Grapefruit!

     This week, I decided to take care of some of the grapefruit on my (overabundant) tree. So, with the help of my sister, I climbed up there, and filled a laundry hamper with grapefruit. Then, I promptly ran out of time for the day. Oops.
     The next day, I found an hour to myself, during which I juiced all of the grapefruit, and gathered two and a half gallons of juice, which you can see in the picture on the right. (sorry about the bad pictures, one of these days I'll get a camera, and dazzle you all.) Then I added the rest of the ingredients to the jug. Here's the recipe, for those of you playing along at home:

2.5 Gallons of grapefruit juice


4 pounds of cane sugar


1 cup fructose


1/8 cup grapefruit zest


     The only tricky ingredient is the fructose, which I got at Henry's market. Basically, it's fruit sugar, which I was using to make up for the extra sour fruit. I shook it all up, and tied a rag over the mouth of the jug to keep bugs out.
     Now, let me warn you all, this is an experiment! I didn't really follow a particular recipe. As it turns out, grapefruit wine recipes range from "use a hydrometer to gauge the acidity, aiming for a relative gravity of 1.25" to "mix juice and sugar in a jug, wait till it's wine and enjoy." As a simpler kinda guy, I'm going with a jug of juice and sugar.
     According to my dad, his dad used to make the best damn wine, and if I am to get this to work, I am going to need some raisins. Apparently, raisins help kick over the fermentation process and get the wine really liquoring up. I'll be adding those as soon as I can get some, about a handful.

    So, that's the latest adventure in kitchening here, I'll keep updating about this as it goes onward, And letting you all know if it turns into wine, or just a big fat jug of bad smells.

     Also, for those of you with a sweet-tooth, I took a bunch of the peels of the grapefruit and candied them! I peeled them with a vegetable peeler, boiled them four times in fresh water, to rinse out all of the bitterness, then boiled them a fifth time, with about two cups of sugar on them. I let them boil ligthely like that for about two hours, then put them on a hard boil to thicken up the sugar syrup. After it started to get pretty thick, i laed the peels out on a lined baking sheet, ad let them cool before shaking them up in sugar. Apparently, by the way, shaking them up in sugar was a bad idea. They're a bit too sweet for just about everyone, but the flavor is fantastic!
So, that's what I've been up to this past week, What about you? what sort of experiments have you done in your kitchens? Let me know in the comments, I'd love to hear from you!