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Just being curious.

How can you make infused vodka?
How does it stay so clear?
Yeah let say i want to make vodka with raspberry infused, how does it stay clear?

i know you can put some in a bottle and let it stay there for a few days or weeks.
But, how do you do that when you have a few gallon to infuse, and how do you manage to make it so clear.

Do they just add chemicals?

i would like to learn this, One day i would like to infuse my own vodka.
thank you!

if your speaking of commercial Id thank they whould run it threw something similar to a wine filter,these have multiple "plates"
or filters that are stacked. in small amounts let it settle and rack off the clear.this takes some time,as much as a month and you mite have to do this several times depending how clear you want.

I filled a jar with seeded ripe pears and then poured brandy (vodka in your case) to fill. After a certain amount of time, I strained the pears. The distillate tasted just like the pear. The infused distillate was very cloudy so I put it in the freezer. I checked it the other day and the I can seen the cloudiness dropping to the bottom; it's about 1/3 of the way down from the top. Sometimes filtering through a stack of brown coffee filter helps a little or alot. On the other hand, the Italian plum maceration I did never got a bit cloudiness. Go figure. You can play around with the amount of fruit and the amount of time. I've seen recipes that call for very little fruit macerated for a very long time and vise-versa. Just play around. It pretty well always works out if the fundamentals are correct.

Also, there's a good section on the Parent Site. Click on flavoring and scroll down -

http://homedistiller.org/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Excuse the strange sounding post. I'm really tired ...

I decided to run a few liters of neutral through my little stovetop pot still with 300g fresh raspberries in the pot. came out with a strong aroma and flavour of the fruit. It's kinda like the flavoured vodka absolut make. I found adding a small amount sugar (maybe 10g/liter) really brought out the true fruit flavour without sweetening the spirit too much.

I make raspberry liqueur as I live in the raspberry capital of the world. I put it in a tight mesh bag and then submerge in vodka for 3 months. I then put it in the refrigerator for 48 hours and rack off what I can to get it as clear as possible. From here I have run it several times through paper towels and then through a coffee filter this gets clear but is a long a laborious process, that is why I made my vacuum funnel to pump it through faster and not clog the filters as quickly.
I put together some pictures and a YouTube video of the process;
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... =2&t=25090

I think a commercial made infused spirit would be made with either a flavor extract. Or a imitation flavor extract. That would be the only way they could produce a consistent product that is clear. Although after reading posts and researching there are commercially available activated carbons that will remove color leaving behind flavors? My local homebrew stores both sell extracts that are colorless. And I have been reading up on some laws. In Missouri you can not use fruit in beer. It has to be an extract. And I have a feeling there are laws that cover that for distilled spirits. I haven't dug into it that far yet. I'm still working on it. So I may be wrong on that. And I find it odd they can still call it a vodka after it has been infused. It no longer fits the criteria for a vodka?

just did a bit of research,,if its "infused" vodka then they used the real fruit.
if its "flavored"vodka then most likely artificial flavored.

cool, thanks everybody for great posts.

i have very hard time to believe that big companies use real fruit. I'm sure they use some kind of chemical to make sure they vodka stay very clear.
Today i saw Stoli vodka with Chocolate and raspberry. I had to see the color of the vodka, and it was clear as water.

Now, how do you keep it so clear using chocolate? hmmmmmm

I think this is a very interesting subject. I do believe Stoli use chemicals that taste like chocolate, or what do you think?

Little incite here.
I was lucky enough to talk with a Cruzan Rep last weekend while in St. Thomas. They DO use REAL fruit, but I really couldn't get her to tell me how they extract the flavor and leave the color.
I would think that distilling the fresh fruit could work, but damn, that'd make your cuts rough to make!

RumBrewer wrote:Little incite here.
I was lucky enough to talk with a Cruzan Rep last weekend while in St. Thomas. They DO use REAL fruit, but I really couldn't get her to tell me how they extract the flavor and leave the color.
I would think that distilling the fresh fruit could work, but damn, that'd make your cuts rough to make!

