Liquers

[hoomin_erra]

Am thinking of making liquers this year with the brambles, elderberries, and plums, and a batch of Alcotec 8. But after looking over the net, i am getting a bit confused. Most places say leave for a few months, and then remove fruit. BUT..........


According to my memory, fruit normally absorbes fruit. So doesn't this then reduce the hiccyness of said liquer? Or am i missing something?

[Welsh Girls Allotment]

The attitude of book that I have - Liqueured Fruit by Joy Ross, is that the fruit is the end product to be used in recipes ( which are plentiful in the book) the fruity alcohol is treated as a by product - I approached the task the opposite way - yummy flavoured alcohol and squidgy fruit as the by product

[Thomzo]

If you want to drink the liquid then I think it's best to remove the fruit. If you leave the fruit in the bottle then you have to work out how you pour the liquid off. This gets more difficult, the more you drink. You can always freeze the fruit to eat later. Gorgeous with custard on a cold night or with icecream next summer.

Zoe

[Stonehead]

If you leave the fruit in the bottle then you have to work out how you pour the liquid off. This gets more difficult, the more you drink. You can always freeze the fruit to eat later.

Take a heavy gauge piece of fencing wire and put a U in one end so you have a long shank running down, then a two-inch shank coming up again. Make sure the U is narrow enough to fit into the bottle and long enough that the bottom of the U is about half an inch off the bottom of the bottle with about two inches protruding out the top.

Put the long shank in the chuck of your battery drill, set it to low speed and insert the bent wire into the bottle. Turn the drill on and you have an instant in-bottle blender. Carefully increase the speed, preferably with someone else holding the bottle still.

After a few minutes you end up with a very alcoholic smoothie. Hic! Remember to turn the drill off and remove the wire, before drinking from the bottle. Hic!

Oh, and a steel kebab skewer is even better as the flat section steel can be sharped with a file to give you a blade. Hic! Only problem is when your girflriend objects because said skewer was part of some poncy dinner shet! Hic!!

[ina]

It's a bit like the "Rumtopf" I, as a German, grew up with... (No, no, don't worry - they didn't feed me that when I was little... But I remember we had one sitting there in the kitchen for as long as I can remember. When I got older it was a bit of a problem, as the contents diminished too quickly. )

Anyway: a) A "Rumtopf" (rum pot in English) is a pot - no need to use a bottle, and much, much easier to get the stuff out of! It doesn't even need to be air tight; traditional rumpots are crockpots with a loose-fitting lid. You can occasionally get them in charity shops (I bought one from the Red Cross). But useful are also those large sweetie jars with a screw-on lid. Just keep the jar in a dark cupboard.
b) It consists of fruit, sugar and rum. Now it's up to you which you consider the main end product; the liqueur-like liquid, or the fruit. (I made some here several times; one Christmas I was asked by one friend who'd been given some - do you drink the liquid, too, or do you have to throw it out; by another - can you eat the fruit, too, or do you throw it out??? )
c) And yes, I agree fully with what was said above - it's gorgeous with ice cream... or just whipped cream.... or just double cream... but it seems to go best with something creamy. As part of trifle, for example. And you don't need to freeze the fruit; they keep well enough through the alcohol content - well, as long as they are still covered with liquid, that is. Must admit that we use 54% rum for that in Germany, which is pretty difficult to get hold of here. Lidl's had it once - they thought I'd made a mistake when I bought 6 bottles of it...


Hoomin erra - what is Alcotec 8?

[hoomin_erra]

It's a packet i got with some stuff on ebay. Seems to be a kind of turbo yeast. Add 8Kg, sugar, 25 litres water, and the end result is 25 litres of 21% alchohol.

Supposedly. Will find out when the stuff stops fermenting.

[ina]

Blimming hell - potent stuff just for brewing! But is it really strong enough for liqueur? Especially if you add "natural" flavouring rather than a few drops of a chemical, I wonder...

[9ball]

Hoomin - I've seen that turbo yeast and been tempted to give it a go. Please let me know if it does ferment out that quickly. Has anyone tried Alcotec 24, it's supposed to ferment 6kgs sugar in 25 litres of water in 24 hours resulting in 14%, is it any good?

[hoomin_erra]

9Ball, it didn't do it for me in the time told, but then i'm in scotland, and the chances of a steady 21C temp to ferment is very slim.

It seems to have finished, so i may give it a go this weekend.