Mayhaw berries

Information about fruit/vegetable type washes.

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Creaux71
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Mayhaw berries

Post by Creaux71 »

Good moning my fellow shiners... i am a 3rd generation shiner, i have always done things the so-to-say ole school, Or traditional way, over the last few years i have ventured out and started using propane over wood and some stainless pots over copper. Kinda started modernizing i geuss. I have been using an all grain wash for years. I am wanting to try fruit.. i am almost 50 years old and have decided to give in a lilttle bit as they say and try something new. So hear is my QUESTIONS...do i use the friut with corn in my mash or just ferment the berries like i am making wine... #2. How much sugar would i use to say 50 lbs of berries? Would i still just bring it up to say 12% before i add the yeast, or would i use less sugar due to the natural sugars of the berry... any advice would be welcome, i have in recent days gained access to hundreds of pounds of mayhaws and can get this amount weekly if i can figure this out, i usually make wine with them and only use about 15 lbs for the wine and another 15 lbs or so for jelly..thank you for your help in advance..
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Copperhead road
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Re: Mayhaw berries

Post by Copperhead road »

Personally I would not ferment corn with fruit. I do quite a lot of big fruit ferments (around 200L of pulp) and if you have access to bulk fruit for free I think it’s probably better not to add sugar. Sometimes I add a pitch of sugar to bump up the yield, it all depends if your chasing a traditional brandy or a fruit based sugerhead.

Also remember with fruit ferments to use a good champagne wine yeast NOT bakers yeast.

If it was me I would be grabbing a 44G olive drum, fill with mayhaws then add just enough water to cover them....

What type of still are you planning to run your brandy with ?
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Fraser
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Re: Mayhaw berries

Post by Fraser »

+1 to using champagne yeast on fruit ferments. EC-1118 is very very forgiving to temperate and takes off great.

I'm in the NE USA and I've never heard of Mayhaw berries. I looked them up and they say they're hawthorn berries common in the south. I've never used berries like this for a fruit ferment, but I've made a lot of wine so I would treat it similar to that.

What I would do is take a bunch and get a brix reading off them to see what the sugar content is for alcohol potential. If you have a refractometer that's what I use for that. For a fruit wine I like mine to ferment out to at least 10%, preferably 11-12%. So you're going to need a brix reading of at least 20-25 to get there. So crush the berries as best you can and if you have to add water and sugar to get to that brix reading, go for it.

Wine ferments I like my pH pretty low at around 3.4-3.6.

Good luck!
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Copperhead road
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Re: Mayhaw berries

Post by Copperhead road »

Fraser we don’t have Mayhaws here in Australia, least I have never seen them. I just looked them up also, originally I thought they were similar size to a plum but after looking at them I agree you could probably get away with not adding any water at all. I fermenter grapes the same way, “just crush them all and pitch yeast and hit them hard with a mixing drill”

Good luck with your ventures Creaux71, will be following with interest to see how things go. :ebiggrin:
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Re: Mayhaw berries

Post by Bushman »

I also had to look it up as we don't have them in the PNW. Looks like most of the tart taste is in the skin so might be fun to try two different fermentation one with just the juice and the other crushing all of it in your fermenter. Keep us posted on the outcome.
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distiller_dresden
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Re: Mayhaw berries

Post by distiller_dresden »

I'll agree with what's been said before, try using a champagne or cider yeast. Options would be:
Lalvin Champagne Yeast (EC-1118)
Red Star Premier Blanc Yeast
Wyeast 4021 Pasteur Champagne Yeast
White Labs Champagne Liquid Yeast

Any of these would do; you can buy them at a good brewing store, or online. The last two are 'live' yeasts and will come in a pouch, should be refrigerated until a few hours before use. Also, each example is sold in an amount that is good for about 5-6 gallons of mash. You'll want to plan ahead and either culture more with distilled water, a large sterile container (like, a gallon glass jug), and some dry malt extract (or apple juice possibly) -- this would be the more difficult, but cheaper, option - see here some options for culturing one pack of any of the 4 up to what you need for say a 55 gallon barrel/drum: viewtopic.php?f=39&t=70478

Your second option is easier, maybe pricier (unless you choose the EC-1118 or Redstar, which are cheaper, live yeasts are the ones which tend to be pricier, about $5-7 USD a pouch), where you'll just buy, for instance if using a 55 gallon to mash-in say filling it almost to the top and then topping off the water I'd buy maybe 10 packs just to be safe. Also, no matter which option you choose, DON'T just sprinkle your dry yeast on top. A lot of people do this, but you're investing a lot in the project, and it doesn't take any extra effort really AT ALL to just follow instructions on the packet of dry yeast to rehydrate and bloom them before pitching. Typically this is just about (for 1 packet) 2oz of water at 105F, sprinkle the yeast in, let sit 20 minutes, then after you wait swirl the container around well to get all the yeast/foam, and dump/pitch into your mash.

