Liqueur Anyone?

I know this may be off topic, but the "Distilling" forum apperently doesn't exist.

I read somewhere that some yeast claim to be able to ferment up to 22% abv. If this is true, could I use suger, water, yeast, and nutrient to make a nutral tasting alcohol of about 20% and then flavor it however to make a legal liquer without having to distill it? Has anyone tried this?
__________________________
Primary: Apple Cider
Secondary: Empty (the cider is my first batch ever)
Bottled: Nothing (I told you I'm new)
Drinking: Budweiser (I told you I'm just getting started, why can't you just leave me alone)

i dont think making a liquer qualifies as distilling, ive seen liquer kits sold at LHBS's and online

rasperry liquer, coffee liquer, etc

Those yeasts (distiller's yeasts) aren't designed to create a clean, drinkable product; they're designed to make a lot of alcohol, including fusel alcohols, to be subsequently distilled. Best-case, you're looking at MAJOR headaches.

If you're of legal age, why not buy a bottle of cheap vodka and do the same? I've even seen on Mythbusters how they were able to significantly improve the flavor of a cheap vodka by running it through a water filter.

The only kit's I've seen are just flavoring extracts that you add to vodka or everclear or something. I didn't know there are any others.

I might try that, but I've always been interested in making Liquor myself. Too bad it's illigal (not to mention possibly unsafe) But I don't think I'd get the satisfaction out of just flavoring someone eles vodka.

I just searched for Liquer kits, and found a site selling them. They state that:

"Make your very own 40 proof liquor in just 3 weeks."..."this isn't a bottle of flavoring that you add to Vodka"..."you start with water, sugar, and our liquor kit"

So how do the kits work. It has to be some sort of yeast. Are they just selling the same stuff that's gonna give me a hang over?

A lot of homebrew shops sell Turbo Yeast, which will ferment corn sugar to 17/18/19% in 10 days at room temperature. I've always seen them advertised as fermenting clean and tasty, but I can't say from experience whether this is true or not.

Kinda expensive but looks like a safe easy to hide option.

http://www.easystill.com/

Ah every time I see a thread like this I just laugh to myself and thank the government (omg I'm actually thanking the government?!?!) of NZ that we can legally distill as much as our heart desires. All I need to do now is just get myself a still, haha.
But as the Bird said, I'm pretty sure that there'd be heaps of fusel alcohols and such that'll make your "liqueur" taste all firey and give you a massive headache in the morning. Here's another site you could try out for real distilling though: http://www.home-distilling.com/HD_EasyStill-Instructions.asp

It makes me think of boot-legging and moonshine, ah you Americans, .

just a side note, i LOVE new zealanders

I'm pretty confident you could keep the amount of fusel alcohols low as long as the temperature isn't too high (although it will take a bit more time).

I'm pretty confident distilling alcohol is illegal in most countries.

mrkristofo said:

I'm pretty confident distilling alcohol is illegal in most countries.

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Have you read the thread?

The OP mentioned using distillers' yeast to make booze WITHOUT having to distill (mentioning its legality in the post), and the other person talking about potentially distilling is from New Zealand (where it IS legal.... lucky bastards...)

the_bird said:

Have you read the thread?

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No, my bionic hands took over.

But to answer the OP's question....what they said. When you start forcing the yeast to do what they don't really want to do (remember that fermentation is an anaerobic last-ditch-effort mechanism to produce necessary cofactors for survival), you'll get some nasty flavors (like the higher alcohols others have mentioned).

So any ideas on the kits I mentioned above? Do you think they're just using distillers yeast to make the liquer, and not telling the customer about the batch of headache/hangover they would be making by actually using the kit?

__________________________
Primary: Apple Cider
Secondary: Empty (the cider is my first batch ever)
Bottled: Nothing (I told you I'm new)
Drinking: Budweiser (I told you I'm just getting started, why can't you just leave me alone)

Someone had posted a Carbon Filter (it was red with a wolf on it) that was supposed to be pretty good to get rid of the higher alcohols. I can't remember what the name is nor which online brew store had it. Anyone else remember?

JeanLucD said:

Ah every time I see a thread like this I just laugh to myself and thank the government (omg I'm actually thanking the government?!?!) of NZ that we can legally distill as much as our heart desires. All I need to do now is just get myself a still, haha.
But as the Bird said, I'm pretty sure that there'd be heaps of fusel alcohols and such that'll make your "liqueur" taste all firey and give you a massive headache in the morning. Here's another site you could try out for real distilling though: http://www.home-distilling.com/HD_EasyStill-Instructions.asp

It makes me think of boot-legging and moonshine, ah you Americans, .

