Home Distiller

Well today is the day my lovely wide has decided that the 7 quarts of orange marmalade we stowed away in 2006 had to go.......... so go they did..... right in to my fermenter.

The recipe is so far like this......
7 quarts Orange marmalade
13 quarts water
1 tsp pectic enzyme
1 tsp of wine yeast
S.G starting at 1.090
ph 6

I've placed this primary fermenter in a warm place and will see how well it gets going. I'll keep posting how the spirit turns out.

Bring the SG down to 1.070 for a smoother drink.

I'll be really interested to hear how this turns out, with the pectin that all jams have and be very interesting to hear what flavours come over.

I wouldn't ferment jam.
The pectin and the enzyme will form methanol. Per kg jam is in average 12g pectin added. I have heard in average 35% of it will become methanol. So you get 4.2g methanol per kg jam. So your 20qts mash will have 4.2 x 7 : 20 = 1.5% methanol.
But those numbers are not proven, it's what I read somewhere. If someone has better numbers, please post it.

And your recipe has not much fruit per liter mash, because you added so much water. So the taste will be not very intense. There is no reason to add any water to a orange mash.

That certainly aligns with the information on the parent site

http://homedistiller.org/intro/methanol/methanol

For example apples have much pectine. Around 1-1.5%. When you mash them with a little water added, the pectine content of the mash would be around 1%. This results, that apple spirits are high in methanol. At least apple spirits from must, not from juice.

If 12g/kg pectin is a correct number, you have 12 x 7 : 20 = 4.2% plus the pectin of the oranges in your mash. So you will get at least 4.2 times more methanol than with an apple mash.
But because of the high sugar content, you will get twice the amount of ethanol than with apples. This halfs the amount of methanol per ethanol, halfs the amount of methanol in your spirit. So it's perhaps only 2 times than apples. But your spirit will probably break the legal methanol limits.

I personally don't think, that a moderate drinking of this spirit would be harmful. But nevertheless I wouldn't mash jam.

We had some jam start fermenting in the jars when I was a kid and used that to make a version of wine with. It didn't taste brilliant but ended up drinkable.

Having said that, I have used store bought jam deliberately to make a wine out of because I wanted the jars ! I never distilled it though, because that was a different era and it drank ok with a little added tannin and citric acid added to the wort.

I'm not too sure what effect the peclotitic enzyme would have on the pectin content and the potential methanol, but I'm not thinking the eventual concentration would be much higher than say apple brandy ?

At least you survived.

Thanks everyone for the input.
One of the reasons this marmalade was tossed is because it had not "set"......really only looked like a thick syrup.

Originally there was no added pectin but quite a lot of sugar. The suspicion is that it was not cooked enough to reduce it to a level that the natural pectin would work. With having added the pectic enzyme I figure that will break down the pectin that is present. To be safe I'll make an extra deep heads cut.

I thought about adding more water but was wanting to try and keep the fruit contents as high as possible so I settled for a little higher S.G. hopefully there is still reasonable orange flavour.

I think me and other members have written it hundred times: It is not possible to reduce methanol with cutting more heads.

But the natural pectin content of the orange juice would not be dangerous of course.
But is the marmelade made from orange juice, sugar and nothing else? Or is it a more bitter marmelade using the peels of the oranges too? Peels would have 30% pectin.

Thank for your concern Der Wo. Although I'm curious to hear your thoughts on the methanol removal since on the surface it appears to conflict with the parent site write up on removing methanol.

Here's the opening paragraph........."Be ruthless about tossing the first 50 mL (off a 20L wash) that you collect, as this contains any methanol (causer of hangovers - small quantities, or blindness - larger quantities). Even though I'm pretty sure I only collect less than 10mL at the methanol stage, I still discard 50mL, just to make sure. No need for penny-pinching when you're making 3L of the stuff, for less than $5. If you're using a potstill, you may need to increase this amount you toss up to 100-200 mL."

Yes, another not up to date information on the parent site.

Here is a good read:
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 33&t=40606
Although the boiling point of pure methanol is lower than of pure ethanol, in the mix with water, it behaves different.

DAvel,

It is true that the place of methanol in our distillations has been re-thought and it does appear from various research (see previous threads) that the methanol is distributed through the entire run. There seems no doubt that the fores cut gets rid of the "headaches" and a lot of "Gunk" - but methanol is not one of those things, contrary to what we used to think.

Worth reading up on it when you have some time.

Wow........... that whole thread on methanol read like a good novel crossed with a scientific paper and a bit of trash magazine.

Very interesting in how the molecular bond of the methanol & water resists the boiling point separation. It a good thing that, for the most part, one has to seemingly go out of their way to make a mash with a dangerous level of methanol especially for single run through my 2" copper column.

I'm still looking forward to seeing how this failed toast topper turns out....

With the risk of all of the above, what about just making a mash with oranges, peal and all?
The idea of a bitter sweet drink appeals to me. However, i try and avoid risk.
The marula brandy I make is now a concern. Marula is also very high in pectine. In South Africa it is often used to make jelly for toast or beef roast. It holds enough of it's own pectine for that. Even when ripe. I usually add pectolase to break down the pectine to grab more of the marula flavour. Marula is low in sugar. Anything from 5-9 brix.


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Or ferment orange juice and steep some bitter skin afterwards?


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I would take unwaxed oranges, peel the zest without the white with a potato peeler. Freeze the zests. Press the oranges and ferment the juice. When it's dry add the zests either in vapor path or in the boiler.

UPDATE 2018

Well try as I might I'm not able to get this to ferment to dry, it is mighty tasty though,
With the starting SG not being too high I don't think it's an alcohol issue....the plan is to rack it one last time in to some glass containers with some oak chunks and enjoy it in another couple months.

der wo wrote:I would take unwaxed oranges, peel the zest without the white with a potato peeler. Freeze the zests. Press the oranges and ferment the juice. When it's dry add the zests either in vapor path or in the boiler.

Thanks, der wo.

Freezing will be a lot less farting about than drying the peels! Just as good?

Geoff

Didn't test it side by side. But fresh or frozen has normally much more interesting volatile flavors than dried. I have mashed dried fruits. Came out relative neutral after distilling.
If you use the zests of all mashed oranges, the essential oils flavor will be too strong and the distillate will be milky diluted.
Try something like the zests of 2 oranges per liter orange juice mash. I would distill it relative high refluxed, because (as you know of course) the acids won't come over, and citrus fruits flavor without acid tends to be a bit dark musty low abv distilled. But generally my orange brandy with zests is one of my favourite homemades.

So another plan is hatched..... with some 10 L of faints to run, I'm going to make some neutral spirits and fortify some of my "Marmalade wine" and try me some orange brandy.........reinforces the fact that if you keep workin' at something, someday it might turn in to something good...