Sugar; don't use sugar, you'll take away from the flavor of all those wonderful berries! Your ABV yield might be lower, but by gum don't you want the best possible flavor you can get out of your mayhaw brandy? Then don't use sugar, just let the berries and their sugars speak for themselves. Also, I don't know how acidic those might be, if they are too tart you might want to invest in a PH meter, you can get a cheap electric one on Amazon for about $15 and it's worth it to make sure your starting PH is at least 5-5.5 so you don't have a PH crash mid-ferment and the whole mash stalls. Stalled ferments suck.

In addition something I've been doing with my brandies which you may or may not try, instead of water I like to use juice to punch the sugar up in my mash. Go with only 100% juice options, then you won't be adding any sugar/corn syrup/HFCS, and you're still 'adding sugar' to up your ABV/yield as you'd like. Something I have found on Amazon, which isn't cheap, but maybe you can find a different source, is an AWESOME sugar punch for brandies and works great is pear juice concentrate. Stuff I've been using is $20 for 32oz, very pricy, but it's also thick as molasses, high quality, and since I only have a 5 gallon pot still my mashes aren't big and one or two bottles goes a very very long way in a brandy ferment. Also try for sugar punch - any frozen juice concentrates, they also don't have added sugar. So there are 3 options for 'adding sugar' to up your ABV/yield that aren't sugar and won't give you off/bad flavors and will only enhance the final product and are great alternatives to a sugar dump: juice, frozen concentrate, or liquid concentrates.

Another thing I'd suggest is to pick up some 'pectic enzyme', since you're working with so much fruit/berries. It is what it sounds like, an enzyme that you add before you pitch yeast. I usually add it last thing before I aerate my fruit/brandy washes. This mixes it up in there really well. The bottle/container will usually say 'add an hour before fermentation begins' so after you aerate and then pitch, this gives the pectic enzymes several hours to work at the pectins in your wash before the yeast reproduce and really start going to town on all your natural fruit sugars. It's always worked perfectly for me.

Lastly I use a stick blender, but for your use as you have so much you could either do 'batches' using a stick blender, fill a large 20L stock pot with mayhaw then top off with juice/water (whichever liquid you choose) and stick blend the hell out of it until there's nothing but specks/shreds left, then dump into your large barrel/ferment vessel. Continue until it's full. Or get one of those long paint mixer attachments for a drill and do this in the barrel after you have everything in there. Personally I'd go the batches route, as I think a stick blender would be more complete and efficient at getting everything, even if less efficient with time. After all, you're trying to get every last drop of flavor, sugar, and goodness from your fruit, not hurry things along. Since you said you just are now switching to some more modern methods I'm betting you lean more my way, and are not a 'hurry' distiller, get every last drop of awesome out of your ingredients! Hope any of this helps...

Oh, ditch the corn, if you have all these mayhaw you have a great opportunity to make a crap load of awesome brandy and let the fruit speak for itself, corn is only going to get in the way.

Once you've got your brandy distilled, it's the same as anything else. You'll want to oak/wood age it at 120 proof on the wood of your choice. This is typically done on 'used' prior wood, so if you save your wood or if you use barrels, that's perfect for your brandy. Brandy is delicate and you don't want to risk covering up the delicate ghost of your fruit flavors that will come out and be enhanced by the woods you'll age it on. The woods will have used some of their initial tannin 'punch' when they are 'new' so they will be milder and ready for some brandy to age off a little longer. In France a famous apple brandy the world over is aged in a very specific way, several different varieties of it. They vary, but the gist is a few weeks to months in a new oak barrel and then transferred for the rest of it's aging into used barrels for years. These are not rules, of COURSE, but how I approach my brandy currently because I'd rather be cautious given that I don't have access to free fruit and my brandies are expensive for me, so I want to be sure I get them right. You can experiment a bit more since it sounds like you have carte blanche getting boat loads of free mayhaws; I envy you all that free fruit.

You could also keep it white, and use some well-washed mayhaws in the white, just put a handful into a jar/bottle (test this and see what a good balance is) once you proof it down to 80. Then that's how you'll keep it/serve it. The fruit will then add it's flavor essence to the white spirit, conversely after wood aging it you can do this as well, making a truly fine aged mayhaw brandy like nobody has ever seen. One of a kind; truly hipster brandy at it's finest, hirsute, hand-crafted! One of the most expensive versions of that French apple brandy is about $120 a bottle with an apple grown in the bottle, then they fill it with the 3 year old aged brandy.

I got carried away with advice, but this is all I've learned about brandy in the 5 months I've been distilling, thought I'd share with you...Good luck!
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