by davecuds » Thu Jun 05, 2014 8:18 pm
Cheers Mac.
Andy, i lost the book that i was taking notes in but it was pretty simple. One of my neighbours had some over ripe fresh mangoes sitting in a Tupperware container. You know when they are a bit mushy to eat but still super sweet. I put it all in ( from memory about 100g) syrup and all into about 600ml of 90% neutral. It has been sitting there for about one month. Next i strained it all, first through a sieve and then through a series of coffee filters that i ripped open and pasted then on the inside of the sieve (about 3 to cover the sieve). It was quite slow going and didn't filter it completely but it cleared it up a lot. I then brought down the % with a sugar water solution. I used 1 cup of sugar (250ml) in about 1.4L of water aiming to bring down the ABV to about 25% and taking away some of the sharpness of the alcohol and sweeten it up. This can be done to taste. I don't like overly sweet things, much preferring a bit of tartness/bitterness. Also the mangoes in syrup provide a lot of sweetness.
I dissolved the sugar by heating up the water, not to boil otherwise i think it will start to caramelise and effect the colour. I wanted a nice crispy colour, not a murky one. When the sugar was fully dissolved, i let it cool a bit then added the alcohol and stirred it in thoroughly. I bottled it while still warm with a very flawed theory, im sure, that while it cools it will hopefully produce some kinda of vacuum effect and hopefully preserve the drink a little longer as i think it will probably have a shelf life. Maybe not...im sure someone can provide some good information on this
Hope this was helpful. I have only done a few so a lot of this is guess work and experiment but i aim to get it right because i have access to a lot of fruit that i would love to make use of...otherwise it goes to waste...such a shame :teasing-blah:
I have just started an apple schnapps as well. I was in Dwellingup over the weekend. For those outside of WA this is the heart land for apple growing among other fruit. Lots of berries, quince...all sorts of stuff. Anyway i purchased 15kg of freshly picked pink lady apples. Absolutely delicious!! We are really getting ripped off when buying supermarket fruit, its just not the same. end of rant.
I roughly chopped and blended about 13kg with a bit of water to make a juice of about 24L. I added a further 32L of water. Im not sure on the sugar content of apples. I checked the SG and it read 1.020 but im not sure how accurate it will be with all the floaty bits and what not. I've sealed up the fermenter and i will let it settle over night and test the juice again in the morning. If the SG is still low i will have to add some sugar but it would be nice not to. I though 13kg of apples would provide more sugar than that.
I will be nice to pitch some wine yeast or something but all i have is bakers yeast so that will have to do.