by JayTee » Wed Feb 20, 2019 2:40 am
Hi - I'd appreciate some guidance please from anyone who has managed to get a reasonably strong lemon flavour out of the recipe based on a single distillation on a 4 plate column. My first attempt was bit disappointing - it tastes nice, but it's only very mildly tasting of lemon. If you add tonic, the flavour is lost. Here are the main points:
- I noticed Mac calls for a "25kg fermenter full of lemons". He said this equates to about 25 or 30 lemons. I bought 9kg of lemons which was approximately 80 lemons; although it was probably about half to two thirds of the fermenter. The recipe calls for half a dozen lemon skins. I put in 3 times as many. I made sure the lemon flesh was broken up sufficiently by pulsing a food processing a few times.
- My single 4 plate run was full reflux for about 45 minutes, then foreshots dripping then heads little bit quicker and a thin "toothpick" stream as I was progressing through to hearts. After making my cuts, I ended up with about 3.5L @ 88%abv. The problem is when diluting to 40% abv, I feel the flavour is extremely subtle.
- After reading about EC1118 pH preferences and reading pH at about 2.75, I decided to raise the pH to a starting level of 4.0. The fermentation was solid and steady and finished after a week to 10 days approx.
Any ideas why my flavour was so weak please? It's a lovely smooth drink - fab as a beer chaser, but it would benefit from a stronger lemon carryover. I thought about reducing perhaps to 2 plates next time, but the vodka would be rougher I imagine? Thanks in advance for any opinions :-)
Last edited by
JayTee on Wed Feb 20, 2019 2:42 am, edited 1 time in total.