03-VIII-2017.
The last batch of apricot for this year, tenth. Counting the one with a bit of pear (which we may keep separately or throw in, we'll see when we degustate it), about 70 liters; with other stuff (cherry and tutifruti) just slightly above 100. The kettle is cleaner than ever.
It's still unbearably hot during the day; we rarely turn the AC off. To make rakija, we leave home about 17:00 or later. This time we ordered pljeske (pretty much like burgers, except it's real meat and guaranteed 120-150-200-250 g of it; we take the 200, I think) and picked them up along the way. The ladies in the kiosk are in state of permanent heat exhaustion, grilling these things on charcoal. This time we took no cabbage, just urnebes (a mix of young cheese and ground hot red pepper, plus perhaps a few other ingredients) and chopped onions - we'll pick a tomato when we get there.
The fuel for the still is two things: the supply of corn cobs we inherited with the house, covered by a rickety lean-to of old logs and sheets of sheet metal (mostly flattened out barrels and various frames with sheet mettal filling - doors or lids), and the old wood. The latter being abundant - the sun-dried planks from the old eave (which was replaced last summer) and the odd bits thrown away by masons*, then various poles and planks from old fences and doors in them (the old man seemed to want every piece of land fenced in, and every sagging roof propped by a pole), and then at least a dozen trees which died and had to be cut over these seven years. More to add - a couple of weeks ago I finally chopped of the fallen cherry, which grew from a side root of a dead cherry, elbowing up but not growing strong enough other roots, so when soil was soaked with torrential rains in 2014 it just fell to a side and kept living in that position. And if I ever get the time I should saw off all those accacias which are growing like crazy everywhere. Most of them I just mow off while young, but some manage to sneak out.
The first alcohol which drips is methanol, so it should be thrown away. We divert about 250ml into an old cracked beer stein, and then I dip the cobs into it and throw them into the fire. It does give a decent energy boost to the flames (not much lighter, the methanol flames are thin and bluish). Sometimes there's a distinct burst of rakija after such a boost, almost a tiny flood, which peters out in a few seconds.
The fire for the still has to be light in both senses - lots of flame, but no heavy pieces with lots of embers (find "žeravica" in the dictionaries). I keep the bottom grate visible whenever I can; any restriction in the air flow slows the process.
The methanol comes at density of 65-70%, ethanol (the potable alcohol) comes at around 62-65%; the transition is not precise, we eyeball it. We run it until he average density in the pot reaches around 50%, which is usually when the incoming from the pipe is at about 30%. The dynamics varies - sometimes it runs strong for quite a while, then rapidly drops from 50% downwards, sometimes the opposite. At that point we cut, i.e. what we got so far is The Rakija, and the rest below 30% we capture (in a plastic bottle, which we never, really never, use for brandy itself), and throw it into the next batch to be redistilled.
The floor is lava
The leftovers, aka cevarika, we dump at various places, as it's a very good fertilizer. I try to keep these places near, as I need to carry a bucketful of hot stuff (boiling, but around 80°, that's the boiling temperature for the remaining alcohol) and dump it. This is under one of the younger apricots, which bore fruit like never before, and then died the next year. The next year I showed this photo captioned as „floor is lava“.
It's so hot that the cats are just spread on the floor of the terrace, or huddled to the treshhold of our door, where the concrete is somewhat cooler from our AC. Even the hedgehogs don't wait for the night to come to drink and eat, the heat is just too much.
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* this assortment of odd cutoff pieces of planks, slats and whatnot is called paprikaš (like gulaš but with potatoes and sometimes dumplings in), which seemed funny to me when I first heard it, but so it is
Mentions: 13-X-2014., Blackmailed by the google, pljeska, rakija, tutifruti, in serbian
20-X-2017 - 13-IX-2024