After a recent conversation with classicman, I produced a batch of limoncello. It's fucking delicious. I loved it so much, I've made a second batch, and true to my standard MO, it's a double batch. Here's the recipe.
10 pounds of lemons
1.75 liter bottle of 195 proof Everclear
simple syrup to taste
water
******
I zested the lemons using a microplane. I put the file shaped microplane in a large steel bowl and carefully scraped the zest only, no pith (white material between yellow skin and juicy flesh of lemon) into the bowl. I love this microplane, it is absolutely sharp as fuck and will zest your fingerprints and knuckles with effortless ease. USE EXTREME CARE when dragging the fruit along the blade surface. We're not dealing with blood oranges here. After zesting all the lemons, it produced about 400 gm of zest. Reserve the now pale matte finish lemons for later juicing. I divided the zest into two equal portions and spooned each portion into a one liter wide mouth nalgene water bottle. I then topped off each bottle with the Everclear. It made two full nalgene bottles, meaning 875 mls of booze and 225 ish mls (by volume) of zest. Cap them tightly, put them on the shelf and walk away for a couple weeks. Actually, I shake the bottles when I think about them as I walk by in the kitchen, but really, you're just trying lemonize the booze.
I then halved all the lemons and juiced them using my electric juicer. What a labor-saver. My first batch I just squeezed the juice by hand, no more. This batch produced about 1.75 liters of well sieved juice, which is stored in the refrigerator for later combination with the lemonized booze. I strained the juice six or seven times. My first batch I tried running it through a coffee filter--bad idea, do not attempt. Just the fine mesh sieve is ok, scraping with the spoon as it drips into the funnel and into the bottle.
Now it is waiting time.
When it comes together, I'll prepare a liter or two or more of simple syrup. That's easy, take a saucepan, boil some water and stir in spoonsful of sugar until no more sugar can be dissolved. Let it cool, store in a capped bottle in the refrigerator. After a couple weeks, if my patience holds out that long, I'll strain the zest out of the booze. The booze will be water clear and bright yellow, like ... well like a clear bright yellow liquid that is appetizing. I'll add the lemon juice to it and it won't be clear anymore, but it will still be quite yellow, like the yolk of a hard boiled egg.
Now is the taste testing phase. It's only got 195 proof booze cut with almost half a gallon of straight lemon juice. That will pickle your pucker for sure. I'll add sugar until the tartness is drinkable, albeit STRONG LEMON. Not to mention still quite high proof. Add water until the strength is acceptable. I like to keep mine very strong because I like to have it on the rocks. The melting ice naturally dilutes the whole drink, so starting strong is good.
I expect I'll wind up with 4 to 5 liters of product.
Here are some pictures of the first batch. The second batch was all business, no camera time, sorry.
Only two three pound bags of lemons this batch. And a very fine grater by microplane.
Close up of the fineness of the zest.
How much zest six pounds of lemons produces.
What the shorn lemons look like. They remind me of newly-shorn sheep.