Star Fruit / 5 corner
Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2018 1:25 pmSo have made this wash (or similar) a few time and found it to be quite a nice schnapps as a clear spirit and or a nice brandy when aged for 12 months (probably good also aged younger than 12 months but haven't tried younger than 12 to be able to comment) on 5g/l french oak.
For a 60 wash:
20L bucket frozen fruit (i generally freeze until i am ready for it but also helps as freezing breaks the cell structure and flavour and sugar release)
10kg white sugar (some may consider this too much others as enough, each entitled to their own preference and for me is how much i add to my fruit washes unless the fruit in use has a notable sugar content)
1× multi vitamin tablet crushed
1x teaspoon epsom salts
1/2 teaspoon citric acid
1 teaspoon DAP
1x 8g SN9 wine yiest satchet (have used ec 1118 which is also good and to be honest have used bakers yiest also and not found to produce any undesirable qualities. Have just found wine yiest to be a bit slower ferment, to be more tollerant of low temp ferments which can be more beneficial for flaviour retention/preservation for fruit washes)
So started with fruit fresh from the freezer which i covered with 10.8l boiling water to help defrost (Note if u planned ahead and let defrost in its own time the boiling water would not be required).
I then hit with a stick blender to roughly puree the fruit. Once pureed i added to fermentor (fruit puree with 10.8l boiling water made a 20l combined total, even though started with 20l bucket of frozen whole fruit) dissolved the sugar with the citric acid. Once dissolved the sugar mix was also added to the fermentor.
DAP and epsom salts and crushed multi vitamin tablet then added and fermentor filled to 60L vol.
Wash then mixed with paint stirer and yiest pitched (prolly arround the mid 20deg C mark, fermentor i used today didn't have a thermometer strip on it to confirm). NOTE: i dont bother checking starting or end sg so cant advise where it was at start for those who may be interested.
Based on past experience i expect the wash to fermenter out over the next 4 weeks (i live in the mountains west of Cairns and still cold at night so even for spring i expect a slower ferment and general find fruit wahes with wine yiest to be slower in any case).
Once ferment stops it will sit for a while (due to running 9x 60L washes) until im ready to run it which also helps let it settle and clear. When ready will run on a 4 plate 4inch perf plate bubbler.
Usually i strain the fruit out through a cheese cloth and squeeze any fluid from the puree pulp but thinking i will add the fruit pulp to the boiler for this one. Have been concerned in the past RE burning the pulp onto the heater elements (i run on a 3.6kw element via controller and an additional 2.4kw for heat up only) but keep thinking about a comment from macstill in the plum wash thread where he ran a soup consistency wash through a bolier with internal eletric elements and reported not having burn on of fruit residue to the elements. If anyone has tried this before and had poor results i would be interested to hear your experience.
Will trial and see and post an update once done. (Note this will likely be a number of months away).
For the distill i usually run fores and heads slow and discard a generous (~500ml) fores cut then crank up the heat or drop the RC flow for a faster hearts tails cuts to carry as much flavour of the fruit. I expect ~5l keep sake and will dilute some to 65%abv for 5g/l aging as brandy and will also drop some clear to 40%abv as schnapps.
Pics to follow.
Happy brewing / distilling
For a 60 wash:
20L bucket frozen fruit (i generally freeze until i am ready for it but also helps as freezing breaks the cell structure and flavour and sugar release)
10kg white sugar (some may consider this too much others as enough, each entitled to their own preference and for me is how much i add to my fruit washes unless the fruit in use has a notable sugar content)
1× multi vitamin tablet crushed
1x teaspoon epsom salts
1/2 teaspoon citric acid
1 teaspoon DAP
1x 8g SN9 wine yiest satchet (have used ec 1118 which is also good and to be honest have used bakers yiest also and not found to produce any undesirable qualities. Have just found wine yiest to be a bit slower ferment, to be more tollerant of low temp ferments which can be more beneficial for flaviour retention/preservation for fruit washes)
So started with fruit fresh from the freezer which i covered with 10.8l boiling water to help defrost (Note if u planned ahead and let defrost in its own time the boiling water would not be required).
I then hit with a stick blender to roughly puree the fruit. Once pureed i added to fermentor (fruit puree with 10.8l boiling water made a 20l combined total, even though started with 20l bucket of frozen whole fruit) dissolved the sugar with the citric acid. Once dissolved the sugar mix was also added to the fermentor.
DAP and epsom salts and crushed multi vitamin tablet then added and fermentor filled to 60L vol.
Wash then mixed with paint stirer and yiest pitched (prolly arround the mid 20deg C mark, fermentor i used today didn't have a thermometer strip on it to confirm). NOTE: i dont bother checking starting or end sg so cant advise where it was at start for those who may be interested.
Based on past experience i expect the wash to fermenter out over the next 4 weeks (i live in the mountains west of Cairns and still cold at night so even for spring i expect a slower ferment and general find fruit wahes with wine yiest to be slower in any case).
Once ferment stops it will sit for a while (due to running 9x 60L washes) until im ready to run it which also helps let it settle and clear. When ready will run on a 4 plate 4inch perf plate bubbler.
Usually i strain the fruit out through a cheese cloth and squeeze any fluid from the puree pulp but thinking i will add the fruit pulp to the boiler for this one. Have been concerned in the past RE burning the pulp onto the heater elements (i run on a 3.6kw element via controller and an additional 2.4kw for heat up only) but keep thinking about a comment from macstill in the plum wash thread where he ran a soup consistency wash through a bolier with internal eletric elements and reported not having burn on of fruit residue to the elements. If anyone has tried this before and had poor results i would be interested to hear your experience.
Will trial and see and post an update once done. (Note this will likely be a number of months away).
For the distill i usually run fores and heads slow and discard a generous (~500ml) fores cut then crank up the heat or drop the RC flow for a faster hearts tails cuts to carry as much flavour of the fruit. I expect ~5l keep sake and will dilute some to 65%abv for 5g/l aging as brandy and will also drop some clear to 40%abv as schnapps.
Pics to follow.
Happy brewing / distilling