Home Distiller

A friend gave me 150+ lbs of jackfruit. After countless hours of processing it(takes a good hour to clean ONE with coconut oiled hands and knife), pressure cooking it, fermenting, and doing a boka run compressing foreshots and heads(wide open for hearts) and compressing tails, wound up with something amazing. It's very worth the work. Like nothing you've ever had.
These are a larger variety of jackfruit, some are about 4-year-old child size. Other challenges: There's about an 8 hour window from peak ripeness to rotting moldy mess. Oiled hands and knife are necessary as I can only describe the sap as being like a fresh tube of butyl rubber.
Being the first try, I did add sugar. On the next one I will not add sugar and will document numbers(So f'ing worth the work).
If you've never had it, it tastes kinda like juicy fruit gum.
So this one is called Juicyhooch.

Congratulations. I'm jealous.

I'd love to try it, but I don't have a still when I'm in the islands and don't have Jackfruit in NZ. Looking after one island property, we had soursops, a related fruit, falling off the trees faster than we could eat them, but I didn't manage to think of a way to ferment or concentrate them to capture their essence in a bottle before we had to come home, (I did manage with a couple of easier fruit).

Does cooking make it easier to separate the liquid out of them?

Nice! I'm so glad you came up with something that worked.

First off, I don't know what I'm doing with these(my first time).
Second, Jackfruit just WANTS to ferment and the fermenting aroma itself is intoxicating(figuratively). Hence the nose on this spirit.
Third, I don't know if cooking makes it easier as I have only done two runs. I plan on testing this. I'm suspecting it doesn't.
Based on my first assessment of my limited experience with this fruit, anyone who can make this should try it(that's how we all get better(with feedback!!)), It's an astonishing flavor when cuts are blended...even poorly.
As far as separating liquids, these went to nothing in a brew bag, no problems that people that ferment on grain would find overwhelming.

My cousin's run of the same fruit yielded a strange flavor that we're still trying to figure out. Different methods and device. We'll see.

Aloha and Mahalo

juana_b wrote: ↑Tue Oct 19, 2021 11:35 pm As far as separating liquids, these went to nothing in a brew bag, no problems that people that ferment on grain would find overwhelming.

That's good to know. In my experience, squeezing uncooked Jackfruit and it's kin is very hard work and not very productive.

Since my last trip to the islands I've acquired a steam juicer that might work with some of the more gelatinous fruits, so I'll be thinking about taking that with me next time.

Remember, I pressure cooked it.
Not saying that's right or wrong at this time(looking for feedback please). I suspect there are enough enzymes present to facilitate near-complete conversion at Hawaii temperatures during ferment. Need to find Jackfruit data.
I plan on trying a couple of preparations of fermentations next time.

Since this is my first experience with jackfruit, and since I have a "hint" of how deceptive some things are in this craft, I'm still proceeding cautiously.

If you want to know when they are at their peak sugar level, a Brix refractometer would be handy.

I would double distill them the same as I do for most fruit, taking a tiny foreshot, then stripping until around 24-27% in the collection vessel, then choosing a blend from at least a dozen jars, twenty or so is better, taken from the spirit run.

Another option is to strip a bit higher, but hold some wine back to add to the spirit run.

If you have a thumper, putting the free run wine in the pot and the pulp in the thumper should get a very good result and yeild.

Thanks, Chris
I have been thinking about a refractometer.
And you're spot on, made smaller cuts on my second batch and blending was much easier and yielded an amazing final product.
One could probably collect this stuff at 95% and it would still have ample flavor. But at a glance, holding a gal or so back and adding to the final run seems right.
I've got some feelers out for a 5gal sanke d keg for a thumper. I have yet to run this rig in pot config. Only 3 runs in Boka config so far. Still learning how she drives.
More jackfruit is scheduled to show up, so I'll try to give updates on the next.
Aloha

I was given word that the jackfruit are plumping up nicely.
I'm clearing my calendar now.

The Juicyhooch is on its way again!
After processing 430lbs (16 jackfruits) in the last 2 weeks, approx. 3 hrs a day cleaning and cooking after work and weekends, I AM FRUIT NINJA! They ranged from 17lbs to 40lbs each.
After trying no cooking, I went back to cooking.
Averaging 3 jackfruits per 5 gal ferment with enough water to facilitate pressure cooking and to bring the sg to below 1070ish.
Only pectic enzymes and yeast this time.
If I weren't so exhausted I'd be more excited.

You are very lucky. I'm going green with envy.

I'm debating throwing a bit of this in one of my muck buckets.

Pan roasted curry jackfruit seeds.

I didn't know that was a thing. What do they taste like?

They're like a cross between a potato, a pinto bean, and a macadamia nut. After removing the soft skin, boiling in salted water, removing the hard skin, cutting into manageable sections, and pan-roasting....I think they are delicious. The texture is something between the mac nut and pinto bean, but loamy in mouthfeel much like a cooked potato. I roasted these with a bit of the jar of mixed animal fats I keep in the fridge along with garlic, curry powder, salt, and black pepper.
Edit: If you look at the pic in the first post, the seeds are inside of the yellow fruit pods. The white strands around the fruit pods can also be cooked up as a "meat substitute". So nearly the entire fruit is food, other than the skin and the internal "stalk".

Strippings done, waiting to get time for spirit run. Threw some in one of my muck buckets to see what funk it develops.