Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Discussions of fruits, veggies and grains other then just mashing

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cranky
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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The other day my wife and I got around to cooking the dwarf Japanese Quince. It took a crap load of sugar to balance out the sourness, at one point it tasted very much like lemon drop candy. There is a ton of pectin in these things too so it made jelly pretty easily. It's not bad jelly but has very very strong flavor. I think it would actually add a very nice flavor to a gin and am considering using them for that if I get around to picking the rest. I think they would also add nicely to a mixed fruit brandy.

In other news, the other day my wife wanted some sugar pumpkins to make pumpkin pie so we headed down to the farm market and they have every pumpkin in the place priced at $1.25 each. Right now I'm sitting here sipping some apple brandy and thinking about heading down there with a hundred dollar bill and filling the back of my truck with jack-o-lantern pumpkins and see what I can do with them :think: Hopefully it won't sound like such a good idea in the morning :lol:
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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I haven't used quince in gin, but it was very nice in my iterations of Mezcal de Pechuga. I'm sure it can be frozen or dried and be as good as fresh for distilling purposes.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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I made pumpkin wine out the back of a pub I was working in, but left before it was ready. A couple of years later, I was told that they served up my pumpkin wine for free and the locals liked it so much that the bar take was bugger all for the night and there were some very drunk punters by closing time.
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cranky
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Well my wife kindly pointed out that I have too much on my plate to mess with a truck load of pumpkins. The house still needs some finishing up, the kitchen needs painted, the siding I started 2 months ago needs the last 6 pieces put up, some doors need changed, the shed needs finished...yada, yada, yada :?

She's right, all that stuff was put on the back burner last winter when the truck bed came back from a so called professional needing a crap load of his work undone and redone plus our son has had to get rides nearly every week to go to doctor appointments so I lost a lot of time on the house and thus lost a lot of potential stilling time.

So I'm trying to stay focused on the important things like working on the house, shed and what not... and trying to figure out how I could keep Mrs Cranky from noticing a truck load of pumpkins :think:

My winter vacation started today which means Mrs Cranky's birthday is only 5 days away and I'm currently making my annual attempt at cleaning the garage. Every year I try to get the garage clean enough that she can park in it on her birthday, I usually fail miserably but this year I bought several shelving units to try to make everything a bit...ok a whole lot more tidy. It's actually going quite well. After several days of work I've actually reached my old booze cabinet, which had been inaccessible for several years now. Most of what was in there were various feints and remnants to be added back to something else. I found a couple plum feint jars that smell amazing, several mystery jars that smell and taste headsy and tailsy, the neutral jar I've used to soak wood before moving it to something else and some old blackberry panty dropper that is pretty good. I also found 6 or 8 boxes of organic cereal destined for a sugar head.

Not sure when I will find the time to start fermenting again but the more I clean the garage the more I want to get stilling. I keep finding more and more stuff just begging to be booze, like what must be 20 lbs of malt and what I think is around 10 lbs of corn, 100 lbs of panella that I still haven't gotten around to and several gallons of various fruit juices. I'm sure once the garage is clean I won't be able to help myself and will have to fill up all my fermenters with something.

In that line of thinking on my way home from work I stopped by the house with the black apples and left a note asking for permission to pick. I doubt they would have a problem with me just helping myself but I like to ask every year just in case. Not sure I will be able to make those apples into brandy or not because Mrs Cranky likes to eat these apple and has mentioned wanting to make a batch of apple butter so they might just go to that.
Last edited by cranky on Wed Nov 18, 2020 10:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Fredistiller
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by Fredistiller »

Honestly Cranky, I like how you tell your Mr-Ms Cranky stories! It looks soooo familiar here. :mrgreen:


Last week I stripped a sugar-fruit backset and added it in the spirit run of my fruit-berries low wines.

Unfortunately I went to far towards the heads and tails....

The previous weeks I was sick with Covid and my nose and tongue are not working as they are used to. I really thought my blend was good but wifey finds it a burning crap. I was planning to drink my stuff white, but I'll put it on oak/cherry wood and hope that time will smooth everything down...
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Your post reminds me I still have a box of plumb wood that I need to char!
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Fredistiller
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Bushman wrote: Wed Nov 18, 2020 10:50 am Your post reminds me I still have a box of plumb wood that I need to char!
Do you toast and char? Or just char your fruit wood? I only used toasted cherry wood until now. I don't know why but I'm afraid that char would take the fruitiness away.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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I do Both.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Bushman wrote: Wed Nov 18, 2020 2:04 pmI do Both.
Thank you.
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cranky
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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The other day I got a call from the people who own the black apple tree. They said they were wondering where I'd been and said "Pick all you want". I love hearing those words :ebiggrin:

So Yesterday I found some time to go over there and pick. I got about 12 buckets of apples
APPLES 2- MPV 2- #14a.jpg
I could probably do another bucket or two if I really worked at it but it was cold, getting late and raining and I figured this will do. The apples that remain are the difficult ones to get to, too high or too many branches in the way.

I also went down and bought a bolt of fabric to make new pressing cloth out of. All my old pillow cases pretty much wore out last year so I didn't really have anything to press it in. Now I do and hopefully can get Mrs. Cranky's share separated out, clean the chopper and press and find time to take care of these in the next few weeks.
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NZChris
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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It sounds like you need to invent an apple picking pole. I have made one for a large soft fruit that has a bag to catch the fruit, but for apples a long sock to the picking bag would be ideal if you can find some suitable material.
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cranky
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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NZChris wrote: Sat Nov 21, 2020 11:27 pm It sounds like you need to invent an apple picking pole. I have made one for a large soft fruit that has a bag to catch the fruit, but for apples a long sock to the picking bag would be ideal if you can find some suitable material.
I have a couple different kinds of picking poles and they work well but are difficult to maneuver without doing damage when the trees haven't been pruned in years.

Here are a couple pictures of one of the trees although they didn't come out well.
APPLES 2- MPV 2- #19A - C.jpg
APPLES 2- MPV 2- #20A - C.jpg
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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It’s easy to get the pickers caught in the branches. We pruned the lower orchard several years ago and really increased the yield. The upper orchard needs it and I am hoping to work on it this year. Cranky I know you get a lot of free fruit from neighbors have you ever offered to help prune?
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Bushman wrote: Sun Nov 22, 2020 6:00 am It’s easy to get the pickers caught in the branches. We pruned the lower orchard several years ago and really increased the yield. The upper orchard needs it and I am hoping to work on it this year. Cranky I know you get a lot of free fruit from neighbors have you ever offered to help prune?
I haven't offered but probably should, of course finding the time to do it at the right time of year can be a real issue.
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cranky
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Spring has sprung and with it I start thinking about fruity goodness.

The plums are blooming. The pears will be any day now. The apples are looking like they will be shortly after the pears with the cherries last. I think this is pretty late for both the plums and pears so I'm hoping they produce very well. I know the banana plum won't be producing all that well because I had to move it last year but it survived in it's planter and is in full bloom now. My hopes for a good fruit year are high even though life is in a little bit of turmoil right now.

Speaking of life...we all know what you do when life gives you lemons... :think:... DON'T MAKE LEMONADE! :esurprised: GET MAD! :x MAKE LIFE TAKE THE LEMONS BACK! :evil: DEMAND TO SEE LIFE'S MANAGER! I DON'T WANT YOUR DAMN LEMONS! WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THESE!?!... MAKE LIFE RUE THE DAY IT THOUGHT IT COULD GIVE YOU LEMONS!!...

Sorry, got a little off track there :roll:

As I was saying we all know whet you do when life gives you lemons but what do you when life gives you a crap load of free minute maid canned apple juice :problem:
JUICE 23 MAR 21 #5A - C.jpg
Ferment it of course and make Scumble :mrgreen:

If you don't know what Scumble is there is an explanation here https://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtop ... =7&t=54938 but there is no set recipe for it so it can be whatever you want... as long as it's made from apples... :problem: well, mostly apples.

I haven't made it in several years now and was thinking about what to do to keep my barrel wet when I empty the brandy out of it and think Scumble is the perfect solution for what to do with a crap load of canned apple juice and how to keep my barrel from drying out.

One funny thing is I don't even know how much apple juice I have :roll: I didn't get a chance to count the cans and some of this nasty stuff got mixed in there
JUICE 23 MAR 21 #7 A- C.jpg
Reading the label on it looks like a newbies poor attempt at a brandy based on a bad youtube recipe
JUICE 23 MAR 21 #4 - C.jpg
only 15% juice and a crap load of high fructose corn syrup with 58 grams of sugar per can :esurprised: but it looks fermentable so I'm going to plan on making neutral out of it.

So now I need to get to work cleaning carboys and opening all these cans.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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I'd have a go at turning the cranberry into a sparkling 'cider' and only distill it if it Her Indoors wasn't impressed with it.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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NZChris wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 8:45 pm I'd have a go at turning the cranberry into a sparkling 'cider' and only distill it if it Her Indoors wasn't impressed with it.
I will see what I think after fermenting but the thing is it's not really cranberry. They try to trick you into thinking it is healthy juice but it has barely any juice in it which is why they call it "Cranberry cocktail". It actually has more sugar than a can of Coke. Coke has 39 grams this stuff has 58, 53 of which is added sugar so I don't really hold much hope in it being very good after fermenting.

The other thing is I don't even know how much I have, there might not be enough to distill but I'm guessing there is.

I also have had some low wines sitting for years waiting for me to get around to making enough to justify a neutral run, not that I need any more vodka, I still have several bottles of it.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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For many years I made a fabulous blackcurrant & apple 'cider' from a similar type of product, but it has been discontinued :( I have found a workaround. :D
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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NZChris wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 9:26 pm For many years I made a fabulous blackcurrant & apple 'cider' from a similar type of product, but it has been discontinued :( I have found a workaround. :D
Thank you Chris. It's nice to know that I may like the results of just fermenting it. If I do I will keep it undistilled. I could have gotten as much of this stuff as the apple but I know what to do with the apple. Maybe some will still be there when I return Saturday. Just before I left I was told there was still two entire untouched pallets of mostly fruit juice somewhere.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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I bottle into screw cap RTD bottles when there is still enough sugar left to gas them up. It was an experiment that turned into a regular job in summers. No need to age it. If age does improve it, I've never had any long enough to find out :D
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by Bushman »

I made hard cider last fall and did not distill and am surprised that even though it is refrigerated when I pull it out I need to carefully open the lid to degas.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Most of my sparkling ciders behave themselves when opened. If I have a batch that doesn't, I disgorge them using methode champenoise.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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I managed to get all the cans unloaded today
JUICE 24 MAR 21 #1A - C.jpg
Totals came to
346 cans of apple juice equaling 31 gallons.
166 cans of "cranberry cocktail" equaling right at 15 gallons. I did have 6 more cans but gave them to my son to try to see if he likes it. If he does I will likely let him have more.

I can work with both those amounts no matter which way I go. Now I need to clean 9 carboys and get it all fermenting. Mrs Cranky said she will open cans and dump them tomorrow while I clean carboys and smoke a Brisket. She is taking it well in spite of the fact that I found out 100 cans of apple juice exceeded the weight limit of the cart she uses to carry groceries into the house and broke a wheel. I assured her I can fix it :problem: I hope I'm right :roll:
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Yesterday I managed to get 6 carboys cleaned, two 6 gallon and four 5 gallon while Mrs Cranky opened and emptied cans into a 5 gallon bucket. I then transferred from the bucket to the carboys with enough head space for foaming and added 1118 yeast. I still have 31 cans of apple juice that haven't been opened to top them up when I'm sure the foaming is under control.

I then set the full carboys in the common bathroom. The common bath is my best chance of keeping them warm-ish for the ferment, although the temperature in our house is seldom more than 62 degrees in the winter. The ferment is not taking off very quickly but they are fermenting and I don't get in a hurry.