Actually if you use very good neutral as a base then cuts are probably going to be no problem! Iv only done gin and raspberry using this method. for gin I take a few mls of oily "heads" then collect everything till abv of output drops to about 15%.
For the raspberry I just collected everything till about 15% again. The only reason I stopped here is because output had slowed to a slow drip even at full flame!

alex-76 wrote:cool, thanks everybody for great posts.

i have very hard time to believe that big companies use real fruit. I'm sure they use some kind of chemical to make sure they vodka stay very clear.
Today i saw Stoli vodka with Chocolate and raspberry. I had to see the color of the vodka, and it was clear as water.

Now, how do you keep it so clear using chocolate?

You've got me thinking about putting cocoa powder in my stovetop still now... Might have to try this!

Coca powder in your stove top? Guess nobody will be looking there ... as long as they don't suspect you to have an illigal distillation practice going on ...

Odin.

I'm confused.

I always assumed infused clean/clear spirits were made the same ways Gin is made. Vodka steeped in whole/cut/macerated fruits, herbs, and such then run through a pot still to produce a clean/clear liqueur that has retained the infused flavors and also has consistent shelf life. No amount of straining will remove organic material unless maybe carbon filtering. I imagine you could also use a Gin basket and produce various other infusions using the same final gin run with the gin basket.

I'd be shocked if anything infused you can buy off the shelf doesn't do a final run. In fact here is a microdistiller's (Hangar One) take on their infused vodkas:
http://www.craftdistillers.com/trade/mo ... owMade.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Odin wrote:Coca powder in your stove top? Guess nobody will be looking there ... as long as they don't suspect you to have an illigal distillation practice going on ...

Odin.

I think you got the wrong Coca powder odin. (maybe the right shit, i just wouldn't hide it on my stove)

Here is a recipe for a great after-dinner liqueure.
Start with 300 ml of 190 proof neutral spirit.
Add 300 ml of distilled water.
Dump in the contents of one of those little plastic cups of diced pears in light sirup.
Age in the fridge for a week or two.
Enjoy after dinner in a shot glass or such.
As good as the $50 Poire Williamine.

I started making infusions just by macerating fresh fruit in neutral spirits. I'm just naturally curious, so I started to think about what would work well and what wouldn't. What about flash frozen fruit? Doesn't that bust the cell wall of the fruit? I tried that instead and picked peaches and black cherries for no particular reason. I filled a quart Mason jar about a third with frozen peach slices and then another third with black cherries. Topped it off with neutral spirits and waited. And waited. And waited. It took months for the infusion to really take hold.

Still, what was the harm? All it did was sit on a shelf and take up space, so I could do new infusions once every week or two and enjoy the ones from months ago. One thing I noticed is any fruit that has seeds on the outside, such as strawberries, wound up tasting like wood. If I was going to do another strawberry infusion I would probably take a potato peeler and skin the fruit before I put it in the jar. Blueberries had the same problem, the woody part at the bottom. Apples have the same woody part at the bottom, but flash frozen apple slices don't have that part as they're cored and skinned. Fresh apples need to be cored and skinned to get that taste out.

I found that spices can be amazingly overpowering even in small amounts, so my solution was to make spice infusions one spice at a time, each in its own one-pint glass jar. I used an eyedropper to properly spice anything I made. Since spices can be more or less potent depending on the batch, I used one batch until it was gone and then made another.

Then I discovered the vacuum pump. This is probably the fourth time I've posted about it here, and for whatever reason people don't seem to believe me or they don't have a vacuum pump to check for themselves. The first thing I made with a vacuum pump was a vanilla vodka made with fresh Tahitian vanilla beans from a reputable online retailer. I put four beans, sliced lengthwise and with the tips trimmed, in a quart of neutral and pumped 28 pounds of vacuum on it. Bubbles formed along the beans and began rising to the top of the jar immediately. I could see the beans disintegrating right before my eyes, and the quart of neutral (now this is years later so forgive me if my memory is foggy or you get different results) was a dark yellowish brown within a day or two. More brown than yellow. It was also absolutely delicious and tasted like vanilla in a way that no commercially bought vanilla vodka came anywhere close. I can't drink that stuff from the store anymore, it just makes my back ripple with disgust compared to the real thing.

