How To Do Fruit Mash For Moonshine?

For this recipe you will need: –

• 6lbs of frozen strawberries
• 5 gallons of filtered water
• 5 lbs. of sugar
• Yeast starter

1. Start by pulling your strawberries out of the freezer and allowing them to thaw.
2. Pour one gallon of water into a pot and heat to 90°F.
3. Once the water is 90°F, pour in all of the sugar and stir until fully dissolved.
4. Once the strawberries are thawed mash them into a puree and add the sugar syrup.
5. Pour the mix into a fermenter and add the remaining 4 gallons of filtered water.
6. Make a yeast starter. If you are unsure of how to make a yeast starter, refer to the video below.
7. Once your mash is 70°F, you can add your yeast starter to your mash. Aerate your mash by picking it up and shaking it or passing it between the fermentation bucket and the cooking pot about 10 times.
8. Add an airtight lid and an airlock and let ferment for 7-14 days.
9. After fermentation, strain your mash and distill as normal.

How do you add fruit flavor to moonshine?

How to make strawberry moonshine – Strawberry moonshine is a sweet summer treat with a real kick. Drink it straight or mix it with seltzer for a fizzy afternoon cocktail on the deck. The following is a typical infusion recipe that you can use with many different kinds of fruit:

1 qt. total volume moonshine or Everclear, diluted to 100 proof2 cups or more fresh strawberriesMason jars1-2 tbsp. of sugar, optionalCheesecloth or other fine strainer

1. Wash the fruit well, remove leaves and stems, and slice thin to maximize surface area to be exposed to the moonshine.2. Divide the fruit among the mason jars so that they’re 1/3 to 1/2 full of fruit. Fill to the top with moonshine or Everclear, and close tightly.

1. If you’ve got a sweet tooth, feel free to add a tablespoon or two of sugar to the mix.3.
2. Store in a dark place for a month.
3. Give the jars a good shake every couple of days to help the infusion process.4.
4. When the infusion flavor is to your taste, strain the moonshine through cheesecloth to remove the fruit.

Store the fruit-infused moonshine in a fresh new jar. Serve over ice for a refreshing strawberry moonshine cocktail with a kick.

What do you use to mash fruit?

Skip to content Wood Muddlers Wood muddlers are a bartender’s tool. They are used like a pestle to mash—or muddle—fruits, herbs, and/or spices in the bottom of a glass to release their flavor. Many muddlers are made from wood because wood will not react with ingredients. Wood muddlers require careful maintenance, and they may even, on occasion, need to be oiled.

Muddlers can be produced in an assortment of sizes and shapes which can be used in various glasses and to blend a variety of drinks. Classic muddlers are produced with a slightly flared bulbous end and the very end of the rod is flattened. This allows the drink maker to crush ingredients against the side of the glass.

The flared end can be used like a pestle to grind ingredients in a glass. When using a muddler for making drinks, the drink maker crushes ingredients like limes, lemons, and mint against the glass before pouring ice in. The crushing with the muddler encourages these ingredients to release their volatile aromatic oils, where the flavor is concentrated.

• When ice, mixers, and alcohol are added, these oils blend with the ingredients, creating a very intense, rich flavor.
• A muddler can also be used to stir a drink, blending the ingredients together for an even flavor.
• Muddlers are commonly used to make drinks like mojitos and lemon drops.
• In both cases, the drink will taste more complex if a muddler is used to release the flavor compounds in the mint and lemon respectively.

Drink makers can also use muddlers as juicing instruments to extract juice from wedges of lemon, lime, and other fruits.

How to add fruit to mash?

Over the years, many beer styles have developed a reputation among homebrewers as being hard to brew. Many homebrewers worry that adding fruit will contaminate their beer with microorganisms from the fruit, leading to off-flavors. This has a basis in fact.

1. Careless use of fruit can contaminate batches.
2. I once made a cherry beer that developed a horrible, tongue-coating, phenolic flavor that was so bad I was afraid to even open the fridge door.
3. However, armed with a little knowledge, you can easily make a fruit beer — full of fruit flavors and aromas — without any worries of contamination.

