Liqueurs -- preciptate formation

[DesNaz]

Hi all:

I am trying out liqueur preparation using essential oils extracted from fruits, seeds, etc.

After dissolving the oils in ENA and adding clear sugar syrup and mineral water, the liqueur looks nice and clear for a few days. Then I notice a very fine powdery dispersion at the bottom of the bottle, which redissolves with some shaking.

Aside from decanting, is there something else I could do?

Is there an upper limit to the the concentration of sugar syrup that will guarantee NO precipitation in the alcohol/essectial oils/sugar/water mix at room temperature (say 20 deg C)?

Will using only DM water help?

Would appreciate your thoughts and experiences :-)

Cheers!

Des

PS. Sorry about the 'Hoe to avaoi..' in the topic line... not sure how it happened... if the moderator can correct it to 'How to avoid..', I'd be most grateful :-)

[Guest Liberty Bar - Seattle]

Great question.

I'll be looking at this thread and I hope that someone solves this issue, as it's an issue for me, too.

[Charles@AEppelTreow]

You need to know what the preciptate is. Wax/Oil. Some mineral 'salt'. Protein. Pectin.

There's probably not a generic answer to 'how much sugar is too much'. There may be a generic answer to the water question. Metal cations in the mineral water could be reacting with acids and esters in oils and dropping out.

[Denver Distiller]

Hi all:

I am trying out liqueur preparation using essential oils extracted from fruits, seeds, etc.

After dissolving the oils in ENA and adding clear sugar syrup and mineral water, the liqueur looks nice and clear for a few days. Then I notice a very fine powdery dispersion at the bottom of the bottle, which redissolves with some shaking.

Aside from decanting, is there something else I could do?

Is there an upper limit to the the concentration of sugar syrup that will guarantee NO precipitation in the alcohol/essectial oils/sugar/water mix at room temperature (say 20 deg C)?

As Charles stated, you need to find out what the precipitate is. Swap the mineral water for DM water, and have a look in a few days. If the precipitate doesn't form, you'll know what it is, and you'll know what to do.

Unless your sugar solution is improperly prepared, your sugar content won't have anything to do with precipitation. It's the rest of the materials in your liqueur that are of issue.

[Spirit of Texas Brad]

DesNaz,

Great topic, I've had some issues in this dept as well. Are you using only essential oils only or the nuts and seeds as well? I've found that water issues don't lead to precipitate but more to cloudiness. The best way i've found so far is decanting and filtering, but would love to improve on this.

[DesNaz]

Thanks much, Charles and DD :-)

I was planning to try that swap... will update when done...

I'm a little surprised to read that the sugar concentration will not impact precipitation. Anyway, will find out shortly!

I'm sure LB will weigh in as well with results from experiments!

Cheers!

[DesNaz]

Brad, only essential oil extracts...

[Charles@AEppelTreow]

The difference between cloudiness and ppt is just particle size. If it's cloudy, the particles are small enough that brownian motion keeps them suspended. At least short term. They may come out eventually. or with a temperature change.

And if you're only using only the oils, then I don't hink you'd have protein or pectin problems - but still wouldn't be surprised that some Mg or Ca 2+ salt was forming with the esters in the oils.

[DesNaz]

My experience is with fine precipitate at the bottom of the bottle, not cloudiness.

My experience of cloudiness is the kind of reaction of say, Cointreau, to ice cubes -- when the entire body of the liqueur turns cloudy (essential oils separating out all over at lower temperatures, I presume).

Thanks for pushing me to try out DM, Charles :-)

[Kristian]

Interesting posts, thanks for the subject. I have 2 liqueurs that I am using raw ingerdients for and I'm wondering if anyone out there is using plate filters and what micron is prefered? Say for fruit or spices etc. to remove sedimentation and not lose the flavor.

Thanks

[Denver Distiller]

I'm a little surprised to read that the sugar concentration will not impact precipitation. Anyway, will find out shortly!

I'm sure LB will weigh in as well with results from experiments!

Cheers!

