Quince Liqueur - Too Sweet

[samwell]

About 8 months ago, I had an attempt at making quince liqueur and it's been aging for since... However, I now find it too sweet and syrupy. Does anyone have any suggestions of how I could remedy this or maybe a suggestion on what I can do with the 1.5-2 gallons of 30% quince liqueur I have sitting around?

I've done a search through the forum and couldn't find an answer. My apologies if I missed it.

Cheers.

[MooseMan]

Once you've overdone the sugar, it's hard to recover, other than making loads (Loads!) more and diluting it back.
When I've made this mistake in the past with sloe gin (Before I started distilling so using shop bought gin) I used it in cocktails with dry and tart mixers to offset the sweetness.

[samwell]

Once you've overdone the sugar, it's hard to recover, other than making loads (Loads!) more and diluting it back.
When I've made this mistake in the past with sloe gin (Before I started distilling so using shop bought gin) I used it in cocktails with dry and tart mixers to offset the sweetness.

Lesson learned. This was also shortly before I really got into distilling as well. Maybe the next time I see some quince for sale in my area, I'll redo it and try to dillute it back.

For now, all the bottles will continue aging on my shelf.

[Demy]

You can dilute with water and add more alcohol to recover the alcohol content....The flavor will be diluted however......

[Dougmatt]

Couple of thoughts. If it’s just too sweet, you can dilute with a little neutral or whatever base spirit you used. If you want to maintain the proof, dilute with the same proof. To figure out what to dilute to, take your SG. I find 1.010 - 1.015 to be perfect for my more tart beverages, but I haven’t done quince. Whatever your SG is now, take three samples and drop 1 by .005, the next by .010 and then one by .015. Taste them. See which you like, then dilute the full batch to that SG. Or if you don’t have a hydrometer, just build measured dilution samples like 6 to 1, 8 to 1, 10 to 1 and pick. (I don’t know HOW sweet it is).

Next time here’s some advice, it’s easier to add more sweet than take it out, and I find they get a little sweeter as they age, so I find the level I want by making up samples like above, then back off just a little when I make up the batch.

from this point on, I’m just shooting in the dark of ideas I might try given I’ve never worked with quince and have no idea how it will come out of the still.

So if it’s also that you don’t like quince flavor at all and just want to try recover alcohol:

How much sugar did you add? If not much, and you don’t have an internal element / aren’t worried about scorch, dilute it down and rerun it stirring while it heats if you want to avoid scorch. Will carry over some flavor, but will be lighter and you can use it as a gin base or add other things to it to round out the liquor. Maybe something like a Panty dropper.

If it’s very high sugar, or you are worried about scorch, you could dilute it down to 3-4% Abv, pitch wine yeast like EC 1118, ferment it out, then run it. After which do the same as above based on how flavor is.

Hope this helps you with some ideas. I’m not sure I would mess too much with it, but 1.5 to 2 gallons is a lot to “waste”.

[samwell]

Couple of thoughts. If it’s just too sweet, you can dilute with a little neutral or whatever base spirit you used. If you want to maintain the proof, dilute with the same proof. To figure out what to dilute to, take your SG. I find 1.010 - 1.015 to be perfect for my more tart beverages, but I haven’t done quince. Whatever your SG is now, take three samples and drop 1 by .005, the next by .010 and then one by .015. Taste them. See which you like, then dilute the full batch to that SG. Or if you don’t have a hydrometer, just build measured dilution samples like 6 to 1, 8 to 1, 10 to 1 and pick. (I don’t know HOW sweet it is).

Next time here’s some advice, it’s easier to add more sweet than take it out, and I find they get a little sweeter as they age, so I find the level I want by making up samples like above, then back off just a little when I make up the batch.

from this point on, I’m just shooting in the dark of ideas I might try given I’ve never worked with quince and have no idea how it will come out of the still.

So if it’s also that you don’t like quince flavor at all and just want to try recover alcohol:

How much sugar did you add? If not much, and you don’t have an internal element / aren’t worried about scorch, dilute it down and rerun it stirring while it heats if you want to avoid scorch. Will carry over some flavor, but will be lighter and you can use it as a gin base or add other things to it to round out the liquor. Maybe something like a Panty dropper.

If it’s very high sugar, or you are worried about scorch, you could dilute it down to 3-4% Abv, pitch wine yeast like EC 1118, ferment it out, then run it. After which do the same as above based on how flavor is.

Hope this helps you with some ideas. I’m not sure I would mess too much with it, but 1.5 to 2 gallons is a lot to “waste”.

I'll have to pull out the hydrometer and check the gravity but I know I used a buttload of sugar, so I think if I dilluted it I'd end up with way more quince liqueur than I'd want HAHAHAH. I did do a test after I made this post and mixed it with equal parts 40% neutral spirit I had and it did clean it up quite well. But If I did that I'd end up with 2 times what I already have


I really like your idea of dilluting it and pitching wine yeast. I think that would be a great idea! Do you think it would be smart to add yeast nutrients as well?

[NZChris]

I've just managed to choke down the last of an over sugared liqueur experiment by swamping it with ice and mixers, so I do have some sympathy for you. That said, mine was a pint sample, not a gallon.

Do you know much weight of sugar is in the liqueur?

I work on grams per liter because it's convenient and easy to calculate, but any method can be used.

[Dougmatt]

I'll have to pull out the hydrometer and check the gravity but I know I used a buttload of sugar, so I think if I dilluted it I'd end up with way more quince liqueur than I'd want HAHAHAH. I did do a test after I made this post and mixed it with equal parts 40% neutral spirit I had and it did clean it up quite well. But If I did that I'd end up with 2 times what I already have


I really like your idea of dilluting it and pitching wine yeast. I think that would be a great idea! Do you think it would be smart to add yeast nutrients as well?

If you go the ferment route, I would use nutrients and some energizer. You will also want your ph to be acidic which it probably is given the quince, but I don’t know your dilution water. If needed a couple squirts of lemon juice would probably do the trick to lower ph and stay true to the tart profile. Basically treat it like a sugar wash.

Small SG changes, are big in perception. ~3oz of sugar in a gallon is I believe about .005 which for me is a pretty big difference. You could try an 8 to 1 dillution just to check it before going to all the rest of the effort.

The other thought that came to mind was to mix it with a little lemon juice at drink time to tone done the sweetness with some acid.



One other thought, if you have an airstill or small still with external heat, dilute down a liter and just run it to see how you like it.

[samwell]

I've just managed to choke down the last of an over sugared liqueur experiment by swamping it with ice and mixers, so I do have some sympathy for you. That said, mine was a pint sample, not a gallon.

Do you know much weight of sugar is in the liqueur?

I work on grams per liter because it's convenient and easy to calculate, but any method can be used.

I did the recipe so long ago and I think I added equal parts sugar to fruit, but I clearly must have over done it. I can’t recall how much sugar I honestly used. I never thought that my regular hydrometer might work to measure the sugar in my liqueur, but I’m gonna try that out tonight when I’m back from work.

Edit. The SG is 1.120. So that’s a fuck ton of sugar. I’m terms of total liqueur, I have 4 ish L (not the 1.5-2 gallons I estimated). I suspect the ABV is about 30%, but with the sugar in there, I can’t accurately say.