In the last issue of BYO, I discussed the flavors in fruits and how they interact with beer flavors. In this article, I’ll explain how to go from the idea of a fruit beer in your head to a glass of fruit beer in your hand. Choosing Fruit Fruit comes in many forms.

Some brewers prefer fresh fruit because none of its taste or aroma have been lost or altered during processing. In addition, many regions have varieties of fruits that are not available in any other form. In general, the best fruit beers are made from fresh fruits. However, there are several disadvantages to using fresh fruit.

Most fruits are seasonal, so the brewer will be limited to making his beer only when the fruit is in season. The brewer may have to do a lot of processing (washing, pitting, etc.) depending on the kind of fresh fruit he chooses. And, of course, all fresh fruit harbors wild yeasts and bacteria.

On properly washed fruit, the level of microbes is not high enough to hurt you. However, when submerged in wort, these microorganisms can potentially multiply and add off-tastes and aroma to your beer. Some brewers prefer the convenience of using fruit concentrates, purées or juices. These fruit products are not seasonal and they save you time because you can simply open the can or jar and use the fruit as you would use any liquid sugar source (such as liquid malt extract, honey or molasses).

In addition, these products are packaged sterile. If contamination is your biggest concern when considering a fruit beer, using sterile fruit products is an option to consider. Brewers should avoid fruit products that contain anything other than 100% fruit.

Some fruit products contain added sugar. This sugar won’t harm your beer — it’ll just boost the alcohol content slightly — but you’ll need to add more of it to get enough flavor. Some fruit products contain added acids, such as citric acid. In the concentrations they are present at, these probably won’t adversely affect your beer, but may add a slight “tang.” More problematically, some fruit products contain preservatives, which may interfere with your brewer’s yeast.

Don’t use jams or jellies. These contain pectins (either naturally or added), which can cause haze in your beer. You can also use frozen fruit in a fruit beer. Buying frozen fruit — or freezing your own fruit when it’s at its peak — allows you to brew your fruit beer when the fruit is not in season.

• Amount of Fruit The amount of fruit to add to a beer depends on many variables — the type of fruit, the amount of fruit flavor desired, the beer style and many others — and so there is no simple answer to this question.
• As a first approximation, add one half of a pound of fruit per gallon of beer for strongly flavored fruits such as raspberries.

So, for a five-gallon batch of raspberry wheat, you would add 2.5 pounds of raspberries. For lighter-flavored fruits, such as cherries or peaches, you may need to add up to two pounds of fruit per gallon of beer. Your peach ale would thus need 10 pounds of fruit.

1. Processed fruit is usually more concentrated, so you need to add less of it.
2. Sometimes, the label will give some indication of how concentrated the fruit is.
3. If not, add a small amount of processed fruit to a finished beer and estimate an appropriate rate of addition.
4. One simple way to get the right balance is to brew a test batch.

Once the test batch is ready, taste it and determine if there is too little or too much fruit flavor. Adjust the amount of fruit (and perhaps other ingredients) and brew the beer again. Make note not only of how much fruit you added and the taste of the beer, but also how flavorful the fruit itself was before you added it to your beer.

1. Another way to get the right balance is to blend your beer.
2. To do this, brew two batches of your base beer and add fruit to one but not to the other.
3. To the “fruity” batch, add about one and a half times the amount of fruit you expect you’ll need.
4. Either keg both beers or bottle a few bottles from each batch and leave the remainder in your secondary fermenter.

Blend the two beers in a glass until you find the balance you’re looking for in the finished beer, then blend the rest of the beer according to that ratio. In the Mash For all-grain brewers, fresh fruits can be added to the mash. To do this, cut the fruit into pieces and stir the fruit into the grains while mashing in.

• The sugars and fruit flavors will dissolve into the mash and be drained along with the wort.
• A benefit of adding fresh fruits to the mash is that the wort will subsequently be boiled and any yeasts or bacteria on the fruit will be killed.
• Simply finish brewing as usual after the mash.
• The drawbacks of adding fruits to the mash are that the extracted sugar and flavoring from the fruit will be boiled and then subjected to primary fermentation.

