Garden veggies

[StartingOver]

I'm new here, and I have a question.
I'm looking forward to my veggie garden. I always do, but especially this spring, as winter has been a cast-iron bee-yatch this year. Anyway, I'll be growing some nuke-hot hot peppers , along with tomatoes, sweet peppers, beans, onions and some greens. What I'm thinking of doing with some of the veggies is taking an assortment of them and making a mash of them, and fermenting them into a drink. It would include my HOT hot peppers, so it would likely be pretty darn spicy. I've been reading the recipe on homedistiller.org that uses a bushel of fruit and 20 lbs. of sugar to make a mash of 13 gallons, to eventually ferment down to 3 gallons of liquor.

My question: How can I adjust that recipe--it shows using frozen peaches, and says you can use any sweet fruit--to make the drink using garden veggies? Of course, the sugar content would be less than with fruit. How would I adjust the amount of sugar I would use?

Also, how do I adjust the recipe for use with the gear I have? I don't have 13 gallon tubs or buckets. I have two 6-gallon brew pails, but I would only want to make a 5.5 gallon mash. Of course I could do the math and alter the recipe, but I'm wondering if there is anything else I would need to do.

Thanks!

[Bigbob]

Check thru a couple of pages here. I know there was a post about kale.

[S-Cackalacky]

Tomatoes are suppose to make a fine drop. Maybe add some of them hot peppers. I'm not sure how much sugar tomatoes have, but you should be good with about 1.5 lbs of sugar per gallon of liquid. Look around in the "Tried and True Recipes" section and the other recipe sections for something that you can adapt your ingredients to. If you use something that's naturally high in sugar, don't use any added sugar at all. It'll be a lower gravity wash, but it'll make a considerably better drop with no refined sugar.

[Paulinka]

Luckily (knocking on wood) it seems we entered spring this year without any tragic weather, which means lots of fruits in my garden. Blossoms are not popped out just yet, and I hope the weather will stay dry so bees and bumble bees can work undisturbed.

Regarding veggies I have a plan. Still my tomato-plants are little, they are under artificial light to grow strong enough for outside's day/night temperature differences. Because our area is infected with tomato-plague (kind of a mold) in every autumn I plant my seeds very early so they can be planted out at the first week of April. We do not use any chemical (organic garden), and I yet to find something against this moldy rot. Anyway, better sooner my tomato-plants will have to grow huge and bear lots and lots of fruits, nice tasty tomatoes.

Which I do NOT include in my tomato-infused vodka I have the plan for.

What I will macerate in neutral spirit instead are only the funiculus (the jelly around the pips) and a few fresh sepals (calyx)*. The jelly holds not just the perfect tomato-taste essence, but epic amounts of umami too. Press it lightly through a fine sieve, into the spirit. Sepals are the star-like leafs on the top of the fruit. If they are fresh and you rub them you will know why it should be included in the vodka designed for a perfect Bloody Mary.
No need to redistill, but you can add a little salt to your tomato-vodka.

(*Yes, I know that green parts of the tomato plants are poisonous. No, it will not make any harm in that flavouring amount.)

[Truckinbutch]

Sent you a PM on the blight issue . I , personally , would rely on maceration for flavor transmission of the peppers as well as the tomatoes .