Home Distiller

Being too lazy to look it up I've ended up with another concentrated spirit -soaked the peel of three navel oranges in a pint of 90%. Distilled off 3/4 of it before the flavour started tasting iffy.
Had to dilute the distillate 5:1 with neutral spirit before I got something that could be taken to 50% with syrup without turning into a white haze. Tastes good over ice though.

Ah well, having a few bottles of concentrate makes knocking new batches much simpler - just keep a stock of neutral around and I can mix as and when.

When my agaves reach full size ( currently about 5cm across ) I'll be self sufficient in Margaritas

Watershed.

Fruit skins tend to haze up on me too when macerated in higher proof. I think part of that is the fact they may have wax on them if commercially grown.

Also, the syrup will add a haze if the syrup warmer than the distilate is when added.

I always scrub them first - or buy unwaxed. I'm wondering about distilling off my limoncello - nothing wrong with it other than I used a golden sugar and it's come out looking like stale piss.

My limoncello turned out bright lemon yellow, but when left for a week or two in the cabinets it seperates and the heavily sugared portion settles out to the bottom and starts forming a clear band at the bottom of the gallon jug. Looks fine after I shake it back up again.

That haze is most likely essential oils perspirating out of the liquor. Those oils tend to be alcohol soluble, so when you extract them in a high-proof liquor, you get a great deal of the oil. Diluting the spirit makes the alcohol less capable of holding the oils dissolved in it, so they perspirate out as a white haze. Same basic principle that applies to ouzo and absinthe. Though hazy, the alcohol should be plenty drinkable.

my lemon-lime gets kinda hazy too. But I don't really care......cause it sure does taste good.


~pot

Watershed wrote:
Ah well, having a few bottles of concentrate makes knocking new batches much simpler - just keep a stock of neutral around and I can mix as and when.

When my agaves reach full size ( currently about 5cm across ) I'll be self sufficient in Margaritas

Watershed.

You can grow agaves in the UK? I thought blue agave only grew in the mountains of Mexico and maybe at higher elevations in the southern states....you peaked my interest now watershed. Where did you get the plants to start with? From what I've read they can get to be a couple hundred lbs...so I guess your's won't be ready for a while yet?

I know what causes the haze - I've distilled pure essential oils before. I'm suprised that three oranges were sufficient though.

As for the agave - they grow fine - if very slowly, I raised a couple from seed. They're even frost hardy. Another twenty years should do it.

Yeah, even in Mexico agaves take something like 10 years to mature! Well at least they are a cool plant to have around

the only time that i have ever orange flavored a spirt. i used 90% and stuck a piece of dental floss though the orange and suspendend it abouve the spirit so that the evaporating fumes would adhere to the skin and pull the oil out that way. but i havent waterer it down yet i think it will dillute the orange flavor.

I've acquired a spare steamer basket that fits my still nicely, I'll have to have a play with using it to hold flavouring agents.

I've just done a run using 3 sliced limes in a litre of neutral, it came out very pleasant indeed when knocked back to 40% with sugar syrup.

I usually soak lemon or orange peel in diluted neutral (40%) to eliminate the haze of overabundant essential oils. Even a short soak (around 1 hour) imparts a pleasant flavor to the booze.

I started to make a citrus flavored spirit, but got stopped by the fact that virtually all the citrus I could find had been sprayed with a parrafin or wax coating. To make it prettier I guess... How do you get around that?

Generous amounts of warm water and a dishwashing sponge should suffice. If not a solution of sodium carbonate in the water should make short game of the paraffin coating.

There is a product just for washing fruits and vegetables called Vim? I think.

Why steep peel and run the risk of extracting the bitter pith, waxes, etc, when you could simply distill an alcoholic solution of the peel? Tip: coriander seed goes well in combination (see orange/coriander beer spicing).

Removing the wax takes all of a couple of seconds with a bit of water and a pan scrubber.

To make an alcoholic solution from the peel you have to steep in in alcohol anyhow and a certain amount of bitterness is desirable in the final product.
Depending on my mood I've either been taking off the peel with a fine knife leaving most of the pith behind or dicing the whole fruit, removing the few pips and chucking the rest into high proof neutral.

Incidentaly, Vim over here is a rather old fashioned scouring powder - I wouldn't let it near anything, particularly food.

You can get special products for cleaning veg? Carrots round my place are lucky if they get a quick wipe with a damp cloth.

="Watershed". To make an alcoholic solution from the peel you have to steep in in alcohol anyhow and a certain amount of bitterness is desirable in the final product.

If you are chasing bitterness then it may be worth tracking down some dried Curacao peel and using that in place of the Navels. That's what the Belgian beer brewers do. The orange oil aroma, however, will be less.

where smallish quantities of the fruit/nut/zest is used I put it in one of those little stainless steel tea balls that you ordinarily would hang on the lip of your tea cup. sitting that on the top of the packing seems to work well, espcially with juniper.

Spike