Most of the fruit aromas will be lost in the process. In addition, the fruit flavor may seem “cooked” rather than fresh. So, although adding fruit to the mash is safe and convenient, it is not the way to go for most fruit beers. Pumpkin ales are the only fruit beers typically made by adding this fruit — which is commonly referred to as a vegetable — to the mash.

The pumpkin flavor desired in the beer is that of cooked pumpkin, and much of the flavor in a pumpkin ale comes from pumpkin pie spices. If you are using pasteurized fruit concentrates, purées or juices, these are already sterile so the mash is not the best place to add them. In Hot Wort Fruits can be steeped in hot wort before, during or after the boil.

For fresh fruit, whole fruit or pieces of fruit are placed in a nylon bag. Submerge the fruit bag in the hot wort and tie the string of the nylon bag to the handle of your kettle. Once you’re done steeping the fruit, lift the bag into a sanitized colander and let any wort run into the kettle.

The fruit will absorb some wort and lower your volume slightly. To counteract this, you can boil a slightly larger volume of wort or add water to your fermenter to make up the volume. The amount of wort absorbed by the fruit will, of course, depend on how much fruit you steep. Fruit can also be added directly to the wort and the fruit solids left behind as the wort is siphoned to the fermenter.

You may want to use a sanitized kitchen strainer to clear most of the fruit solids from the wort before racking it your fermenter. The heat from boiling wort will kill any yeasts or bacteria on the fruit. However, pectins in the fruit can be extracted and may cause clouding in the beer if the fruit is placed in boiling wort.

1. To sanitize the fruit, but avoid extracting pectins, you can steep the fruit in hot wort after boiling.
2. At lower temperatures — between 160–170° F — pectins from the fruit will not be extracted but the heat will still kill any microorganisms on the fruit.
3. The fruit itself will cool down the wort, so you may need to heat the wort to keep it above 160° F while you are steeping.

For all-grain brewers, a drawback of not immediately cooling the wort is that DMS production continues in hot wort and may lend a cooked corn flavor to the beer. The amount of DMS production will depend on the type of malt you use. Extract brewers do not need to worry about DMS.

• When steeping fruit in hot wort, you should allow at least a half-hour to extract as much fruit flavor and sugar as possible.
• Swirl the fruit bag or stir the wort every five minutes or so to disperse fruit-derived sugars and fruit flavors into the wort.
• Since steeping involves shorter contact times than other methods of fruit use, you should increase the amount of fruit used by at least 15–20 percent.

For fruit concentrates, purées and juices, simply add the fruit product after the boil but before the wort is cooled below 160° F. Then, finish your brew as you normally would. Using Fruits in Secondary Fermentation For most fruits, the best time to add them is in secondary fermentation.

When added at this time, the fruits are not subjected to heat, their flavors do not end up tasting cooked and their aromas are not lost. The drawback, of course, is that adding fruits in the secondary fermenter runs the risk of contaminating the beer. However, green beer generally has enough alcohol and a pH low enough to discourage the growth of contaminating organisms.

For fresh fruits, remove the stems, leaves and pits or seeds. Wash the fruit thoroughly. If you want, you can use commercial produce-washing products such as Fit, although this isn’t necessary. You should reduce the fruit to small pieces by one of several methods: Mash the fruit with a potato masher, chop it with a food processor or cut it up with a knife.

• Place the fruit in your secondary fermenter and siphon beer on top of it.
• It is also important that the fermenter is sealed tightly.
• If air can get in, microorganisms can grow on the top of the floating fruit.
• This is what happened to my ill-fated cherry beer.) It is usually best to use a large bucket — one with some headspace — as a secondary fermenter, as some foaming may occur when the yeast begins working on the fruit sugars.

One way to minimize the risk of contamination from fresh fruits is to take a page from the winemakers’ handbook and sterilize the fruit with sulfur dioxide. Winemakers do not sterilize their “wort” by boiling it. They sterilize their “must” by treating it with SO2 (often in the form of Campden tablets).

