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I just had a discussion with a mate of mine who is interested in setting up a micro distillery in Cartagena de las Indias in Colombia and we were talking about making Coffee Liqor. Does anyone have any guidance on recipe or technique on how to make a nice clean coffee liquer ??
Thanks
Comments
This works well on a home scale. It would make a good base you could play around with and simplify.
Kahlua @ AD
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Punkin mate, your a bloody rippa.
I have been making the recipe linked to above for 7+ years now with homegrown coffee. It is difficult to keep in stock because my friends like it so much, and you have to plan three months ahead. Definitely improves with a month or three of aging. The glycerin is for mouthfeel. Watery without it.
Kahlua (commercial brand) sucks in side-by-side taste tests.
A snap (just now) of my first coffee blossoms coming on:
I'm more like I am now than I was before.
I have been whipping this up for a few years now, and as kapea stated, my friends are blowing up the phone when they hear that I am making a batch. It is a great recipe. I think it was Pumpkin that suggested cutting back on the white sugar and I totally agree
Thanks guys. Its funny in Colombia they drink huge amounts of coffee and their coffee is amazing but there are no really good Coffee liquers. My mate is thinking about trying to make one. I will be Hawaiian coffee would be really fantastic.
Go and look to one of @CothermanDistilling recipes for Coffee. Highly recommended ... page 3 of Gin thread.
CothermanDistilling
19 April 2016 12:47AM Flag
so you put a screen in the bottom of the top container and add 'stuff'... all sorts of 'stuff'
I added 100g of fresh roasted, coarse ground coffee and boiled 1000ml of 100 proof neutral through it to get 600ml, topped off to 1000ml with water and I have 100g/litre liquid that is addictive as crack cocaine..
Oh, and the backset was better coffee than most diners
Thanks mate, I will check that out. My mate has vanilla from his finca in panama and the coffee and panela from Colombia is great. The truth is he just wants and excuse to live in Cartagena for the smoking hot women. I want an excuse to visit him. Thanks for the hint on the backset sounds amazing. I suggest to my mate he should experiment with some native spices for variations. Could be some tropical fruit flavours that could be interesting. But I love the plain vanilla coffee thing. I will make certain he buys SD gear.
It was phenomenal... but one issue with that was after 6 months in the bottle, it tasted oxidized... granted, it is nearly impossible to have it last 6 months, but as a commercial venture, I have to account for that... I want to try a bit of orris root as a fixative...
-mike
Thanks @cothermandistilling. My mate is just investigating it right now. I was thinking of doing some various on the straight vanilla for the fixative and use some different tropical spices from Colombia.
Interesting I never knew vanilla was a fixative
We did some tests with the "ICE drip Coffee" methode, or so called Dutch Coffee. Totally hot in de hipster community. We were very suprised by the out come. Beautiful stable product, very nice and new coffee flavours due to the cold extraction process.
me neither!
Fixatives and Their Function in Natural Perfumery @ the Eden Blog
Antioxidants prevent food waste @ faia
Vitamin C is an excellent, natural, cheap, and common antioxidant. It would need to be added post-distillation, apparently it's actually refined by distilling and removing the crystals from the retentate.
As a soapmaker I understand and use fixatives for fragrances.
None of that stuff looks like anything I would want to drink in my coffee liqueur.
(although I have made custom coffee scented soaps on commission)
I'm more like I am now than I was before.
My proven recipe for liquor (has some awards/sold in Whole Foods and plenty of local establishments)
12g of whole roasted coffee beans/litre of 90proof. Steep until you're happy with the flavor (the color will show up much more quickly). I found the coffee flavor is much more water soluble, hence the bottle-proof steeping vs anything higher (all color, no taste). Minimal filtering due to remaining whole-bean. No other processes needed, this stuff basically makes and sells itself.
As mentioned, you will need to add extra bits for mouthfeel/sweetness for a true liqueur.
16g/L in 110 proof came out well until we diluted to 60 proof for bottle strength. Doubling to 32g/L was the right strength for us after proofing down, which was basically 16g/L at the end. Worked out pretty well IMO. Looking at my notes, I wonder why I didn't do a 16g/L at 60 proof test to compare.
For filtering, we just rack off the grounds and put a 5 micron filter in line with the bottler.
Have you not had any stability issues with what is basically sweetened cold brew?
No oil issues or clouding?
I just did a run of 20l of coffee liquer, I was a bit heavy on the coffee, 3kg and alcohol 3l neutral and 600ml of Run, with vanilla. But it is still spectacular. No clouding. Nice and dark. I ran it through a .5 micron filter cloth and came out as very nice and clear no solids. Thanks Kapea.
my coffee experiments have all had a short shelf life where aroma is concerned... smell oxidized... any hints? soak some orris root or something with them?
How well were they kept oxygen free? Comparable or worse than a closed partial bottle on a shelf?
I am referring to a closed partial bottle on a shelf. Every week it got a bit worse...
Refrigeration? Fresh ground coffee? Higher drinking proof?
The stuff I make benefits from aging. I found a half empty bottle from last Christmas. Served it with desert this Thanksgiving. Still tastes great. Drank my chilled, up. Tasted no oxidation.
To avoid oxidation in other stored beverages, I put a CO2 cap on the container by purging the headspace in the container with CO2 from my kegging system.
I'm more like I am now than I was before.
You did that with your partial from Christmas? I need to start doing that myself...
No. The half empty bottle used at Thanksgiving was a 1.75L bottle stored in a refrigerator set at 38F. No CO2 blanket on it. Just returned to the refrigerator after last year's Christmas Day celebration (and forgot about).
I'm more like I am now than I was before.
It is a "shed refrigeragor" used to store treasures I find on my travels, or ones gifted to me, that need to be stored under refrigeration. The coffee liqueur was returned to the refrigerator by the Christmas cleanup crew, and got hidden behind other bottles. Otherwise it most certainly would not have survived till Thanksgiving. I have a hard time meeting the coffee liqueur demand around here. It is a very popular drink with my friends.
I'm more like I am now than I was before.
Thinking i'd like a bottle of this on my shelf now and then, but can't find my notes.
Does anyone have a copy of the original recipe that my link refers to please?
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All good, found it in the Luna thread.
StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand
Went digging because this sounded good: Luna's kahlua
Coffee Liquor is a gateway drug. Careful not to toss yourself into the camp fire again. Or roll yourself end over end down the side of a steep hill on your scooter.
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Mid range at 20%, but the campfire was only apple pie too.
StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand