Limonchello + six weeks

Well today I filter and bottle my concoction. Now, as I said at the start, I'm mixing and matching recipes I found on the web to come up with the recipe I'm using for this batch. I have left the lemon peel in the concoction after adding the syrup two weeks ago. The first step then was to pour the concoction trough a metal strainer to remove the peel. The remaining liquid was then filtered through coffee filters to remove whatever remaining sediment I could. That did clog up the filters and the gallon or so of liquid required some 10 filters, or more. The filtered liquid was finally poured into bottles to go back in the basement for another week or two.

The color was darker than I expected limoncello to be. Perhaps leaving the peel in the alcohol plus syrup was not such a good idea. Also, the taste, while good, was not fantastic. (First batch, what can I expect). I did not have quite as strong a lemon flavor as I expected. Perhaps, I need to steep the peel longer before adding the syrup.

On the suggestion of my lovely wife Kate, I may try something unorthodox with one of the bottles that this brew will produce. I plan to add a little alcohol and a small additional amount of syrup to the liquid I have produced. The plan is to lighten the color but retain the character of the liquor. Possibly a disaster, but I'll still have three bottles done the standard way.

One bottle was going to be short anyway so that's the experimental. I added about 200 ml of alcohol and I've prepared about 200 ml of syrup. Once the syrup cools I will add it to the bottle and store them all in the basement for another two weeks.

Well everything is all packed up. The special bottle is marked with a blue label.

Limonchello + five weeks

Ok, the lemon peel has steeped long enough in the alcohol, on to the next step.

Make the Syrup

To make the syrup I took 1.5 liters of water and brought it to a boil. To this I added 700 g (30 oz actually, my balance does not indicate grams) of sugar and boiled the mixture for about 5 minutes. Take the syrup off the stove top and leave it to cool starting at 8:30 in the evening.

Add the Syrup

At 11:40 the syrup had cooled to about 84 F so I added it to the alcohol and lemon peel. Everything seemed to go well. The mixture is now a kind of cloudy yellow color. I put it back in the basement to sit for another couple of weeks.

Limoncello + three weeks

Swirl the limoncello another time. It is definitely picking up a bit of the color. Another week or two and I will add the sugar water.

Limoncello + two weeks

Ok, it's been two weeks since I peeled the lemons and added them to the grain alcohol. I swished the liquor around a bit to mix things up a bit. It does seem to be picking up a bit of the yellow color, although that is hard to tell, what with all the lemon peel.

Limoncello

Limoncello is an Italian liquor originally from the Amalfi region, near Naples. I lived for a couple of years in Naples and was introduced to it there. It is a wonderful drink, best served chilled, cold really, after dinner. The flavor comes from the zest of fresh lemons, so it has a strong, lemony flavor. It is also easy to make.

I remember somewhat the recipe told to me by my neighbor in Italy, but I'm also basing my first run on a few recipes I got off the net. To see the source I'm deriving this from go here, here and here.

I actually started this recipe last week, but did not get the blog up until today. So much for timing.

Batch started on Thursday, February 1, 2007.
So first you peel the zest off of 15 lemons. This is no minor feat. Especially as all the recipes say that you need to leave no white on the zest. For someone inexperienced at peeling lemons, this is pretty much impossible. If by no white, they really mean no white, this batch will not turn out well. I left very little, but I'm only human. That will be something to note in the final product. One good thing about the whole enterprise is that you end up with 15 peeled lemons. This is perfect for fresh lemonade, which is, in fact, wonderful. Once excellent tip for making lemonade was to add the sugar by mixing it into hot water, letting that cool and then adding it to the juiced lemons. This makes for excellent lemonade.

Back to the limoncello. After peeling the lemons the zest is put into a sealed glass jar with 750 ml of grain alcohol. I used Gem Clear brand 190 proof. Some recipes use vodka, but I don't think that is really authentic. Grain alcohol is right.

Thursday, February 8, 2007
Tonight I stir the mixture up a bit. This should be done about once a week for the first four weeks of sitting. After four weeks or so, I'll add the sugar water.