To sterilize a “mini-must,” mush your fruit into a slurry in a sanitized bucket. Add enough water so that it’s basically a thick liquid. Add one crushed Campden tablet for every gallon of your “mini-must” and let sit, loosely covered, overnight. During this time the SO2 will kill any microorganism in the “mini-must,” then diffuse away.

The SO2 also acts as an antioxidant, preventing browning of the fruit. The next day, add the now-sanitized “mini-must” to your fermenter. Adding fruits during secondary fermentation increases the volume of the brew, but some of this volume is lost when beer is racked from the remaining fruit solids.

You can plan for this by making less volume of your base beer, but making it somewhat more concentrated. The degree you need to change your base beer depends, of course, on how much fruit you plan to add. (Alternately, you can choose to simply not worry about it and end up with a couple extra beers in your batch.) To add concentrates, purées or juices to your secondary fermentation, begin racking the base beer to the secondary fermenter.

Slowly pour the fruit into the secondary fermenter as the beer is racked so that the fruit and beer mix well. You may want to stir with a sterilized spoon. The beer can be left in contact with the fruit for varying amounts of time. One week is long enough to extract most of the fruit flavors, but not prolong the batch interminably.

If you want to get the most out of your fruit, let it sit longer. Keep in mind, however, that flavor extraction decreases over time. Letting the fruit sit for two weeks will not give you twice as much fruit flavor as letting it sit for one week. After secondary fermentation with the fruit, siphon the beer away from the fruit solids into a keg or bottling bucket.

You may want to use a sanitized kitchen strainer to remove floating fruit solids before racking. Bottle or keg the beer as you usually do. Conditioning and Clarifying Part of the appeal of most fruit beers is their color. In order to best enjoy the color, the beer should be as clear as possible.

1. There are a few ways to achieve this.
2. First and foremost, you should store your fruit beer cold for at least a couple of weeks — but preferably a month or so — after kegging or bottle-conditioning.
3. During this time, much of the yeast and chill haze (if present) will sediment out of the beer.
4. In addition, the fruit flavors will have time to blend more completely with the base beer flavors.

One of the biggest enemies of beer clarity is chill haze, caused by protein/polyphenol (tannin) complexes in the beer. Although aging will help, minimizing chill haze to begin with will speed the development of the beer. Most fruits contribute tannins to a beer.

1. The tannins are mainly confined to the skins of the fruits and these tannins contribute to the flavor of the fruit.
2. Although you can fine for tannins using PVPP (Polyclar AT), this will lessen the fruit color and flavor in your beer.
3. A better method is to minimize the protein level in your base beer.
4. There are a few easy ways to reduce protein levels in your beers.

First of all, use an appropriate amount of Irish moss — between 1.5 and 2 teaspoons of Irish moss per 5 gallons — in the boil. This will reduce protein levels in your beer, but should not affect head retention (which is also related to protein levels).

What is the best yeast for fruit mash?

Pairing Yeasts With Fruit – Montrachet is a very good dry yeast to use for fruit wine. It has a broad appeal & is very dependable. When in doubt use this yeast. It is one of the more neutral yeasts available, ferments quickly & allows the flavor of the fruit to be more present in the wine.

• For optimum fermentation keep between 59-86 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Red Star Cote des Blancs is a dry yeast strain that works well with apples, plums, pears or fruits that produce a white wine profile.
• This yeast is known to take its time during fermentation.
• When fermenting make certain to keep your temperature between 64-86 degrees Fahrenheit.

Red Star Premier Rouge is a dry yeast strain that produces very good red wines. When creating fruit wines it works well with raspberries, huckleberries, blackberries, or peaches. Ferment at 59-86 degrees Fahrenheit. Red Star Pasteur Blanc is a yeast strain that creates a very dry apple wine.

Use this yeast when it’s difficult to begin a fermentation. The extra aggressive nature of this strain allows the yeast to overcome less than ideal fermentation conditions. It works well with high acid fruits. Don’t be afraid to try different strains of yeast because the yeast can play a large role in the final profile of your wine.

Each person is different in what they look for in a wine, and the yeast can make it possible for you to find that exact profile that you were looking for. There is no rule that says you can’t use a Pasteur Red yeast to make an apple wine. Give it a try; you might be surprised with the results.

• A lot of people never think about what type of yeast to use with their wine.
• We believe that is because adding yeast to make wine is a relatively new concept.
• Years ago wine makers would place their fruit in a crock, or container, leave it open to the air and let what yeast was floating around start the fermentation.

There are some obvious draw backs to this, but many people made wine this way up to the 1960s and 1970s. Some people continue to make wine this way. We do not recommend making wine in this fashion for many reasons, but here are just a few for you:

The wine does not always ferment. This is a very common issue when relying on airborne yeast to ferment anything. The fruit goes bad before the wine starts to ferment. No CO2 to protect the fruit will lead to a strong chance that the fruit will rot before you even start the wine making process. A bacterium is introduced before the juice begins to ferment. Now all you have is nasty vinegar that you shouldn’t use. Bugs carry the yeast to the fruit. Does anyone really want bugs to help make their wine? Children not included.

So, now you want to make wine, but you’ve got Grandpa’s old recipe which just says to leave the container open and it will start to ferment on its own. What do you do? Simple, you mix everything together just as Grandpa’s recipe says, but you add your own yeast to the juice.

How to make fruit flavor?

– The process is simple: combine fresh fruit or herbs and alcohol in a jar and let it sit for a while. The longer the extract sits, the stronger the flavour. When the extract is at the strength you like, strain it through cheesecloth and discard the fruit, herb, or nut bits.

Cheesecloth is ideal as it catches any small seeds from the fruit. Store in glass containers in a cool, dark location. Small, thoroughly cleaned glass spice jars or empty extract bottles work well. Dark-coloured containers are best since sunlight can’t penetrate the glass, which will cause the contents to spoil.

Making alcohol-infused extracts is exactly like making herbal tinctures. The basic steps are: Add the fruits or herbs (mashed or chopped depending on the ingredient) to a glass jar, like a mason jar or an old, clean, jam jar. Pour the alcohol over your fruit or herbs – all the ingredients should be covered. Some ingredients, such as mint, are best chopped, so they release more flavour. The longer you leave it, the stronger the flavour – the final flavour should be almost unbearably strong. The storage times I recommend in the recipes below are the minimum.

How much fruit do I need for 5 gallons of mash?

So, you want to add fruit to your homebrew. Well the amount of fruit you’ll need depends on the beer recipe and the type of fruit you are adding, but generally 3-7 pounds will do for a 5 gallon batch of beer. Don’t be afraid to experiment with the amounts depending on how much fruit flavor you want in your beer. Below are some guidelines as to how much fruit to use in your beer:

How long to let fruit soak in moonshine?

For flavoring alcohol you want to soak for a minimum of six weeks, but here often longer is better. The taste will change over time, usually getting ’rounder’ or even change significantly from the original taste of the chosen fruit + alcohol combination.

How do you ferment fruit into alcohol?

Distilling Process 04/16/2021 4:44pm 5 minute read A few weeks ago, we were given some damson plums that were going to go to waste, so we did what we do best and experimented with a brandy recipe to make our own alcohol. Making brandy is a great way to utilise fruit if you don’t have any other use for it. You can use any type of fruit you’d like but remember that different fruits contain different amounts of sugar. If you have a large amount of fruit, you can get away with not using any additional sugar, however, if like us you only have a few kilos, we suggest adding sugar to help bolster the alcohol content of your wash and increase your brandy yield.

• 3 kg Damson plums (or waste fruit of your choice)
• 2 kg Dextrose (optional – this increases your yield but does not impart flavour)
• 1 x 20 g Pack Still Spirits Distiller’s Gin Yeast
• 55 g Still Spirits Distiller’s Light Spirits Nutrient
• ½ tsp Pectinase
• 2.5 Campden tablets, crushed
• Oak chips or spirals of your choice

Making the Wash:

1. Rinse the fruit in a colander and then break it up with your hands or chop them into small pieces, removing the stones/seeds as you go. *
2. Freeze the fruit overnight to help kill wild yeast and bacteria as well as aiding in breaking down the cell structure.
3. Thaw the fruit then add it to a 10 L fermenter, add the dextrose and pectinase, stirring well to ensure the dextrose is completely absorbed. Top up to 9 L with water. **
4. Stir in the campden tablets. Don’t add the yeast just yet as the campden tablets will kill it.
5. Leave the fruit mixture covered with a towel for 24 hours, then sprinkle the yeast over the surface of the wash.
6. Leave to ferment for 1-2 weeks between 12-32°C (54-90°F), or until your hydrometer reading is stable for two consecutive days. Our OG was 1.108 and our FG was 1.010.

* The stones from stone fruit contain some toxins, usually cyanide, which are released when the stone is crushed. We didn’t remove the stones, however, as they weren’t crushed or fermented for a long period of time, this had no detrimental effect on the final product.

1. Strain the wash into a jug using a fine mesh strainer or muslin cloth.
2. Pour 4 L of the wash into your Air Still, add a capful of distilling conditioner and ceramic boil enhancers, then turn it on to perform a stripping run.***
3. Collect up to 1 L from the Air Still without discarding any foreshots at this stage.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 with the remaining wash, then add the distillate to the boiler and top up to 4 L with water ensuring the liquid does not exceed 40% ABV.
5. Collect the foreshots (first 50-100 mL) and discard them.
6. Collect up to 900-950 mL in a separate container, keeping an eye on the ABV. Stop collecting once it drops to around 20% ABV.****
7. Transfer the distillate to a jar and add in your oak chips or oak spirals.*****
8. Age for up to 6 weeks or more between 50-65% ABC (we aged at 55% ABV), tasting the spirit at different stages until it reaches your desired flavour.
9. Dilute the spirit down to 40% ABV with clean drinking water, then bottle it up!

*** You can distill brandy in a single run (just remember to discard the foreshots), which will create a more fruit forward brandy. Performing a stripping run and a spirit run will produce a more delicate flavour and aroma from the fruit but it will also remove some of the excess congeners, allowing the fruit flavour to shine through further.

**** If you are comfortable doing so, you may collect the heads, hearts, and tails into individual jars and blend them together at the end based on your preferred aroma. We did this and had around 700 mL at 55% ABV. ***** We used the Still Spirits American Charred Oak Spirals and Still Spirits Medium Toast French Oak Spirals,

Follow the dosage rates on your spiral/chip packet. Head to your local Still Spirits stockist to pick up your ingredients and get experimenting today! Don’t forget to share your creations with us on our Facebook page or tag us on Instagram, As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact us via social media, leave a comment below, or send us a message directly here,

How long to put fruit in alcohol?

How Long to Soak Fruit in Alcohol – For optimal flavors, you’ll want to soak your fruit in alcohol for around 3 hours. You can get away with soaking anywhere from an hour to overnight but I’ve found 3 hours is the best balance taste wise for an alcoholic fruit salad.

How do you know when fruit mash is ready?

Hydrometer Wisdom: Monitoring Fermentation As with all matters of life, there are two ways of monitoring the fermentation of your mash: the easy way and the complicated way. If you’re a K.I.S.S. fan – not the band, but the „Keep It Simple, Stupid” philosophy – you’ll prepare the mash and just let it be.

A day or two after adding the yeast, you’ll see the airlock bubble – and know the stuff’s doing its fermenting business. After 14 days, it should be about done. If it still bubbles, let it sit for another few days, or until you see no bubbling for at least a minute or two. Once there is no activity in the airlock, your mash is ready to run.

This is a non-scientific method but pretty reliable in judging when fermentation is completed. The scientific method isn’t actually that complicated either, and it will let you know that the mash has completely finished fermentation and determine its potential alcohol.

What you’ll need is a beer or wine hydrometer. The hydrometer indicates the density, or specific gravity – SG – of a liquid, compared to water. As alcohol is thinner than water, the higher the alcohol content, the deeper the float sinks. Pure water has a specific gravity of 1.000 on the hydrometer scale.