Sugar helps to prevent precipitation, as it will give things like Ca and Mg something to hang on to. The only reason that I think that it may be salts is that you're using Mineral water rather than tap. Ordinarily, the sugar in a liqueur would prevent the formation of salts in your bottle. But if you're putting massive amounts of salt in the liqueur (mineral water will be loaded with them, obviously), once said salts hits the alcohol, you can get a precipitate.

Poorly made oil essences can lead to precipitates as well. But I'd start with the water.

[half pint]

Kristian:

We use a light filtration to take material out of our liqueurs (debris from nuts, fruit, herbs, etc). We also find chill filtering very reliable for keeping our liqueurs in good shape.

[FrEwing]

Interesting posts, thanks for the subject. I have 2 liqueurs that I am using raw ingerdients for and I'm wondering if anyone out there is using plate filters and what micron is prefered? Say for fruit or spices etc. to remove sedimentation and not lose the flavor.

Thanks

Hi. I've solved the pectin problem. The particle size analysis I had done revealed the smallest particle was 0.5 microns with soft fruit - cherry, plums, apricots etc. I would recommend that you filter slowly for the best results. Some one did discourage me from using a plate filter. Can't recall the why's - I think it was loss of product. If any one needs to have an particle size analysis done, the company that did the analysis for me is: Particle Technology Labs. See their contact info below. Very easy to work with. Hope this helps

I Have a different problem. In a Limoncello I make, I have oils preciptate out and accummalate on top of the product. Other than racking off the clear stuff, does any one have a solution to removing these oils?

FrEwing

Richard F. Karuhn: President

Particle Technology Labs

555 Rogers Street Downers Grove, IL 60515

Phone: 630.969.2703 Fax: 630.969.2745

www.particletechlabs.com

[Tirador]

Great topic ... and I'm interested in learning from other people's answers.

Having said that, you may be getting very small bits of plant material that are in the clumped together with a little essential oil. I've seen this with many of my various herbal products, a phenominon that is sometimes called the "sea monkey" effect with heavily herbed products like Absinthe ... and just like what you've described, it dissappears with a little shaking.

The two ways in which I and others have dealt with this are:

1) To age in glass and then decant the liquor/liquere.

2) To filter (usually with some sort of a paper filter ... but you need to be careful as you can strain out the essential oils and stuff that give you a lot of flavor and depending on your process, color).

Either that or you may be dealing with mineral salts from the mineral water, in which case switching to a filtered or distilled water should minimize this.

Also, if you determine that this is the "sea monkey effect" as opposed to minerals ... and you decant your product, try throwing the chunkey stuff in with the next batch as you'll get flavors from the oils and etc. in the sediment.

My two cents ...

S.

[Carlos]

Depending on what kind of extracts you are using (eg. commercial vs. "home made") you will have all sorts of things that would precipitate (as it was mentioned in one of the replies, waxes, pectins, etc). I would suggest trying filtration. That should take care of the problem, if not, you need more purified extracts.

[DesNaz]

Hi all:

Sorry for the long silence... I finally tried DM water and that appears to have solved the precipitation problem :-)

Thanks all, for the inputs...

[Guest Liberty Bar - Seattle]

Hi all:

Sorry for the long silence... I finally tried DM water and that appears to have solved the precipitation problem :-)

Thanks all, for the inputs...

Great topic.

I make my own liqueurs all the time via infusion by a base of a high-proof spirit (150%), and a precipitate always forms. I regularly will infuse all sorts of citrus rinds, fruits and such, and often after a few weeks in a bottle, the exact kind of precipitate will form at the bottom of the aging container - usually a bottle.

Now, what I'd love to hear is the difference between infusion and distillation. Does this happen through distillation? I would imagine that this precipitation would not form through infusion.

The issue here is that a different taste will form by infusion, and thus - since this thread is about making liquors - usually though infusion - I have to imagine that this issue has more to do with the combination of acids and proteins than natural participate in different kinds of water.

The bigger issue is the louching of anything that has the high-oil content. How I'd love to solve that issue!