PEACH BRANDY STARTED TODAY!! :)

TODAY IS THE DAY!!...I'm starting my Peach Brandy today!!...28 days from now, I'll have some yummy goodness for Christmas gifts!!...gotta find some nice bottles for this and the Kahlua, too!
(See?! I'm not ALL mascara and makeup!) :)

PEACH BRANDY

2 GALLONS + 3 QUARTS WATER (44 cups)
3QTS PEACHES, EXTREMELY RIPE PLUS SEEDS (I'm using 18 large peaches)
3 LEMONS CUT IN SLICE
2 SMALL PKGS. YEAST
10LBS SUGAR
4 LBS. DARK RAISINS
Place peaches and seeds, lemons and sugar in crock.
Dissolve yeast in water (must not be too hot). Stir thoroughly.
stir daily for 7 days.
keep crock or vessel covered with cheesecloth
On the 7th day, add the raisins and stir.
Let mixture sit UNTOUCHED for 21 days, then strain through cheesecloth three times, then bottle or jar it.

*Notes: I'm going to dissolve the sugar in the water, dissolve the yeast in some warm water then add to the sugar water, then I'll add the peaches/seeds (sliced) and lemon slices. It will be much easier to stir that way. I'm using a 5 gallon, #2, food grade bucket, covered with flour sack cloth and a bungee cord to keep it on tight, but still easy to open to stir. I'll keep you posted! (Big THANK YOU! Goes to my friend Dianna for the recipe!)

Added 40 cups of water warm (not hot!) water to a 5 gallon, #2 food grade bucket...I saved 4 cups to dissolve the yeast...I have a 4 cup measuring cup, so it went pretty quick...so it's 44 cups total...

Added two packets of yeast to 4 cups of warm (not hot!) water, let it sit while I sliced the lemons, then stirred to dissolve completely...

Added 10 pounds of sugar to the bucket of water and stirred until it was dissolved completely...

Got three pretty good sized lemons to use...

Sliced lemons and added to the bucket with the sugar and yeast...the water isn't really brown...just the lighting I guess... LOL!

Went and got my peaches, which have been ripening for a week, sitting on and draped with flour sack cloth...worked like a charm by the way, these peaches were hard as a rock last weekend...

Cut the peaches off the seeds, right into the bucket, so no mess to clean up...as you can see, the peaches are very ripe from using the little trick I found...I'm curious if this would work with pears, too...

All stirred up...you can see that I have plenty of room left in this bucket...so this was a perfect choice over a crock...which are quite expensive, if you don't have one...

A little better angle on how full the bucket is now that everything has been added and stirred well...

Covered with the flour sack cloth and secured tightly with a bungee cord...we don't want to cover it tightly, due to the gases it will produce (My son Travis says "It's going to stink!" LOL!), but we don't want any unwanted visitors getting in there...and still need to be able to open it easily for our daily stir...we'll add 4 pounds of dark raisins next Sunday and then let it do it's magic for the next 21 days...gives me plenty of time to get some pretty bottles for gifting! :)

Day 2...it smells like lemony beer! :)

Day 7, before and after stirring...still smells like beer, LOL! This is the last day of stirring...tomorrow, we add the raisins...then we'll let it rest and do it's magic for 21 days! I can't wait!!

Day 8! Raisins go in today! That's a LOT of raisins!

This will give you an idea how many raisins are going into the mix.

Raisins are in!

Raisins are in, of course they sunk to the bottom. Now...we wait, 21 days for them to work their magic! I can't wait!!

Here's what it looked like when finished and bottled. It's pretty good for a first try. :)