and I say well pulp it then chuck it in the freezer and I'll look at it next weekend. I do take a Brix reading before freezing and one after to see if there is any change.

My latest as already recorded is Quince and yes in these cooler months it will take 2-3 months to ferment out, now that you have the bubbler it may pay to bump up the SG with some inverted sugar to get the ferment to 1070 and have enough for a full boiler run then just put it over 4 plates. Now on saying that what I have found with fruit by stripping first ends up with a much better end result.

Just be aware with fruit it can take around 12 months of aging to really bring the best out so the ol' adage of "hurry up and wait " does apply to doing fruit :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Cheers Bryan

Thanks again Bryan
I know you have a shed load of experience with fruit so appreciate your sharing of experience

With both of these, remove as much of the pith as possible. I generally use all the centre, and 50 to 60% of the skin after de-pithing it

I have to ask the silly question
Is there an easy way to do this or is it as labour intensive as it sounds ?
You might be getting the hint that I like to do things the easy way :laughing-rolling:

Aranciata is another thing u could try. That way you dont need to ferment the fruit. Ruby grapefruit would be a killer recipe too.

Wellsy wrote:I have to ask the silly question
Is there an easy way to do this or is it as labour intensive as it sounds ?
You might be getting the hint that I like to do things the easy way :laughing-rolling:

Use a peeler on the whole fruit for the rind, then chuck in the freezer, pull out leave for a day to defrost, cut in half, run on a old elec juicer ..... or if you just happen to have a wine press?

Thanks Dazzer