Have a limoncello recipe?

Just bought a house a few months ago, and it came with some well-established muscadine vines as well as a lemon tree. The only sensible thing to do with lemons? Make some limoncello, of course! I have searched around a bunch and found some promising recipes, but does anyone have any tried and true recipes/tips and tricks they use? I know the process is very straight forward, but I'm all about the small details; zest the rind or peel with a paring knife? 40% ABV or higher for oil extraction? There is just so much variation in preparation and ingredients between the recipes that I don't know what difference in the end result will be.

What works for you?

Thanks!

Whenever I need a recipe, I go to Alton Brown. He has never steered me wrong.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/limoncello-recipe/index.html

I use the zest of 10 lemons per 1 750ml bottle of Grain Alcohol.

Let it sit in a cool dark place for two months.

Strain it, make a simple syrup (equal part sugar and water) add it to the strained Grain to taste.

Leave it sit in the dark place for another month.

Then into the freezer to enjoy.

I haven't done this yet, but there's a recipe and some discussion here:

I find I get the best results if the recipe is written in Italian, more authentic somehow.
My wife translated it to English for me long ago and I have since tweaked it to suit my taste, but here was my starting point.
use only the zest, then after bottling leave it in a dark closet for a month or longer. I have left it on the zest for a long time and noticed that after the zest gets crumbly and white, there is no benefit to leaving it longer. I use a microplane for zesting, and find 7 days is perfect for my purposes.

Limoncello:
1 litro d'acqua
1 litro d'alcool
700gr di zucchero
8 limoni
Tagliate dai limoni solo le bucce sottili mettendole in fusione nell'alcool, il tutto in un barattolo. Dopo 4 giorni unite l'infuso con lo sciroppo appena preparato con lo zucchero nell'acqua tiepida. Unite il tutto, filtrate ed imbottigliate.
Si serve molto freddo.

You couldn't have her translate it for us too?

Its basically, one liter of grain alcohol, one liter of water, 700 grams of sugar, the zest of 8 lemons, soak the zest in alcohol for 4 days and filter. add the sugar and water, serve out of the freezer.

using an online translator it is as follows:
Limoncello: 1 liter of water 1 liter of alcohol 700gr of sugar 8 lemons Cut from the alone lemons the thin skins mettendole in merger in the alcohol, everything in a can. After 4 days united the infusion with the syrup just gotten ready with the sugar in the lukewarm water. You unite everything, filtered and bottled up. It is served very cold.

I've been looking at making some limoncello too. I got the idea from a blog I was reading at the time, the recipe used in the blog is pretty similar to the one posted to the thread on here.

http://alacartekitchen.wordpress.com/2010/06/20/luscious-limoncello/

rebeltruce said:

I use the zest of 10 lemons per 1 750ml bottle of Grain Alcohol.

Let it sit in a cool dark place for two months.

Strain it, make a simple syrup (equal part sugar and water) add it to the strained Grain to taste.

Leave it sit in the dark place for another month.

Then into the freezer to enjoy.

Click to expand...

I use a zester also, works better than peeling. I made a batch of limocello a couple of years ago, only got 2 bottles left. We did a taste test with a bottle of limocello brought back from Italy last winter. Mine won hands down. Better colour, better flavor, less bitterness/bite. Yep, a four prong zester is the way to go. Also, use nice firm lemons, do not let them get soft. It is way to hard to zest soft lemons.