Macerating question

[Notsob17]

I have only macerated once and it was with Strawberry panty dropper. Maybe i did not strain the likker good enough afterwards but i remember there being a cloudy look to it afterwards. I have a good amount of muscadines saved up in the freezer. I am torn between a muscadine brandy and a neutral macerated with muscadines. My question is after you macerate can you age like you would if it was on wood, to let it mellow? Just was not sure if anybody else had problems with storage. Thanks

[OtisT]

I've done a handful of macerations with fruit and berries. My Strawberry is clear after filtering through paper filters twice. That said, over time it will darken and get a fine sediment if you don't drink it soon enough. I have read that some use citric acid to preserve the color over time. My guess is you just need to run it through a filter once or twice more times to get it clear. Just a guess.

Aging macerations on oak?
Of course you can do it. What will it do? Who knows. If it's something you won't drink as is they it won't hurt to try, and may end up with something special. . As a test, you could split your liquid in two and try one with and one w/o the oak to see what's it does. With the lower abv, it will take much much longer to have an effect on your product.

I've got one jar of macerated green apple I labeled "Nasty Apple", because it smelled absolutely nasty. It picked up the nasty smell a few days into maceration and has not gone away fully. I've aired it for days and it only got slightly better. Since it did improve a little with air, I dropped in a light toast oak stick in the jar and marked it to be checked in a year. Only 6 months to go before I check it again. We will see if time and oak fixes all.

Good luck.

[Chip N Dale]

I have had great results with dehydrated apples.