Temperature is a key factor when measuring the specific gravity of a liquid – the hydrometer should indicate the temperature it’s calibrated to, and also include an adjustment table. A standard measuring temperature is 20°C or 70 °F. Original Gravity – OG Measure the gravity of your mash before fermentation – and before adding the yeast.

The reading will be higher than 1.000, because of the sugars present in the mash. During fermentation, these sugars will be consumed by yeast causing the density and therefore specific gravity to lower. The number will be the lowest at the end of fermentation. Fill your hydrometer tube about 2/3 of an inch from the top with the wash/mash you wish to test.

Insert the hydrometer slowly not allowing it to drop. Give the hydrometer a light spin, to remove the air bubbles that may have formed.

• Read where the surface of the liquid cuts the scale of the hydrometer.
• You can also predict the potential alcohol of your mash from the original gravity.
• Original Gravity – Potential Alcohol

• 062 → 7.875%
• 064 → 8.125%
• 066 → 8.375%
• 068 → 8.625
• 070 → 8.875%
• 072 → 9.125%
• 074 → 9.375%
• 076 → 9.75%
• 078 → 10%
• 080 → 10.25%
• 082 → 10.5%
• 084 → 10.75%
• 086 → 11%
• 088 → 11.25%
• 090 → 11.5%
• 092 → 11.75%
• 094 → 12.125%
• 096 → 12.375%
• 098 → 12.75%
• 100 → 13%
• 102 → 13.25%
• 104 → 13.5%
• 106 → 13.875%
• 108 → 14.125%

Final Gravity – FG Measure the specific gravity of the mash after the airlock slows down and you’re not getting much activity. If the reading is at 1.000 or less, it is definitely done. If it’s 1.020 or higher, you may want to wait a day or two and then take another reading. Keep taking readings, if needed, until the gravity stops dropping – which means the fermentation is complete.

1. A good rule of thumb: if the gravity hasn’t changed over the course of three days, then the mash is done fermenting.
2. Final Gravity – Potential Alcohol
3. Using the chart above and some math, you can calculate the alcohol content of your mash after fermentation is complete.
4. ABV = (OG – FG) x 131

For instance, if the OG reading is 1.092 and the FG is 0.99, the math goes like this: (1.092-.99) x 131 = 13.36% ABV Remember, this is a rough estimate, as many factors are at play. But the science will at least keep you busy until you’re ready to get your whiskey still running. Posted by Jason Stone on June 01, 2015 : Hydrometer Wisdom: Monitoring Fermentation

Does fruit mash contain methanol?

Abstract – Methanol is a natural ingredient with major occurrence in fruit spirits, such as apple, pear, plum or cherry spirits, but also in spirits made from coffee pulp. The compound is formed during fermentation and the following mash storage by enzymatic hydrolysis of naturally present pectins.

• Methanol is toxic above certain threshold levels and legal limits have been set in most jurisdictions.
• Therefore, the methanol content needs to be mitigated and its level must be controlled.
• This article will review the several factors that influence the methanol content including the pH value of the mash, the addition of various yeast and enzyme preparations, fermentation temperature, mash storage, and most importantly the raw material quality and hygiene.

From all these mitigation possibilities, lowering the pH value and the use of cultured yeasts when mashing fruit substances is already common as best practice today. Also a controlled yeast fermentation at acidic pH facilitates not only reduced methanol formation, but ultimately also leads to quality benefits of the distillate.

How do you add fruit to alcohol?

Step 2: Start your infusion – All you need to get started is a bottle of liquor, your flavorings of choice, and a clean glass jar with an airtight lid. Since most bottles of alcohol have small spouts, you’ll have to infuse in a separate jar. We find that quart-sized mason jars work really well.

1. They have an easy-to-seal lid, and they’re cheap and easy to find online or in stores.
2. If you’re using fresh fruits, wash and dry them before adding to the jars.
3. The amount depends on the infusion.
4. If you’re infusing liquor with fruit, you can add a lot, but go easy on the spices and herbs, which tend to impart stronger flavor.

Of course, if that’s what you’re going for – that’s perfectly fine! But too much ginger or cinnamon can be pretty overwhelming. Unless you’re totally confident about how much to add, I’d suggest consulting a recipe first. A quick google search should answer most of your questions! Add the ingredients to the jar, then fill the jar with your liquor of choice. Seal the jar with an airtight lid and store in a dark, cool place until it’s ready to strain.

How do you add fruit flavor to homebrew?

FRUIT EXTRACTS – The easiest way to add fruit flavor to your beer is to use a fruit extract. These come in 4 oz. bottles, and are added just before bottling or kegging. Most recipes call for 4 oz. in a 5 gallon batch, but some brewers find this to be too much.

• We recommend adding 2 oz., stirring it in, then tasting it.
• You can always add more extract if the flavor isn’t strong enough for you, but you can’t really take it back out.
• To use fruit extracts, simply pour the extract into your bottling bucket or keg before you transfer the beer.
• This way you can be certain that the extract gets blended in really well.

The main advantage of using extracts is their ease of use. Some brewers may find the flavor to be too strong or too sweet. If this is the case for you, you may want to try fresh, frozen or canned/jarred fruit next time. Real fruit isn’t quite as sweet and provides a nice backdrop to many beers.

How do you add fruit after fermentation?

Fermentation Finale – The final step to consider is when to add fruit to your brew. Fruit can be added on both the hot side (boiling and whirlpool) and the cold side (primary and secondary fermentation) of the brewing process, and there are pros and cons to each.

• Allagash goes all the way with its fruit additions, adding fruit at almost every step of the process.
• However, the bulk goes in during the secondary fermentation phase.
• We add the fruit and wait just long enough for the sugars to ferment to get full extraction of the fruit color, aroma,and flavor,” Perkins says.

Secondary fermentation is the ideal time for fruit additions, and about a week is long enough to extract flavor. “Typically we add the fruit in the fermenter towards the end of fermentation. This way, the active yeast will eat the sugars in the fruit, which will prevent the beer from becoming sweet but still leave the fruit flavor,” West, at Lone Tree, says. Credit: Lone Tree Brewing Co. / Instagram.com Adding fruit at primary fermentation is best avoided by homebrewers, as this is when the beer is most vulnerable to infection. In addition, a vigorous primary fermentation will blow off many of the fruit’s aromatic compounds.

• Brewers can also add fruit at or just before whirlpool, which will sterilize fruit and avoid losing too much aromatic character; or during the boil.
• We get a more consistent high-quality product by including fruit for both the brew and fermentation steps,” Fiorenzi, of Shiner, says.
• It is important to keep in mind, however, that the longer a fruit is boiled, the more likely the final beer will have a cooked-fruit flavor as opposed to a fresh-fruit flavor (think peach cobbler instead of ripe peach).

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the difference is something to be conscious of. If fruit is added before the boil, many of the aromatic compounds will be lost. Published: July 17, 2019

How to marinate fruit in alcohol?

If you really want to take your cookout to the next level, you’ve got to try some booze-infused fruit kabobs. These babies offer a refreshing break from all of the cheese-smothered, fried goodness (and oh, is it good) that everyone else brings to the party, and — bonus — they require almost zero effort to make. We’ve got four versions for you:

Piña Colada — Pineapple soaked in rum, then dipped in whipped coconut cream and flaked coconut Spiked Fruit Salad — Watermelon, cantaloupe and honeydew melon steeped in vodka Boozy Melon Bites -Watermelon, cantaloupe, and honeydew soaked in vodka with mint Strawberries & Champagne — Strawberries and peaches infused with Champagne

Candace Braun Davison No matter which version you choose, all you have to do is chop the fruit, put it in a bowl, cover it with your alcohol of choice, and let it sit in the fridge for 2 to 3 hours. You could leave them overnight, but fair warning: The longer the strawberries soak, the lighter (and patchier) they’ll get in color, so they might look a little funky. Allie Folino The piña coladas require a few extra steps before they’re ready to share with the world, but it is So. Worth. It. In fact, let’s walk through those first: