Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Feijoa thunderbolt- here is Frozenthunderbolts feijoa wash originally posted on HD.


by frozenthunderbolt » Sat May 18, 2013 11:08 am

1/2 fill a 23L bucket with topped, tailed and sliced Feijoas; about 2 standard plastic supermarket bags full (pre-cutting), and pour 2.5 Kg sugar over them

Sit for 24-48 hours until the sugar has draw out the juice and formed a syrup pour 4L of hot (NOT BOILING) water over the fruit and stir to dissolve any remaining sugar.

Top up to a couple of inches from the top and pitch with EC-1118.

Work out to dry punching the cap every few days - took about 2 weeks in my cold kitchen

Strained into another clean bucket and let settle for 24 hours.

Ran it slow and as de-tuned and slow as i can with my bought 'reflux' still.

Now, Here's where it gets interesting: - run started really slow in drips not a broken stream - within 40-50ml i couldn't smell or taste heads and it had a POWERFUL feijoa taste - THE ENTIRE RUN tasted brilliantly of Feijoas! (drips on my finger every 1/2 hour or so) - I stopped at around 88C and while i could taste it was into tails, i would still have drunk it - it tasted good! And i have a thing about nasty tails tastes so that really surprised me. - when i emptied my still 36 hours later the dunder smelt like feijoa heaven - just about everything i run has funky smelling leftovers (with swmbo hates!) but this was great. When I do my 1.5 spirit run today I'm going to keep some feijoa dunder and use it to start two new barrels with the very last feijoas of the season.

I have never, bar none, had a run that tasted and smelled so good, right across the run before and after. Normally when i do a strip run i wouldn't stick my nose in the gallon jug i collect in for love nor money, but this one is something else

I'll report back in a few days after my spirit run, but if any of you guys have access to these fruit give them a go!

Where has all the rum gone? . . .

Thanks Kiwikeg

I will definitely give this one a go when i can get my hands on some Feijoas. My girlfriend is a Kiwi and loves Feijoa.. Planted a few trees in the backyard about three years ago, but unfortunately no signs of fruit yet.

This recipe will put me in the good books.

Cheers

is it just me who had to look up feijoa?

Andy wrote:is it just me who had to look up feijoa?

Haha i would have had to if i didn't hook up with a Kiwi.. They are all over the place in New Zealand cant say i'm a fan myself, that said im sure the boozy version is awesome :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Got a tree in my front yard, might have to try this, if I get enough fruit from it

I mortar mixed 20 kgs of Feijoas into 40 litres of sugared wash Set it off with EC1118 and wound up leaving it for 3 months, dry and feijoa scented. I halved the wine to run each 20 litres fast and then planned to double distill.

I ran the top 20 litres ( golden and clear) hard and took off 6 litres down to round 50ABV . The first 3 litres had that beautiful Feijoa aroma like you said TB and even the tails smelt halfway drinkable.

I've just discovered that the second 20 litres is half wine and half very fine pulp ( mortar mixed) .The pulp at the bottom of the barrel is a little bit bitter with tannins from the skins. I'm thinking that if try to squeeze extra out of the pulp I could wind up spoiling the other clean wine but maybe it has lots of good flavours to give.

1) I could just run the clear half of this second batch fast (around 10 litres) and add the 2 fast runs together for a slow second distill?
2) I could add my first 6 litres of distillate into this wash and run it all slow? ( one and a half)
3) I could chuck the second 20 litres in pulp and all, do another fast run and see how it comes through, then double distill the lot like I planned?

Spoilt for choice really. What does the forum think?

@ 4square I think option 1 is the safest option, you may still find you need to add liquid glucose to the final spirit. These Fejoia spirits can end up super sour.

Thanks TB. Have you distilled your Feijoa into a brandy ? How did that taste? How do you mix and add glucose if it is too sour?

