Chestnut Spirit!

[MDH]

Hello everyone,

The plan is to make a chestnut spirit - which if I distill just before Christmas, will be nice and softened in time for next year's holiday season.

The store near me has sweet Italian and Spanish-sourced chestnuts - fresh, high quality - at $1.50/lb.

To produce enough mash to make a spirit, I will need about $13 worth! Not the cheapest mash material.

Chestnuts are roughly half fermentables by weight. They're also reasonably high in nitrogen and produce lots of lovely maillard flavors when roasted.

Fermentation will proceed with a neutral White Labs strain and starch converted using powdered amylase.

Watch this space for updates.

[raketemensch]

Subscribed.

One of the issues I always run into with chestnuts is mold -- like 20-40% of them some years.

How do you plan to mash them?

[MDH]

Roast, machine blend with water vigorously, heat and add enzyme.

[Grappa-Gringo]

I did a hazelnut rum last week...turned out good with a touch of simple syrup...

[MDH]

OK, so I did a few early experiments on chestnuts to get a sense of them.

Firstly, they'd best be mashed with the inner skin ("pellicle") still on the chestnut. It has its own aroma that's quite different from the chestnut, and it's very positive.

Secondly, the chestnut itself is definitely very sulfury and meaty smelling. I mashed a bit of it up after boiling and treated with copper solution before nosing again. Boom, the turkey/eggy smell was gone instantaneously, leaving behind more of a roasted-sweet potato like aroma. Still very good. So the low wines will need time on copper.

Thirdly, you lose the subtle aromas of the skin and chestnut if you roast at a temperature over 300f, but you do gain a new separate set of warm caramelly-aromas.

My mash will be the following (%/W)

75% Unroasted, mashed chestnut with inner-skin
20% Roasted at 300F until golden, no skin
5% Crushed Roasted to dark-gold brown,

For yeast I am switching to Scottish Ale over from California.

I'll try to include some photographs in the future.

[pythonshine]

Sounds like you have a very solid plan and direction, I will be watching for the outcome, good luck and keep on keepin!

[Nanacooks]

MDH hasn’t been around in a few months. I’d love to hear how this old idea came out! I didn’t realize there was so much fermentable in a chestnut.