Recently a friend suggested I start blogging about my experiments in the kitchen and I said why the heck not. It took forever for me to try to find information online on things to try and most of the time with extracts I was flying blind and hoping for the best. So hopefully through this process, my mistakes will help you. I'm starting it all off with the strawberry extract because it's one of my absolute favorites...and also my biggest fail.
Let me preface with this, use dehydrated fruit. Save yourself the heartache of losing a batch that has been brewing for months and just use the dehydrated fruit. I purchased this Presto Dehydrator from Walmart for $39.52, luckily you can use grocery delivery and just have it brought to your house with your groceries if you do the delivery service...which I do during this pandemic. Now that that's out of the way let's get started on different things I have tried, what worked and what failed horribly.
Back in May I purchased the organic strawberries and vodka. You can use the alcohol of your choice but make sure it's 80 proof to properly extract the fruit. Rum will give a slightly sweeter flavor and vodka will allow the natural flavor of the strawberries to shine. If you go over 80 proof you will need to water it down. If it's under 80 proof you risk the natural yeast on the fruit starting the fermentation process and ruining your extract. So I started with 3/4 cup of cleaned, hulled and cut up strawberries and one cup of vodka. To hull the strawberries just use a plastic one use straw to push up from the bottom of the strawberry and out through the stem. I put the cut up strawberries in a mason jar and added the 1 cup of vodka. Each day I would make sure to shake the jar. You also need to have all extracts in a dark cabinet out of the light. One of THE most important parts about doing an extract is that your fruit needs to be covered by alcohol at all times. If you add the 1 cup of vodka and it doesn't fully cover your fruit, add more alcohol. The fruit MUST be covered to keep it from going bad. As long as the fruit is under the alcohol it's safe.
After a few days my strawberries were a nasty greyish color, not appetizing looking at all. They were actually way more grey than this photo was showing and you can leave them in there until they are actually lighter in color than this photo.
That's ok. It's just the vodka doing it's job of pulling the flavor and pigment out of the fruit and in to the extract. I left the fruit for 4 weeks and decided to go ahead and do another batch of fresh strawberries in the extract. By changing out the fruit you're adding more flavor to the extract. So I went through the process again of cleaning, hulling and chopping the new strawberries. I drained the old strawberries through these mesh bags from Amazon and they work really well. Then throw the old fruit away and add the new fruit. Here is where I had a problem brewing and didn't even realize it. When you add fruit to alcohol, your alcohol is starting off as 80 proof. But each time you put fresh fruit in to it, you're adding water from the fruit and watering down the alcohol. Now imagine how much water is added to your extract after three fruit changes...quite a bit. After my third fruit change I decided to try out dehydrated fruit and within 24 hours I noticed a HUGE problem. Since my extract was now watered down, unbeknownst to me, the natural yeast in the fruit was having a little party in the jar and creating a fermentation nightmare. The extract is now ruined.
This was a hard lesson to learn. Thankfully it was on two small batches and not a large batch of extract, otherwise it would have been an expensive lesson to learn too.
By using dehydrated fruit, you're removing the extra water so your alcohol isn't being watered down.
From now on I will only be using dehydrated fruit for everything just to make sure I don't end up with a smelly fermentation again. Especially since I am making much larger batches.
Let me preface with this, use dehydrated fruit. Save yourself the heartache of losing a batch that has been brewing for months and just use the dehydrated fruit. I purchased this Presto Dehydrator from Walmart for $39.52, luckily you can use grocery delivery and just have it brought to your house with your groceries if you do the delivery service...which I do during this pandemic. Now that that's out of the way let's get started on different things I have tried, what worked and what failed horribly.
Back in May I purchased the organic strawberries and vodka. You can use the alcohol of your choice but make sure it's 80 proof to properly extract the fruit. Rum will give a slightly sweeter flavor and vodka will allow the natural flavor of the strawberries to shine. If you go over 80 proof you will need to water it down. If it's under 80 proof you risk the natural yeast on the fruit starting the fermentation process and ruining your extract. So I started with 3/4 cup of cleaned, hulled and cut up strawberries and one cup of vodka. To hull the strawberries just use a plastic one use straw to push up from the bottom of the strawberry and out through the stem. I put the cut up strawberries in a mason jar and added the 1 cup of vodka. Each day I would make sure to shake the jar. You also need to have all extracts in a dark cabinet out of the light. One of THE most important parts about doing an extract is that your fruit needs to be covered by alcohol at all times. If you add the 1 cup of vodka and it doesn't fully cover your fruit, add more alcohol. The fruit MUST be covered to keep it from going bad. As long as the fruit is under the alcohol it's safe.
After a few days my strawberries were a nasty greyish color, not appetizing looking at all. They were actually way more grey than this photo was showing and you can leave them in there until they are actually lighter in color than this photo.
That's ok. It's just the vodka doing it's job of pulling the flavor and pigment out of the fruit and in to the extract. I left the fruit for 4 weeks and decided to go ahead and do another batch of fresh strawberries in the extract. By changing out the fruit you're adding more flavor to the extract. So I went through the process again of cleaning, hulling and chopping the new strawberries. I drained the old strawberries through these mesh bags from Amazon and they work really well. Then throw the old fruit away and add the new fruit. Here is where I had a problem brewing and didn't even realize it. When you add fruit to alcohol, your alcohol is starting off as 80 proof. But each time you put fresh fruit in to it, you're adding water from the fruit and watering down the alcohol. Now imagine how much water is added to your extract after three fruit changes...quite a bit. After my third fruit change I decided to try out dehydrated fruit and within 24 hours I noticed a HUGE problem. Since my extract was now watered down, unbeknownst to me, the natural yeast in the fruit was having a little party in the jar and creating a fermentation nightmare. The extract is now ruined.
This was a hard lesson to learn. Thankfully it was on two small batches and not a large batch of extract, otherwise it would have been an expensive lesson to learn too.
By using dehydrated fruit, you're removing the extra water so your alcohol isn't being watered down.
From now on I will only be using dehydrated fruit for everything just to make sure I don't end up with a smelly fermentation again. Especially since I am making much larger batches.
You can use the extract in cakes, cookies, smoothies, stirfry...so many things. They are very versatile and great additions to have in your kitchen. our favorite thing to use extracts in are sugar cookies.
And don't be afraid to make this a family project. My kids LOVE getting in the kitchen and helping with the fruit and watching their extract along the way. (ignore my kid's mix matched clothes because she dressed herself)
And don't be afraid to make this a family project. My kids LOVE getting in the kitchen and helping with the fruit and watching their extract along the way. (ignore my kid's mix matched clothes because she dressed herself)
I genuinely hope this helps you to start your own extracts. I will be posting all of my recipes and tips here on the blog along with my favorite recipes, crafts and life in general. If you have any questions feel free to drop a comment!
****Side note, the very first picture shows one with sugar and one without. I have no clue how they would have turned out as those are the two jars that were ruined. I know the one without sugar would have been fine but I'm not sure how the one with sugar would have been. I was just experimenting.
****Side note, the very first picture shows one with sugar and one without. I have no clue how they would have turned out as those are the two jars that were ruined. I know the one without sugar would have been fine but I'm not sure how the one with sugar would have been. I was just experimenting.
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