@ 4square, I am not TB, I am Kk. TB is a member on HD that I and others have been sharing Fejoia recipes with and with whose permission I reposted TBs recipe here. Hope that makes sense :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Anyway all my macerations/spd/Applepie variants involving Fejoia redistilled or not ended up a little sour to females tastebuds males tended to prefer the sourness , so I would add 100ml of liquid glucose or sugar syrup to 900ml of Fejoia spirits, which would girly up the drink nicely.
I have not run this exact recipe yet as Fejoia season is over till next year, but I intend following this recipe EXACTLY as FrozenThunderbolt posted it so hopefully it will become the tested and proven goto recipe for these tasty fruits that I usually just end up mowing over in their 1000s each Autumn....

It does now. :clap: I'll probably take your advice and not mess with that very promising first cut. I expect the second run at 30% will tone down the flavour a little which might not be a bad thing. I wouldnt describe the first run as sour , certainly doesnt make me think I need to sweeten it but I ran it flat out so its not exactly subtle. Just like TB says it really has a beautiful feijoa scent right the way through. Even though the first 3 litres were run fast they smelt great and had a whopping great ABV and the tails weren't too bad either. I'll post in this thread when I finish double distilling sometime over the next couple of weeks.

Happy mashing next year when the Feijoas are out. They are one of the few fruit it's relatively easy to get cheap even if you don't own a tree. Well them and golden kiwis but that's a whole other thread.

Have you got a recipe for a kiwifruit wash?
That would be a cheap wash in season.....

I pretty much did the. Same as TB

20 kgs of Feijoas mortar mixed to a pulp.
5 kgs of sugar mixed with boiling water
Water to take the mix up to 45 litres
A little DAP 'll do ya
Pitched on EC 1118
Punched the cap back down.

Left it for the best part of 3 months on account of life getting in the way of my distilling. The low wines finished up crisp and dry almost like a Feijoa Cider. ( now there's an idea worth trying ! )

TBs suggestions of leaving them in sugar to sweat sounds like a great idea. I have done that with cherries mascerating in vodka and it works a treat. Ditto top and tailing the Feijoas . There is plenty of skin in the mix and it is strongly flavoured and short on sugars so no harm in leaving those bits behind.

I have done a heap of kiwifruit mate, a friend of mine runs a pack house so I have a good supply.

I will look up my recipient book when I get back down to the house for you.

Looking forward to reading that a. Did 15 kg of golden kiwis a while back but cocked it up several ways. I'll give it another go when they turn up cheap at the Saturday market.

feijoas are piling up under the neighborhood trees so to avoid wastage I Put down a 48 litre feijoa wash today.
Followed thunderbolts recipe except for the yeast, I used CL23 instead.
Also added a little vinters harvest wine nutrient ( its mainly D.A.P)

My father has sent me up a box of Feijoas (not paying crazy supermarket prices when there is a 40year old tree pumping the beauties out a couple of hundred km away).

The immediate thought I had was the make a spirit out of them, the Mrs has mentioned a Cider...

Does anyone have a feijoa cider recipe?

Oh and the above thunderbolt recipe where is lists "tailed and sliced Feijoas" are these peeled or not?

Mr Four Square wrote:Ditto top and tailing the Feijoas . There is plenty of skin in the mix and it is strongly flavoured and short on sugars so no harm in leaving those bits behind.

There you go George. Skins on

P3T3rPan wrote:

Mr Four Square wrote:Ditto top and tailing the Feijoas . There is plenty of skin in the mix and it is strongly flavoured and short on sugars so no harm in leaving those bits behind.

There you go George. Skins on

Cheers! Manflu caught up on me and I didn't read that :oops:

Digging this up.

Was just looking through the freezer and came across the 3 large containers of Feijoas that Nicole prepared....She removed the skin. Going to be an issue? Meh, i'll try it out anyway, what have I go to lose.

Wait mate ! :law-policered: I'm guessing it all depends on how you are going to extract the juice from the pulp.

Last year I whizzed mine up skins and all. I won't do that again. There's a lot of tannin? in the skin and it leaves a bite in the drink that's hard to shake.

I'm guessing it is better to leave as much of the skin behind as possible. That'll be why Brandy tastes like brandy and grappa tastes like dirt and twigs.

KK's recipe is a gentler way for getting the flavours out than what I did.