Chinotto

[Laripu]

Have any of you tried the fizzy Italian soft drink chinotto? If you have, what do you think of it?
My favourite is Brio, a Canadian brand, but others are good too.

[crafty john]

What's a soft drink, I only drink beer Seriously though I would love to get some American soda's over here but I have never seen them in the shops.

[Manx Guy]

Sure,
I quite like it but don't drink it often...
The only brand I have seen is San pelligrino in the uk.
I did see another one in Australia, but i dont recall what it was...

When it comes to non beery drinks I prefer water coffee or ginger beer...
Guy

[Laripu]

What's a soft drink, I only drink beer Seriously though I would love to get some American soda's over here but I have never seen them in the shops.

I find American sodas far too sweet for my taste, like drinking diabetes. Hence my interest in chinotto and kvass.

[Laripu]

This weekend, I brewed up something with sour oranges (i.e. Seville oranges), and lots of spices. I'll let you know about the recipe and how it works out. It will have low levels of alcohol, like 1 to 2%.

I'd have preferred Chinotto oranges, but you can't get those around here.

[Manx Guy]

Hi Lari
Sounds good, I would be interested to hear how it turns out...



Guy

[Laripu]

For 11 litres. Read the next post for further instructions.
4 litres of water
1 2-litre bottle of regular tonic water (with quinine, not[/] the sugar-free kind)
5 gm whole coriander seed, (about 1 tbsp)
2 gm whole cloves (about 1 tsp)
8 gm ground cinnamon (cassia)
11 gm ground nutmeg
20 gm whole caraway, (1 tbsp)
8 gm whole Fennel seeds (about 1 tbsp)
1 gm star anise (a few bits of one)
8 gm aniseed
2 gm cardamom seeds, whole (3 black, 3 green)
35 gm mixed dried orange and lemon peel (optional...it was lying around, so I used it up)
8 sour oranges or Seville oranges, chopped fine, or shredded in a food processor.
Boil spices for 20 minutes, add oranges and boil very lightly for a further 10 minutes.
Ferment ideally with wine yeast for 2 weeks. The second week is to let the yeast break down the peel a bit more.

[Laripu]

At the end of primary, you won't be able to siphon this: too much solid matter. Prepare two straining bags, coarse on the inside, and fine mesh on the outside. Put them in a pot that can hold at least 8 litres. Pour the fermented liquid and solids into the bag/pot. Raise the bag and give it a good squeeze...a manly squeeze...squeeze the 4ck out of it, got it? (You did remember to wash your hands, didn't you? )

(Reserve the dregs. My wife added some cranberries and sugar and made 9 jars of excellent marmalade with the dregs, all before I woke up this morning. )

Now pour that through a sanitized funnel into a sanitized 11 litre carboy. (or siphon...but I wasn't worrying about oxidation because there's plenty of vitamin C in this drink.)

Add pectic enzyme, and prepare gelatin and add that too. Top up with boiled, cooled water. Let it sit another two weeks to clear a bit.

Bottling will be done in plastic bottles, because the feel of the plastic will tell you when the drink is carbonated. Before adding sugar this is a very bitter drink. So the sugar added is to both sweeten and to carbonate. The bottles must be refrigerated as soon as they're carbonated, so they don't blow up.

Continued next post.

[Laripu]

Siphon into a bottling bucket. Add at least 300 gm white sugar, or more to taste. I like bitter drinks, so I'm adding 300 gm. (Boil the sugar up with some water...but you know that, right?)

Bottle in plastic bottles. Leave them at room temperature for a day or two or three. Refrigerate when they get hard...they're carbonated.

This won't be chinotto, but it will be a bitter/sweet orange drink with less than 2% abv.

In a couple of weeks, my batch will be ready, and I'll report back on what it tastes like then.

[Pinto]

Went out this evening and bought a majority of these ingredients damn you, Lari !

Im going to nip into the local greengrocers and see if they can obtain some chinnotto oranges tho - if not, it'll be sevilles. Been wanting to try a low alcohol bev recipie for a while and this sounds ideal

[Laripu]

Went out this evening and bought a majority of these ingredients damn you, Lari !

Obviously I'm a man of trans-Atlantic influence.

I look forward to comparing tasting notes with you.

[Pinto]

No probs will be an interesting project.

I've also found that the local supermarket supplies tins of seville oranges for marmalade making - 2 tins being equivilent to 8 normal sized oranges.

At what point do you add the tonic water ? do you use it in the boil ?

[Laripu]

No probs will be an interesting project.

I've also found that the local supermarket supplies tins of seville oranges for marmalade making - 2 tins being equivilent to 8 normal sized oranges.

At what point do you add the tonic water ? do you use it in the boil ?

Yes, tonic water in the boil. It's just for a source of quinine, which real chinotto has.

Edit to add: if you're using something tinned, maybe you need to add a bit of orange juice, say half a litre to compensate. I dunno, I'm just guessing here. You're a homebrewer, you'll figure something out.

[Laripu]

I bottled today, 11 litres of a bitter orange drink that isn't chinotto, but may be close kin - therefore I'm calling it "Kin". (See what I did there? )

It will carbonate in these plastic bottles, and in 2 maybe 3 days it will go in the fridge to stop bottle re-fermentation.

There was, perhaps, 200 ml more than the 11 litres I bottled. The difference is due to the added priming solution. The overage went into a glass and I got to try it. It's pretty bitter at this point and the 300 gm of sugar I added just barely balances that. Perhaps 350 or 400 gm would have been better. Once it has carbonated, it should mellow a bit, and I'll know more then. Even if it doesn't mellow, it's a nice bitter drink and I expect to enjoy it. It's an adult soft drink, not kiddie-pop, so it doesn't need huge sweetness.

[Laripu]

Ok, I've tasted it. There's no mistaking it: it's bitter orange. There's no appreciable alcohol, which is a it should be. There is, perhaps, 1%. Spices are evident, but so blended a to be indistinct. The dominant flavour is the bitter orange. As I found when I bottled, it could use a touch more sugar to balance the bitter. Next time, I'll use 400 gm instead of 300. The final arbiter of that will be SWMBO, who comes home from a week in Canada tomorrow night.

Its not chinotto, but it's a good bitter drink.

On the whole, I'm glad I did this, and I'll do it again.