LimoncelloQuest

I ran out of grain alcohol but wanted to run a test between organic and non-organic lemons. I have always heard that non-organic lemons are better for making Limoncello and that makes sense but they are expensive and very hard to find so I wanted to test it.

I tried to treat the two batches as equally as possible. The organic lemons were roughly half the size of the non-organic lemons so I used about twice as many to produce the same quantity of zest. I used half a cup less sugar than normal in both batches because Vodka is much smoother than grain alcohol and I thought that would produce a more balanced Limoncello. Indeed, I didn’t miss the extra sugar at all.

Batch #7:
Liquor: Two bottles of 100 Proof Smirnoff Vodka
Liquor filtration: 5x
Lemons: 23 Organic, scrubbed
Days peels and liquor rested: 40
Simple Syrup - Cups Sugar: 3.5, Cups Water: 5
Days syrup rested with infusion: 0
Final filtration: 4x

Due to the use of vodka rather than grain alcohol, the flavor of the batch is very smooth. It has fewer chemical flavors than most other batches I’ve made. There is a strong lemon flavor and an off flavor that strikes me as rotten lemon, but isn’t really bad and doesn’t reduce my enjoyment of the liquor. The lemons were just barely starting to get soft when I used them so I’m sure that’s where the off flavor originated. If you use organic lemons, make sure to zest them the same day you get them home because they go bad ridiculously fast.

Batch #8:
Liquor: Two bottles of 100 Proof Smirnoff Vodka
Liquor filtration: 5x
Lemons: 15 Non-Organic, waxed, scrubbed
Days peels and liquor rested: 40
Simple Syrup - Cups Sugar: 3.5, Cups Water: 5
Days syrup rested with infusion: 0
Final filtration: 4x

One of the first things I noticed when doing the final filtration is that using non-organic lemons makes it much harder to filter the liquor. This is probably because of the wax on non-organic lemons, I think it gums up the filter. This is a huge advantage of using organic lemons because final filtration is my least favorite aspect of making Limoncello.

You’ll notice that the flavor graph shows this one as rougher than batch #7 even though they were exactly the same except for the test variable. It is smoother than normal because it contains vodka but not as smooth as the organic lemons. This taught me something interesting, that the contaminants in non-organic lemons apparently introduce roughness to the flavor. This actually makes sense since contaminants in the liquor make the flavor rough as well.

There are also off flavors that seem chemical in nature. The off flavors in batch #7 were more natural and it had a more lemony flavor overall. I think there are enough benefits to work almost exclusively with organic lemons moving forward.

I set aside one bottle each from my first two batches so I could see what happens when you let them rest for a long time. Both of these rested for over 6 months in my basement and then I put them in the freezer for a while and tasted them again. There is no question that resting the limoncello smooths out the flavor. These two batches are nearly indistinguishable at this point. They are both very sweet and syrupy, with a little alcohol heat in the flavor. Neither has the alcohol “roar” that I noted in the initial review of the first batch.

If I had to identify a difference between them, I’d say that the first batch has many more lemony notes on the finish than the second batch. I don’t know why that would be but it definitely leaves a lemon oil finish in your mouth. Interestingly, the chemical flavors have also died down. These two batches won’t make it to the one year mark (they’re already frozen, I might as well finish them off…) but the effects of aging are clearly positive. I’ve made quite a bit of limoncello this year so I’ll be surprised if at least some of the batches don’t make to a year old. When they do I’ll post the results but I can predict them already in one word, smoother.

#6 meant to be my best to date, liquor filtered 6x and rested with zest for 90 days. Back to usual sugar concentration. Good light color and smell. Nice lemony flavor, more so than batch #4 and though it’s quite a bit sweeter it’s still relatively balanced. Picks are that it’s still a little syrupy sweet and there are off flavors probably associated with the non-organic lemons used.

