Many like to post about a first successful ferment (or first all grain mash), or first still built/bought or first good run of the still. Tell us about all of these great times here.
Pics are VERY welcome, we drool over pretty copper
About a year ago I made and canned a large batch of strawberry jam and tucked it away into the food pantry. About a month ago I ran across the case of jars and was disappointed to find that instead of the bright red color that it had when I put it away I was now storing a large amount of pale reddish brown jam Still smelled like strawberries and a tiny dab on my finger didn't taste off but the color was pretty bad looking.
Rather than toss the whole batch I figured what the hell and emptied all the cans in a large pot, added some fresh spring water, boiled for a bout 30 minutes and then added sugar to bring the SG up to the point I was happy with. Cooled and dropped in my 6g carboy with a healthy heaping of yeast and tucked away in the closet to work its magic.
Two weeks later the SG was down to .990 so after siphoning and straining off I had just over 4g of wash. Did a slow spirit run and ended up with a really nice clear strawberry brandy that has a nice bite to start and after a second or two has a really subtle strawberry finish.
Now I just have to decide whether to age this in some kind of wood to give it some nice color or just keep it clear. If anyone has aged a batch like this and has recommendations please send them along.
Teh721, I did some strawberry last year and sat it in the back of my cabinet, well I was disappointed at first and thought of adding it to another run as some feints. After 5-6 months I tasted it and man how it changed for the better, after 1 gallon all I have now is a pint.
It would've been alot better if I had not added the sugar but it still is very good but still has a little sugar bite. Not too bad though!
I kept mine white because I didn't want to take away from the berry flavor, I did take a decent amount of late heads because that's where alot of the fruit flavor comes in at and soon as I smelled tails I stopped collection og the drinking part and ran untill 25% for the feints jug.
What was your recipe?
Yeast used?
Amount of sugar?
Type of still used?
All of the above questions will help to further answer your question.
As I stated, sugar will add a bite that imo will not go away BUT it will mellow with some time, just from my experience from using it with strawberry.
When I posted I was told not to use sugar, it takes away from the fruit flavor and found that to be true as well.
The yeast will play a big part, a wine or champagne yeast would be better and some will say a wild yeast is best. I personally was scared to try that because of my limited knowledge at the time but now I will try that with my apples this year just because I will have an abundance of them and 5 trees to pick through.
Your still will play a part as well, I did mine in a pot still with thumper, knowing what I know now I would've used the thumper dry and packed with the same berries to help carry over the flavor more so to the final product.
Many here do strip then spirit runs, imo that's a personal preference, I myself find it hard to do. (Time wise) the more you run a product the more flavors you'll lose, also my experience.
Hope to hear your experience and share with us your process.
So unfortunately I really didnt follow any set recipe since there was a high likelihood of this being a one time thing, But I can say that I had 12 half pint jars of jam, enough spring water to bring up to 5g, and after reaching a boil I added sugar (didnt measure the amount) until my refractometer showed a SG of 1.095 (roughly 12% potential)
I know and feel bad that I didnt document this mash recipe the way I do my normal corn/barley/rye runs, but again I figured I would probably never run it the same way with old jelly so I basically just relied on past experience and processes that I've learned from all the other great posts on here about brandy types. I pretty much figured that there was going to be some bite to it because of the sugar but I'm ok with it since its not what I would consider harsh by any means in the final product. I just wasn't going to be able to find multiple lbs of strawberries in the middle of December
I used my regular bread yeast that I buy in bulk at the store and use for my grain runs, and I can't remember for sure but I seem to remember that I had a leftover packet of champagne yeast in the back of the fridge that I think I tossed in towards the end to reach that dry finish.
My stripping run was done on my all copper pot still, no thumper or anything else. I took an extra cautious foreshots cut deeper into the heads just because I fermented on the fruit skins and the possibility of creating the potential for a bit more than I'm used to with grains.
I wouldn't be opposed to doing another run since this one came out pretty positively but that will also depend on the feedback I get over the next couple weeks of taste testers I think down the road I wouldn't mind planting a decent batch of strawberry plants and collecting enough of a harvest to do an all fruit run instead of having to add sugar. lots of possibilities down the road...
If it were me, I'd sit in the back of the cabinet and forget about it. Mine took seems like forever to get the actual strawberry flavor to be good, It had a slight taste at first but with some months behind it... Damn good!
In my experience bread yeast was not a good choice for anything fruit, but stubborn me had to findout the hard way. Lesson learned
teh721 wrote:I wouldn't be opposed to doing another run since this one came out pretty positively but that will also depend on the feedback I get over the next couple weeks of taste testers I think down the road I wouldn't mind planting a decent batch of strawberry plants and collecting enough of a harvest to do an all fruit run instead of having to add sugar. lots of possibilities down the road...
TEH721
Not sure how much sugar there is in strawberries, not a lot I believe - I think you got it right (ish) first time - too much flavour and you'll end up double distilling to get rid of some of the taste, when you could have used the same amount to do several single runs imho.
Shine0n wrote:
...........The yeast will play a big part, a wine or champagne yeast would be better and some will say a wild yeast is best. I personally was scared to try that because of my limited knowledge at the time but now I will try that with my apples this year just because I will have an abundance of them and 5 trees to pick through. ...
Shine0n
Are you saying you'll just try to use wild yeast for your apples ? - Brave man.
Shine0n wrote:
...........Your still will play a part as well, I did mine in a pot still with thumper, knowing what I know now I would've used the thumper dry and packed with the same berries to help carry over the flavor more so to the final product.
Many here do strip then spirit runs, imo that's a personal preference, I myself find it hard to do. (Time wise) the more you run a product the more flavors you'll lose, also my experience.
Hope to hear your experience and share with us your process.
Shine0n
Use the thumper like a giant Gin basket you think ? That may get a lot more flavour out than running a fruit wash - Hmmm ! - Interesting thought. You'lll get some liquid left in the thumper I expect - Wonder whether that would be low proof and it would start acting like a "Proper" thumper ? Something you'd need to do to find out I suppose.
Been a while since I revisited this batch, been letting them sit a while to age.
About a month ago, on a whim I decided to add 2 oz of cherry smoking chips to a 250ml jar just to see what the result would be. I was really pleased after 30 days of sitting to see what a beautiful amber color it had taken on and decided to invite my guinea pigs over for a tasting. The feedback was so positive that I decided to put 6 more jars worth on cherry.
Still smelled like strawberries and a tiny dab on my finger didn't taste off but the color was pretty bad looking.
