what to do with peaches

[beefbandit]

hey all,
I have just been given around 30kg of whole peaches. i am wondering what to do with them. I have never really been a fan of brandy as such. but i do want to make something that has the flavor come through in it. i could just distill it till tasteless but i see no point in wasting good flavor. What would you guys do with them?


cheers MK

[Halfbaked]

The best advice would be to give them to me. My favorite drop. My second advice is read the link that rockchucker posted above in its entirety. Do not make them a neutral untill you taste it. It would break my heart.

[MDH]

If you have a neutral already you can crush the peaches, infuse them into the vodka then run it again to get peach vodka.

[beefbandit]

Thanks rockchucker that sounds good will read through it tonight an make a plan of attack. I have never actually tasted peach brandy before, just the cheap store brought brandy (no idea what fruit they use for that). So ill definatly go down that path.

Don't worry halfbaked i didn't want to waste the flavor and now i don't have to.

cheers for the help guys

[beefbandit]

So i have read through the topic rockchucker forwarded me to. An also taters fruit berry recipe post. Now i am thinking back about the younger years and had a wave, what about schnapps??

would this be done by following a simple recipe like the ones i have read, getting as much flavor through the still as i can, then adding some kind of glucose or something similar?

Or would this be done by flavoring afterwards (aging in fruit) as well as adding sugars?

[NZChris]

Got a tree over the road dropping peaches like crazy. Freezing flesh only while I do my homework. Still have some MT fermenters, but no idea how much I have to deal with till the last fruit drops. I'm thinking about converting my preheater into a thumper and putting the pulpy mush in that to do a one pass schnapps.

[beefbandit]

pre heater? would that be a waste of fermentable sugars? also would it take the sugars/flavors out of the thumper?

[NZChris]

All of the sugar would be fermented out. My current plan is to put the liquid in the pot and the pulpy, damned near impossible to press, crap into the thumper that I haven't built yet. The thumper/preheater is the same size as the pot. That plan might change after I see what I get from the ferment.

[beefbandit]

I see i do.that sounds like it should work.

i dont know much about thumpers. I have read on here somewhere that anything above half your still volume should be alright. id also add some pulp and feints or wash, instead of just straight pulp and water into your thumper.

keep me posted with your results

[Brendan]

If it were me, I'd be making a schnapps...like a brandy but not aged on oak.

You'll get about 7% sugar by weight from your peaches. Mush and ferment them, distill the product to get your white schnapps. I would then soak some peach in there for a week or so for a mix between traditional schnapps and sweetened schnapps, and the soaking will provide a bit more flavour. Once removing the peach, I would filter it for solids, and then store it away for a few months to smooth/mellow out...but that's what I'd do...what are YOU going to do?

[beefbandit]

That sounds like what im wanting to do thanks brendan. mushing peaches today. will see what its like out of the still then go from there, the schnapps idea soaking peaches in it sounds good.

[beefbandit]

UPDATE, am stilling at the moment smells an tastes good, its on the first stripping run now. another question though, it tastes good as it is (in the hearts atm) should I go for a second run or would that take to much flavour out? running a 50l keg with 1m heigh 50mmdia column in pot still mode.