Liquor: Two 750ml bottles of Everclear 151
Liquor filtration: 6x
Lemons: 17 Non-organic, waxed and scrubbed
Days peels and liquor rested: 90
Simple Syrup - Cups Sugar: 4, Cups Water: 5
Days syrup rested with infusion: 30
Final filtration: 4x

For batch #5, I forgot to filter the liquor so I know this will be on the rough side. I consider it almost a wasted batch if I don’t filter the liquor because the flavor is so much harsher than filtered batches. The color is on the darker side as my batches go, closer to some mass-produced versions I’ve seen. The flavor is first very sweet and lemony but quickly turns to the unfiltered Everclear punch that contorts your face. Since I’ve discovered the difference in smoothness due to filtering it’s almost unforgivably rough tasting. Unless I forget I’ll never use unfiltered Everclear again and this is a lesson that should help.

Liquor: Two 750ml bottles of Everclear 151
Liquor filtration: None
Lemons: 17 Non-organic, waxed and scrubbed
Days peels and liquor rested: 66
Simple Syrup - Cups Sugar: 4, Cups Water: 5
Days syrup rested with infusion: 30
Final filtration: 4x

I haven’t had a batch to post about in a while and now I have several. Here is the first of the new crop:

Liquor: Two 750ml bottles of Everclear 151
Liquor filtration: 5x
Lemons: 17 Non-organic, waxed and scrubbed
Days peels and liquor rested: 63
Simple Syrup - Cups Sugar: 3, Cups Water: 5
Days syrup rested with infusion: 30
Final filtration: 4x

The big difference in this batch was the use of less sugar, I used one cup less than normal to see if I could reduce the overly sweet taste of my standard recipe. The smell and color of the finished product looked good, perhaps a bit lighter yellow than normal. The sugar reduction worked, it doesn’t taste sweet now. However, the alcohol is much more apparent in the flavor now. A one cup reduction may have been too much. The next time I’ll try a 1/2 cup reduction. The flavor seems lighter with less sugar, it has some redeeming qualities there but overall it’s just too harsh. It will take a long time in the cellar to make this batch smooth.

I started two new batches this week to test whether using organic lemons adds to the flavor or quality of the Limoncello. I have absolutely no doubt that it reduces toxins in the finished product since it’s the outside of the lemon that is used in making the Limoncello. However, I’ve heard it said that using organic lemons produces a much greater lemon flavor so I wanted to put that claim to the test. The differences in the lemons themselves are obvious from the start. The organic lemons were literally about half the size of the normal ones and they had more blemishes on the surface as you can see from the photos. The first picture shows the organic lemons. As a result of the smaller size, I used 23 organic lemons and 15 normal lemons to get roughly the same quantity of zest.

I added the zest to two separate containers filled with 100 proof Smirnoff vodka that I filtered 5 times. You can tell that the organic lemons are producing a much darker colored infusion after only a couple days. The normal lemon infusion looks like they injected the lemons with chartreuse by comparison, pretty amazing difference. These two are batches 7 and 8, I’ll keep you updated on their progress.

I made this test batch using the zest of 10 oranges and otherwise the same methodology as the lime-infused batch, 3 weeks infusion with a bottle of 100 proof Smirnoff vodka filtered four times and simple syrup with 2.5 cups water and 2 cups sugar. This batch was easy to distinguish from Limoncello from the color alone. It wasn’t bright orange but it was orange enough to tell.

It had a nice aroma of orange as well but the flavor didn’t pan out nearly as well as the lime batch. It wasn’t nearly as bad as the batch I made with orange last year, but it isn’t great. It’s overly sweet (my fault) and the orange flavor tastes like orange peel rather than oranges. This makes perfect sense but I don’t know why lemons and limes don’t seem to have the same issue. It may be the type of oranges I’m using, I’m not sure. I did use organic oranges, which should have been better than normal ones. Not a successful test. If anyone has an idea why, let me know.

So I wanted to see how it would taste if I infused my liquor with other fruit flavors. The most obvious place to start was limes. So, I made a half batch to test using the zest of 10 limes infused into a bottle of 100 proof Smirnoff vodka. I filtered the vodka four times before infusing with the zest. I let the mixture infused for about three weeks, until the zest started to look pale. I then added a simple syrup mixture of 2.5 cups of water and 2 cups of sugar. I filtered, bottled and let that mixture rest for another week.

