Apricot is one of the most popular fruits in the countries of the former Soviet Union; it loses the competition, perhaps, only to an apple.
Due to its excellent taste and relative cheapness, this fruit is also used in our country as a raw material for the preparation of a fragrant alcoholic beverage.
This material is for those who are interested in how to make apricot mash.
General principles for making apricot mash
We love everything apricots: this is a beautiful orange fruit with its color, taste and aroma represents a wonderful time of the year - summer. At the same time, the apricot tree is also very unpredictable for its harvest - sometimes it drops flowers from itself in the spring and does not please the hosts with a harvest, but more often, even with seemingly bad weather conditions, it can give out an incredible amount of fruits. And then it happens that some gardeners sometimes do not even know where to put it later.
Most often, in addition to eating ready-made apricots, they are used as jam or dried apricots. But many gourmets use it in their own way - they make apricot mash. Not everyone was lucky enough to taste this amazing drink, but it is definitely worth it to try it.
When making the recipe for this wonderful drink in its classic form, that is, without the use of sugar and yeast, the owners can get one of the best fruit distillates with a soft, delicate aftertaste and aroma. In order to get an excellent apricot mash, the emphasis must first be on 3 main components: quality, quantity and speed, so each of these components will be discussed in more detail below.
Collecting a sufficient amount of apricot harvest in a good year is not a difficult task at all, since about 25-30 kg, and sometimes even more scavengers, can be collected from just three trees, especially after a serious thunderstorm with a gusty wind. Of course, part of the harvest will go for jam and other sweets, but for mash so many fruits will be in abundance.
Since apricot, unlike many other fruits and berries, is a large fruit with delicate pulp, problems with its cleaning and turning into mashed potatoes should not arise manually. In this fruit, a high sugar content is in the range of 12-15%, while sucrose decomposes more easily into alcohols and other secondary products during fermentation than artificial sugar.
Recipes (ingredients and method of preparation)
So, for the preparation of homemade alcohol from apricots, we need the following components:
apricots - 10 kg. You can take fruits of any kind, the main thing is that they are ripe, you can even ripen, rumpled and small apricots are also suitable. Make sure that the fruits do not come across mold and rot; this is very important;
water - 10-15 liters. The water is necessarily clean, without litter;
sugar - 5 kg (optional);
yeast - 20 g dry (optional).
This alcoholic beverage is prepared as follows:
1) we take the number of fruits (an important point in the manufacture without yeast) and remove all the seeds from them, this is necessary so that the drink does not bitter;
2) using a blender or manually process the pulp from apricots into a homogeneous mass, which then needs to be folded into a fermentation tank;
3) add water, sugar and yeast diluted according to the instructions (needed for quick fermentation) and mix thoroughly. If the drink will be prepared without sugar, prepare 7-10 liters of water, if with it - 15 liters;
4) we install a water lock on the neck of the container (a rubber glove with a hole in the finger) and transfer it to a dark place with room temperature. After some time (3-48 hours, depends on the yeast used), the first signs of fermentation will begin to appear (foam, bubbles, and after two days, the liquid through the shutter will gurgle and the glove will begin to inflate;
5) if you use artificial yeast, the fermentation process will be completed in 5-10 days. This can be determined by the deflated glove and the color of the mash, which will brighten and get a bitter taste. At the same time, a sedimentary layer forms at the bottom. This means that it is time to distill it;
6) this process is performed through cheesecloth into a cube for distillation. Filtering is a must, as the remaining flesh can burn and spoil the taste;
7) distillation of mash can be done on any moonshine. When the level of fortress drops below 30%, the process of collecting distillate is completed. To make the quality even better, double distillation is recommended. An important point - refuse to clean the moonshine with coal or other methods, this can reduce its aroma;
8) upon repeated distillation, it is necessary to collect all the obtained distillate and dilute it half with water, thereby reducing the strength to 17-20%;
9) the first 70-100 ml of yield (with the addition of sugar 220-250 ml) must be collected separately. This part is called the "head", it is forbidden to use it. After that, the distillate is selected until the output strength drops below 40 °, this will be the product we aimed for;
10) moonshine made from apricots is diluted with water to a suitable strength (usually 40-43%). Before you start drinking, the drink must be aged 1.5-2 days in a dark, cool room.
Tricks and tips for cooking apricot mash
You also need to know a few recommendations if you want to get a really high-quality product at the exit.
To obtain a truly high-quality, aromatic drink, it is better to do without sugar in its manufacture. Let the output be lower, but the quality of the drink will be an order of magnitude better.
If sugar was not added to apricots, then yeast should also be discarded. The product will roam the natural way, which means longer. When using yeast, the fermentation process will take about a week, without them - about 14-18 days, but at the end you get a wonderful drink with an amazing taste and aroma.
When making a drink without sugar and yeast, the recipe should look like this:
apricot puree - 3 parts;
water - 2 parts;
peach puree - 1 part (if any).
Due to the presence of peach in the drink, it will get a more pronounced taste and contrast. If it does not exist, apricots with water can be used as an alternative. Do not forget to put the container in the sun so that the drink warms up well in the open air and starts the natural fermentation process. If at night it is warm enough, it can be left around the clock, so the daytime sun will be an excellent fermentation catalyst for it. Water lock should be set in a day.
When the mash is ready, it must be set up for distillation without filtration and clarification. An important point: put the drink on a slow fire. This is necessary so that he slowly and gradually disintegrates into fractions. The big mistake of many people is that they try to quickly complete the process, and then wonder why the drink turned out much worse. Therefore, make sure that he slowly, expels droplets at a drop, no trickles!
As already mentioned above, it is recommended to do double distillation so as not to lose aroma. During the second haul, the steamer should be filled with pulp of fruit, while the lemon peel should not be, as it will easily interrupt the apricot flavor.
If you decide to make mash with sugar, then distillation can be done in the standard way, that is, to filter, make the fire stronger and let the moonshine flow out in a thin stream, this will also save you time.
And one more important recommendation: never mix apricot and plum together, as the latter will immediately kill the wonderful aroma of apricot. In addition, when making apricot mash, use a separate fermentation tank and a cube for distillation, that is, they should not cook anything else, otherwise the delicate aroma of apricot may be lost.
That's probably all you need to know if you want to make an excellent homemade apricot mash on your own. Do not forget that in order to get a high-quality drink, each step of preparation needs to be done gradually, rushing in this case can mean a poor-quality product at the outlet, which you will quickly be disappointed.
