Lime Wash

[punkin]

Started experimenting with my lime tree today.
Picked a 9l bucket full of green limes.
I filleted the pulp out of em and put it all in the food processor. With the a few bits of skin ect pulp and juice, it added up to 4 litres ( 1 gallon) of pulp. I put this in the fermenter along with 7.5 kilo (16.5 pound) raw sugar inverted with 1/2 cup lemon juice and 1 kilo of staem rolled barley for nutrients, i handfull of lime leaves or two and a couple double handfulls of skins.

Made up to 40 litres (11 gallons) i addded 4 teaspoons of 1118.

I intend to run this once then add 100% backset back to the fermenter, run that, then a spirit run of the two washes combined.



Tastes beautiful atm, the limes are at their peak taste wise.

[HookLine]

Sounds nice, P. I got a Meyer lemon which is starting to bear heavily, and is on the list of things to try, one day.

Fresh juice from it in sweetened, oak aged vodka is very nice.

[violentblue]

fruit from your backyard is fantastic, not in the right country for limes, but got some bing cherries and apples that'll be put to good use this year.

[punkin]

The scent coming from the airlock in my brew cupboard is fantastic.
The 1118 i used didn't kick (second time, think it's dud) so i threw some of my distillers yeast in, she's bubblin away slowly, but happily.

[wineo]

How did the lime wash turn out?What kind of flavors did you get???

[punkin]

How did the lime wash turn out?What kind of flavors did you get???

Only stripped the first iteration so far mate. Did 100% backset and it'll be ready to strip on the w'end maybe. I'll redo the first drum with a new wash then.

Put an extra 40 litre wash down last Friday, just checked it at 1055 down from a bit over 1080, so it'll be ready to strip next week too.

Getting 8 litres low wines a strip, so might combine the first three and do a spirit run next week, then another after that.


I've never run a vodka run, so can you tell me, even though i wanna keep some lime flavour, do my cuts have to be harsher than a whiskey cut?
I'm thinking ALL the tails have to be cut out? But it don't matter if the last of the heads are in so much??
Does that sound right? Or do i sill need some of the early tails in there (before the real tails start) or some of the early tasty stuff even?


ReallyNeedSomeHelpHerePunkin

[Tater]

Flavor be in the tails.Early tails will probably be your best bet to catch the taste.Id stay away from all the heads for a cleaner fruit taste . But thats just me .

[wineo]

What Tater said.I try to seperate the heads as much as I can on vodka,and do the same on the tails.I try to keep only hearts for drinking.
Since your wash is going to have some flavors,I would think you would want to add some begining tails,and posably a little ending heads but your just going to have to make a judgement call on how those heads and tails taste.

[punkin]

Thanks Tater and Wineo, i'll try keeping only tight hearts on the first spirit run and add the rest back to the next strips.
Then i can play around a bit and have a reference for future spirit runs.
I'll let ya know in the next couplea weeks how it turns out Wineo, if it's as good as the middle of the strips i'll be happy. Real sharp lime twang to it at the moment.

[punkin]

An update on the Lime. Have so far done two washes. I stripped out the first runs of the two washes and combined 100% backset with more sugar for the next runs.

I combined the two initial strips, which added up to 16 litres of low wines tween 70 and 20%, and ran them nice and slow.
I collected in small jars except for the 6 litres of centre hearts and only added back .25 litres before this on the head side (84%) and .5 litres on the tails side that had some transition (68% cut off).

Cut back to 52% this gave me 11 litres.

After only a day we tried it and i gotta say i'm pleased with my first go at pot stilled vodka.
Thank you guys for the tips on the cuts

I don't know yet whether the lime wash is worth the trouble or not, but we've just juiced and frozen a couplea buckets of limes now.

I'm thinking of making a simple sugar wash double distilling with only a 4 shots cut and then adding 10% pure lime juice to the high wines before the third run?

I think it might take some of the work out of the wash and give at least as much flavour.

Any thoughts?