I didn’t expect this to work well because I had tried it with oranges last year and that batch was an atrocity. This, however, worked MUCH better than I ever expected. The color of the finished liquor was hard to tell from the Limoncello in most lighting conditions but the aroma was distinctly lime. The flavor was too. I made this batch with vodka because grain alcohol is hard to come by in my state and I’m fresh out right now. Usually the benefit of the grain alcohol is that it does a better job of extracting the flavor of the zest during infusion.

This batch had plenty of lime flavor though, and though it was a bit too sweet, the overall taste was absolutely sublime. I took a bottle of it to a party at a friend’s house (which was a bold move since I hadn’t tasted it yet) and everyone liked it. You could use it to make a great mojito or other drink that requires lime but it’s excellent straight up from the freezer.

This test is as scientific as I’m able to conduct at home. I used the exact same materials, time, lemons, etc. for both halves of one batch. The only difference was filtering the liquor. I wanted to see what kind of difference, if any, liquor filtration has on the final product. Here are the ingredients for the whole experiment.

Liquor: Two 750ml bottles of Everclear 151
Liquor filtration: Varies
Lemons: 17 Non-organic, waxed and scrubbed
Days peels and liquor rested: 55
Simple Syrup - Cups Sugar: 4, Cups Water: 5
Days syrup rested with infusion: 48
Final filtration: 4x

Just after zesting the lemons, I divided the zest into two even halves and put each half into an identical glass jar. I then poured one unfiltered bottle of grain alcohol in one jar and the other jar received an identical bottle of alcohol but after 4 filtrations in the Brita filtering pitcher. Everything else was identical down to the amount of time I waited to taste them and the temperature of the Limoncello at tasting.

The results for the first, unfiltered, half are:

As you can see, it’s fairly rough stuff. It’s pretty sweet, which offsets the harshness in the flavor somewhat but it has a lot of heat and is a very rough Limoncello. Drinkable but not great.

Here are the results of the second half of the batch:

As you can clearly see, the results were very different this time. The smoothness of this half of the batch was a world of difference from the unfiltered half. Compared to this half, the unfiltered half feels like getting punched in the throat. This one is smooth and silky with a little bit of heat and both halves had some off flavors on the finish that were probably due to the fact that I couldn’t use organic lemons and/or didn’t scrub them hard enough. Because of the smoothness, the sweetness of the Limoncello is more apparent which is why I rated this one as more sweet despite the fact that the two halves contain exactly the same amount of sugar.

With this direct comparison under my belt, I can tell you with absolutely no reservations that filtering the liquor makes a HUGE difference in the smoothness of the final product. Since this batch was created I’ve made a couple others and forgotten to filter the liquor. I’m now acutely regretting that. I strongly recommend that you filter the liquor before the infusion with the lemon zest. I plan future tests to see where the point of diminishing returns is on filtration. Less filtration is faster but if I could double the smoothness by filtering the liquor 8 times, I’d do it. It’s still much faster than letting the finished Limoncello rest for a year or two, which is what I’ll need to do with the unfiltered half.

Because it was made with few changes from the first batch, the second turned out similar. Here are the stats on the second batch:

Liquor: Two 750ml bottles of Everclear 151
Liquor filtration: 2x
Lemons: 17 Non-organic, waxed and scrubbed
Days peels and liquor rested: 49
Simple Syrup - Cups Sugar: 4, Cups Water: 5
Days syrup rested with infusion: 44
Final filtration: 4x

As you can see, the only two differences were that the liquor was filtered an extra time and the final mixture rested longer before the final filtration. The result was a batch that was substantially similar in all regards to the first batch except it was slightly smoother. This could be the result of either the longer resting period or the extra filtration of the liquor or both. I’ll have to separate the two in the future to determine what is having the larger impact. Here is the flavor graph from batch #2: