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Maceration of Citrus

daddad
edited November 2014 in Recipes

mac·er·ate (ms-rt)
v. mac·er·at·ed, mac·er·at·ing, mac·er·ates
v.tr.

  1. To make soft by soaking or steeping in a liquid.
  2. To separate into constituents by soaking.

I saw a post on a non booze forum about macerating citrus and had to try it.

Normally we peel the citrus and scrape the pith from the back, drop large pieces of peel in vodka! Or you use a zester and cut the skin off without hitting the pith. Has worked great. peeling/scraping takes a while, but makes you use the fruit right now.

I've seen the commercial guys spend a day zesting lemons for lemon-cello.

New method...drop a whole orange/lemon/lime into a quart jar. Cover with vodka. let set until oils infuse vodka. After infusion, remove fruit. Use or eat fruit as normal or put it in water to save for later.

This worked perfect on an orange. The maceration took no longer than the other way and the orange wasn't harmed (for lack of a better term). I peeled and ate it. It was fine.

The only drawback to the entire idea is that it takes a larger vessel to accomplish!

image

I was so sure this wouldn't work, I didn't take a picture of the whole orange before I ate it.

Orange.jpg
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DAD... not yours.. ah, hell... I don't know...

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Comments

  • So is it a whole orange chopped up or an unopened one? The pic looks like pieces.

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  • Nice one, I keep my spent peels and place them in a jar of vinegar for cleaning the work benches and kitchen areas etc.

    For my alcoholic macerations I've done the following:

    1. Slice said fruit and half fill your jar.
    2. Cover your fruit with 65% abv neutral spirit
    3. Rest for 2 weeks
    4. Pour off the alcohol
    5. Cover the remaining fruit in a layer of sugar (the sugar will draw out the remaining alcohol solution)
    6. Rest for 1 week
    7. Pour off the sweet alcohol (I add it back to the first collection at step 4)
    8. Repeat steps 5 through 7 one last time.
    9. Filter through a coffee filter or similar to clarify

    At the final alcohol and sugar concentration you'll find this will last years on the shelf (it has for me). And it makes for a damn easy Limencello or sweet apple or orange base for some delicious liqueurs. I like to mix my citrus fruits in the one maceration jar to create a zesty summer treat.

    Cheers,

    Mech.

  • edited November 2014

    IMO you can manage the citrus "bite" more easily by utilizing some techniques for making candied orange (or lemon) slices when adding syrup back for sweetness and added color.

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • daddad
    edited November 2014

    My new method is a whole orange covered with vodka. Unopened...

    The pic above is the old way of scraping the pith from orange peels.

    I need another picture...

    I think it's one of those things that sounds too simple to work...but it does.

    DAD... not yours.. ah, hell... I don't know...

  • Excellent.

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • daddad
    edited January 2015

    I felt I messed up the explanation in the original post by having the wrong pic.

    image

    This is the appropriate pic of eight organic lemons in a quart of 65%. Watered to 40% later it will be a good drink.

    This jar is showing color and flavor in just ten hours.

    Lemons r.jpg
    435 x 800 - 44K

    DAD... not yours.. ah, hell... I don't know...

  • interesting to see what would this liquid, distilled in a small still with no fores or heads cuts, and adding it back to clear neutral would do... better, worse or just different than the original liquid..

  • That's then an infused vodka (or a "Geist")

  • A while back I recall seeing guys were having good success by hanging the citrus in a jar above the spirit. The idea being that the vapour extracted the oils from the skin.

    might be worth a try too.

  • edited January 2015

    I am an idiot that uses a microplane, spending all afternoon taking off only the topmost layer of skin, and none of the pith.

    I wonder if you can use the whole fruit process but instead somehow bruise or puncture the skin ever so slightly. Maybe brush it slightly with a stainless wire brush.

  • edited January 2015

    @CothermanDistilling said: interesting to see what would this liquid, distilled in a small still with no fores orit heads cuts, and adding it back to clear neutral would do... better, worse or just different than the original liquid..

    Did something like this by mistake with a rum when I first started. Put a rum wash through the home made unit and got 4L at 90%. A mate said to put orange skin in it to add a bit of flavour, so I did. A week later I cut it back to 40% with distilled water and it went white. I thought "if some one drinks this I'll kill them", so I put it in the slops bucket. Once it had enough to do a 20L boiler at 30% I ran it through. filtered it and cut it back to 40% let it sit on punkins med toast dominos for 6 weeks. It was realy nice and friends and family smashed it. Have 1L under the workbench to see how it ages out.

  • There appears to be no reason to puncture the peel. If I shake the jug I can see the oils in the liquid. It continues to gain color and flavor, although getting a little sour.