[Tater]

I'm thinking of making a simple sugar wash double distilling with only a 4 shots cut and then adding 10% pure lime juice to the high wines before the third run?

I think it might take some of the work out of the wash and give at least as much flavour.

Any thoughts?

Try and see what ya think.Doing that with other fruits is where I discovered what Id been told all along. And thats theres a dividing line as to where ya making fruit flavored with sugar .Or sugar flavored with fruit.Inverting the sugar will help let fruit taste come over better .As tart as limes are and adding in 3rd run ya should be able to go far as ya want into tails for flavor and if clean of heads should make a tasty drink.

[punkin]

Thanks Tater, i've got a bit of the second fermentation (100% backset/sugar) stuff building up, so i might try it with that.
Strip add a litre of wash and combine with other strips and strip again, then dilute the high wines down to 70% with the pure lime juice and do a spirit run.

Like you say, can only try these things.


Got Peaches defrosting atm to whizz up with your method this morning.



MMMmmmmPeachesAndCornPunkin

[MountedGoat]

I ran into a problem with fermenting with skins of a fig tree where you get the absolute dirty figgy taste. I would watch out for the skins putting a pithy or bitter taste.

Tossing in the zesting layer on the outside would be good for a little while I think, though the bitterness might still come out and the acidity too. Just opinion here as I haven't tried citrus.

You also might want to toss some of the zest into the distillate at the end to give it the essence of lime (what they do over at Hangar One for their Budda's Hand, Kafir Lime and Mandarin Blossom). Leaves too. Will give it a lovely citrusy flavor without the clouding of the juice me thinks.

[punkin]

Thanks mate. I have been tossing a double handfull of skins in, and you can taste a bit of pith in the wash. It's not there in the distillate though. I might try some zezt in before my last run, but i don't want the colour so it has to be before the last distillation.

[punkin]

Just an update of this wash. I've done a second spirit run where i added two litres of Lime juice to twenty litres of low wines.

I made somewhat tight cuts after having some clouding problems from adding early tails to the first batch.
This one had some late heads (at 83%) included and a tail cut at 68%.

It is crystal clear at 40% and has a sharp lime tang. It tastes clean (first batch was very nice, but tasty) and sharp as i expect a vodka to.
Could easily be kept in the freezer and brought out for shots.
Very popular with the lime and soda vodka drinking girls.

Next i'm gunna try doing Wineo's Sugar Wash and adding the Lime juice in at the spirit run stage Just to see howmuch flavour is truly brought over from the wash. If it's comparable, it'll make things much cheaper and easier to reproduce the flavours for those without a citrus tree to access...

[muckanic]

Next i'm gunna try doing Wineo's Sugar Wash and adding the Lime juice in at the spirit run stage Just to see howmuch flavour is truly brought over from the wash. If it's comparable, it'll make things much cheaper and easier to reproduce the flavours for those without a citrus tree to access...

The most economical way to use the limes would probably be to macerate the peel in the low wines from a vodka wash. There is more oil in the peel, and that is really where most of the flavour is, although the pulp is useful for getting the ferment acidity up. If the peel is overdone, it can result in an initially cloudy distillate which usually winds up separating into two clear layers. Similarly when diluting to bottle strength. Dilution in the glass may also result in a louche, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.

[punkin]

Gunna try to simplify this wash a little along the lines of Wineo's sugar wash.

I started today with 2 litres of the lime pulp, added 7kg of dissolved white sugar, 4 tsp of DAP, and 3 three tsps of ec1118.
It took 10 tsp of baking soda to lift the Ph up to around 4 so i guess i'm going to have to find something a little better for the job.

I plan to save 1 or 2 litres of the wash when it's finnished and add it to the stripped low wines. Then add 100% bacset back to the drum with new ingredients for a couplea generations. Take all my saved low wines and add a couplea litres of lime juice from my freezer, and distill with tight cuts.


I think it should prove a winner and will simplify the wash a little.





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