Click to expand...

Make that two. A NZ distiller here.

Well I don't distill that often, beer's my drop of choice.



But to be ontopic, using the turbo yeasts creates the most rankest tasting crap ever, there's no way, even with carbon treatment I would drink it without being distilled.

It's hard to keep the temp down with these yeasts as they ferment rapidly, I've had them hit 24 - 25C in around 12C ambient temp. You also use so much sugar with them they need to be fermented warm or you get a stuck ferment.


Now I feel like posting pictures of my 6'ish high still just to show off

mrfocus said:

Someone had posted a Carbon Filter (it was red with a wolf on it) that was supposed to be pretty good to get rid of the higher alcohols. I can't remember what the name is nor which online brew store had it. Anyone else remember?

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This a general technique to make crappy vodka taste better. In side-by-side trials of Popov vs Belvedere, after 13 runs through the filter the testers agreed the filtered Popov was indistinguishable from the top-shelf.

That, or their sense of taste and smell was lost after sample #6...

The concept is sound though, it should work. Just make sure you use a new filter. You don't want to knock off the nasties that are sticking to your 2-month old brita into your liquer.

I stumbled across this post in my quest to see if I can my make my own liqueur via fermentation. What about using WLP 099 high gravity yeast? I've read that it creates a fairly decent/ smooth beer at 20% abv. Does anyone have any good/ scientific reason why 099 would behave any different from those other distiller's yeast? I figure worst case scenario is that I waste 1 gallon of sugar water and a $7 white lab yeast tube.

Does anyone know for the record how liqueur companies make their liqueur. Do they infuse distilled liquor w/ flavoring and sugar?

I'm really looking for cheap ways to satisfy the wife in my brewing hobby (perhaps some Kahlua, Baileys), thus wine-making seems out of the question for the time being.

What about using stepped sugar additions. Use a champagne or high gravity beer yeast. Start ou with an SG around 1.080 or so and just keep adding a bit of sugar every time it drops down to 1.020. I have no idea how "neutral" this will taste, perhaps it will have all the same horribleness of distiller's yeast, but it has to have somewhat better chances.

It's been a long time since I've posted much on this site, but I'll tell you my personal experiance...

I made a sugar wine about last March or April. It was just boiled water with enough plain old table sugar to make the hydrometer read about 12% ABV potential, and a teaspoon or so of nutrient. I pitched a smack pack of (of all things) the New Belgium Yeast that Wyeast had for a limited time last year. It had a tolerance of 12% I believe.

Then around Sep. I measured the SG and found it to have about 2% abv potential left. Since it had stabilized at that, I went ahead and bottled in 1 liter tequila bottles. I added 2 tablespoons of Raspberry Extract (that contained no sugar) to one of the bottles.

I tried a shot of the Raspberry bottle (about 10 min. after adding the raspberry extract) and while it had a pleasant raspberry taste, it had a very soapy taste. I'm guessing because I bottled right on top of the Star San foam.

A month or so later I tried it again, and it tasted great. I've noticed that some bottles have started to have some small bubbles (like in a bottle of soda water) coming to the top, but as of yet, non of them seem to have built up any real pressure (I open the caps every week or so to release the pressure, and only get a tiny poof of gas releasing so I'm not worried about bottle bombs).

I think that if I tried this with a higher tolerance yeast (IE. Pasteur, or another 18-19% yeast) I would get the same results but with more alcohol.

I will admit though, as I have not had much interest in brewing lately, I have not tried more than 1 or 2 shots of this stuff in a night, So I can't make any statements about hangovers the next morning.

meyers.markg said:

I'm really looking for cheap ways to satisfy the wife in my brewing hobby (perhaps some Kahlua, Baileys), thus wine-making seems out of the question for the time being.

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Just buy the small flavorings they sell at the LHBS. You add them to your own vodka of choice.

They actually work.

here isa recipe that uses vodka but is better than the extracts you get at the hbs
boil 2 cups of water than add 4 celestial seasonings bengal spice tea add 1 cinnamon stick. Then dissolve 3/4lb. of cinnamon red hot candies. Add 1 1/2 cup of vodka.
It tastes like goldslager. I have more recipes if interested. They are more involved than the extracts but still easy and very tasty.