    DAD... not yours.. ah, hell... I don't know...

  • The citrus flavors will come over in distillation. Use a clean neutral, you don't want to have to take a big heads cut on the redistillation, you'll lose a lot. On the tails side you may detect a shift towards bitter, you can cut based on taste.

    This is a fun project for a 2l glass lab still.

  • I've just received Red Currants, Jostaberries and Gooseberries so I'll be putting them on tonight to sit next to the blackberry, strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, apple and citrus macerations. A great time of the year for berries!

  • @crozdog :re: hanging the citrus in a jar above the spirit

    I tried that method using two types of mandarin and a valencia orange. While it certainly imparted flavour; I didn't feel it was worth the effort.

    The "orange" flavour of the citrus got turned into something more like lemon. I came to the conclusion you'd only do it if all you had were oranges or mandarins.

    @grim: re: microplane

    I reckon it's a very good way to go. The Limoncello I picked up in Italy gave the quantity of rind to alcohol = 250g per litre. My minimum these days is 200g per litre of 94% ~ it give excellent results. Next time through I'll step up to 250g per L.

    When it comes to orange-type fruits (tangelos, valencias, etc) I've recently started to freeze the juice after microplaning; saving it to add back into the 94% maceration when the time is done (i.e. not just adding water to bring it down to 40%). I don't recommend that for lemons because it's too tart for my tastes. b-(

  • so maybe a way to introduce a whole citrus fruit into a gin basket for just a minute, then switch it out for a new one.. need to switch without shutting down the still, maybe two baskets with 2 linked three way valves.. need quicker opening and sealing tops....

  • Yeah like an old revolver cylinder click click boom :D

  • edited January 2015

    @grim wire brush in combination with whole fruit might be a nice shortcut for macerations that are then distilled again, cutting any bitterness accidentally obtained through the tails cut (which you could likely rerun later).

    @luckyliqueur are you using dry or fresh citrus @ 200g/L and I assume you are diluting to serve straight and not rerunning?

  • edited January 2015

    I find this to be great, got it from the chemist it's for removing corns from ones feet.

    image

    Corn Cutter15.jpg
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  • thanks for the feedback lucky

  • I tell ya, wash them and drop them in the alcohol. It is working great. I can see the color, the oil and the stuff is extremely tart. I just have to figure out when to pull them out.

    DAD... not yours.. ah, hell... I don't know...

  • Hi @brewsmith, I put 200g of fresh fruit zest (using microplane) into the best neutral I can make. Eventually this is reduced down using either juice or water. The result is a 40% "cordial" which I whack into a tall glass and top-up with soda water.

    I've recently picked-up a vacuum pump . . . . . I want to see if a vacuum can reduce juice volume by boiling without heat. I'm hoping to get a concentrate pure-juice; the flavour of which isn't altered as grossly as happens when heating in a saucepan.

  • @dad said: I tell ya, wash them and drop them in the alcohol. It is working great. I can see the color, the oil and the stuff is extremely tart. I just have to figure out when to pull them out.

    I'm hearin' ya, Dad. :O)

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  • Hows the citrus bite now dad?

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • If you don't have a microplane, a potato peeler works well for removing zest from citrus.

    I'm more like I am now than I was before.

  • So, here's how this turned out! It turned out great.

    Decided to end the maceration Sunday. Seven full days in the alcohol. You can see the oils floating in the jar, strong smell of lemon, clear with a yellow tint. Picked up a pleasing color.

    The alcohol was at 65% so, started with an ounce and an ice cube. was too strong at first and mellowed nicely as ice melted.

    Then I took an ounce out and mixed it with an ounce of water. It is great, almost like a grapefruit vodka. Tart but very refreshing. No bite.

    Took an ounce, half ounce filtered water and a half ounce of simple syrup (1 part sugar inverted in 1 part water). There is no alcohol taste at all, plenty of lemon, but it is too sweet. Lemon panty dropper I suppose.

    Cut the sugar to 1/3 and it is beautiful.

    Now I like grapefruit vodka and tonic and I like gin and tonic. So, I took an ounce of the lemon maceration and added two ounces of tonic. WOW...this may be the best.

    Short story, I'm bottling the lemon maceration as is and we will mix it as we drink it.

    Now, the lemons...Took four of them and froze them in a Ziploc bag. Replaced the booze over other four with water and will see if the are preserved enough to last a while, at least long enough to be used as garnish in other drinks.

    As to the lemon to alcohol ratio. I was worried that the zest of eight lemons would not be enough for a quart/liter. It was at least enough. It is nice that the amount of alcohol it took to cover them was a good ratio of lemon to alcohol.

    DAD... not yours.. ah, hell... I don't know...

  • Great stuff mate. I love a good news story.

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