I don't care if my infusions look like the fruit or have floaters or anything like that. The taste is so amazingly good I stopped drinking whiskey entirely for years. Fruit infusions are delicious! You don't have to cultivate a nose for cherry notes, it's like being slammed in the head with a crate of ripe cherries.

I found that macerated juniper schnapps is SO much better than gin. It comes out a yellowish green and becomes completely opaque over ice, just like ouzo. I think it might be the oils, but what the hell do I know?

I don't care if my infusions look like the fruit or have floaters or anything like that. The taste is so amazingly good I stopped drinking whiskey entirely for years. Fruit infusions are delicious! You don't have to cultivate a nose for cherry notes, it's like being slammed in the head with a crate of ripe cherries.

That is hilarious! Need to get that vacuum pump...big fan of infusions and can't wait to rock some vanilla and maybe try a mango!!!

I wonder if anybody has tried to infuse vodka.
If they could provide a great recipe and steps how to make it.

i would like to make vodka with infused raspberries, lemon, or maybe some other fruits.

Please share if you have a good recipe.

Alex

I think this web sight would be of great help to you. http://WWW.guntheranderson.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow. Lot to read but a lot of good info. here.

I make my infusion at a very high proof and use the infused product to flavor the finished product. This way you have a great amount of control over the amount of flavor you add.

Gin-In a pint jar macerate all the usual gin herbs for a week or two. Age this for a while and add by the spoon full to best vodka already cut to drinking strength.

Keep in mind that some fruits have most of the flavor in the peel and with others the peel and or pith will ruin it. With grapefruit vodka you have to get the rind in and keep the pith out!

DAD300 wrote:I make my infusion at a very high proof and use the infused product to flavor the finished product. This way you have a great amount of control over the amount of flavor you add.

Gin-In a pint jar macerate all the usual gin herbs for a week or two. Age this for a while and add by the spoon full to best vodka already cut to drinking strength.

Keep in mind that some fruits have most of the flavor in the peel and with others the peel and or pith will ruin it. With grapefruit vodka you have to get the rind in and keep the pith out!

Thank you great advice. My question is, how do you make it look clear? Do you filter it through a coffee filter?

Thanks!

Alex

A fellow hobbiest makes a gin extract by macerating her favorite mixture of fruits and spices for about a day or two in clean high proof ethanol. Then she strains out the spent herbs etc and distills the highly flavored ethanol. This makes a very clean and clear gin extract that she can add to her vodka to whatever proportions she wants. No cloudiness. Works really well. I'm fixing to try something similar.

blind drunk wrote:A fellow hobbiest makes a gin extract by macerating her favorite mixture of fruits and spices for about a day or two in clean high proof ethanol. Then she strains out the spent herbs etc and distills the highly flavored ethanol. This makes a very clean and clear gin extract that she can add to her vodka to whatever proportions she wants. No cloudiness. Works really well. I'm fixing to try something similar.

Yeah, i thought about that.
I guess the trick is to make several test until you come with the right taste. I'm sure it taste different when the mix of spices and fruits are soaking in the ethanol, than after it is distilled.

Interesting.

See the parent site for some interesting recipees on gin!

Regards,
Odin.

I guess the trick is to make several test until you come with the right taste. I'm sure it taste different when the mix of spices and fruits are soaking in the ethanol, than after it is distilled.

Relatively small tincture volume so it would be easy to experiment till something good comes around. In any case, fun times. Good luck with your quest.

Yes, I filter the maceration, for debris through coffee filter. It looks brown, like coffee. And it lasts for ever.

When used it does tint the final product a very light yellow. I also drop in a tiny bit of lemon peel in the finished bottle. I see the tint as a benefit. I can tell gin from vodka, even when I'm macerated...