I was trying to put the carboys in the bathroom covertly because Mrs Cranky doesn't really like me to ferment there but she noticed me and asked what I was doing. I answered by telling her if she hears strange noises in there in the middle of the night not to worry and explained that I put the carboys in there because the garage is too cold. She laughed rather than getting annoyed by it :D The last time I did this I got woke up in the middle of the night to investigate strange sounds coming from the common bath :roll: I'm surprised by how well she is taking this whole thing.

Today I hope to get 3 more carboys cleaned for the Cranberry cocktail but before I start opening cans I'm going to take NZChris's suggestion and make sure it will ferment by starting a yeast bomb with a couple of cans.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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What do you do when you have 350 cans you want to open and drain fast? If your Mrs Cranky you get a cookie cooling rack, place it on top of a bucket and start popping tops.
JUICE 26 MAR 21 #1A - C.jpg
She went so fast I couldn't keep up.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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I managed to get 2 of the 3 carboys I need cleaned, the 3rd one was very dirty and needs some extra time to soak. Then my son said he would like some more of the cranberry so I'm going to give him a case, maybe two so probably won't be filling the 3rd one anyway.

The experiment to see if the pink stuff is fermentable went like this
PINK STUFF 26 MAR 21 #2A - C.jpg
So I called it a success and Mrs Cranky emptied out 112 cans and I filled the two clean carboys and added half the starter and an additional packet of D47 to each.

Most of the apple carboys are doing well but two are still being slow so I made up a starter of watered down apple juice and a pack of 1118 but that isn't looking good either. I'm thinking some of my 1118 isn't good even though it has more than a year left before going out of date. I've had that happen before, so I might go ahead and do a packet of D47 for those two and see how they look in the morning.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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I used out of date 1118 for my home grown grape brandy last year. I was given some by Salty Staves and it made very fine product. I'm planning on using the same batch of 1118 yeast tomorrow but it will be well out of date by now. If it fires up when I make up a yeast bomb tomorrow I'll be very happy.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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NZChris wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 10:25 pm I used out of date 1118 for my home grown grape brandy last year. I was given some by Salty Staves and it made very fine product. I'm planning on using the same batch of 1118 yeast tomorrow but it will be well out of date by now. If it fires up when I make up a yeast bomb tomorrow I'll be very happy.
I've used expired yeast in the past, including 1118 with no problems but these yeasts are well withing date so I'm not sure what's wrong but there is something wrong with some of them. Last night I added a pack of 1118 to watered down apple juice and it sank to the bottom with little activity. I added a pack of D47 and it took off like crazy, I added that to the two slow apple ferments and this morning they were bubbling just like the rest of them, one had even foamed up so much it filled the airlock and overflowed. I'm a bit surprised at the amount these are foaming, they are foaming a lot more than most pasteurized juice.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by Saltbush Bill »

FWIW Ive got EC1118 here that's way out of date ...it still works fine .....it has always been kept refrigerated and in a fairly air tight container ..I think that makes a difference to long levity.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Today I got another 576 cans of apple juice :mrgreen:
APPLE JUICE 27 MAR 21 #2A - C.jpg
Nobody seems to want it so I took enough that I figure I'll be able to refill my 5 gallon barrel with brandy.

I wanted more of the pink stuff but all that was left was apple juice so that's what I got.

When I got home I found most of my carboys looking like this
APPLE JUICE 27 MAR 21 #4A - C.jpg
which is a bit unusual for store bought juice. I guess Mrs Cranky was right and I should have left more head space.

Now I have a fairly big problem, fermenting space. I will have to look to be certain but I think I only have 44 more gallons of fermenters, if I get them all cleaned and one of those is a 12 gallon carboy which is impossible to move once full so it would have to be on the stand next to the still when I fill it. That isn't really that much of a problem I suppose but I'm not looking forward to cleaning all those carboys. I'm considering going to the big box store and buying buckets to ferment in which would also give me buckets to put apples and juice in when apple season rolls around in a little over 3 months.

I also need to buy more yeast :crazy: maybe I'll give a new yeast or two a try.
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