By Greg B. After waiting weeks for the alcohol & lemon rind mixture to finish transferring the delicious flavor and odor of lemon to the alcohol (not to mention the color), I decided it was time to bottle.  And this meant filtering and making the right dilution of sugar water to the alcohol mixture. (Find how to start making limoncello here!).

The first thing you will want to do, in order to decide it is time to remove the lemon rind and mix with sugar, is to look at the rind.  If the rind has gone from yellow to a pale yellow/white color, then most of the color and odor has moved into the alcohol and it is time to strain.

The transfer of color and flavor is complete!

To strain, I used one colander to get most of the large pieces of rind out, then re-strained this with a double colander with coffee filter paper between the two, to remove any fine particles.

White lemon rinds, a sign this is ready to bottle.

In the meantime, I heated 7 cups of water and added 5 1/2 cups of granulated sugar to this.  Some recipes online call for a 1:1 or even sometimes more sugar than water solution, but these recipes tended also to use two bottles of 190 proof alcohol, and I used the vodka-grain combo, so I opted to use less sugar.  Heat and stir until everything goes into solution and the liquid is clear.  There is no need to boil this, just warm it up to help the sugar go into solution.  Then let this sit until it reaches room temperature.

Simple: Sugar and water.

Once you have both of these solutions, stand back a second and think.  Do you want the limoncello to be sweeter?  Do you want more of a kick from the alcohol?  Really your dilution is up to you.  I added as much of my sugar water solution to the gallon jug that held the lemon/alcohol mixture, as to bring it to a total volume of 1 gallon.  It tasted delicious right here, so I saw no need to go any further!

Adding the first cup of sugar water...

When you are adding the sugar to this alcohol/lemon liquid, you will notice something.  The liquids will go from clear to a cloudy, yellow color.  This is indicative of the end result of limoncello, and is really the effect you want!

See the transition?  It’s pretty neat actually, and despite being a scientist, I don’t fully know why this occurs.  Though I can use smart sounding words to make you think I know what is happening!  As you combine these liquids, you will note the level of flocculation will rapidly increase.  The induction of this turbidity is paramount to a good limoncello.

Note how cloudy this becomes!

Once this is done, I like to line everything up and see how many corks I will need.  I used size 7, 1 3/4″ corks to bottle the small and large bottles (though I think the larger bottles take size 9… opps!  I don’t know if this will oxidize as badly as wine would… but I’ll let you know!).  Boil the corks for 10-15 minutes, then let cool about a minute and start corking away.  Don’t forget to leave space in the bottle for the cork!

Once done, remember to let these stand at least 3 days upright, to let the corks dry and form a nice seal on the glass.  After this, you can store these bottles in the freezer for your own personal use, jazz them up as holiday gifts, or store then in a box in the closet for a time when they are needed (pretty sure that’s where these are going).  And that’s all it takes to make limoncello!  I’ll keep you all posted as I experiment with different recipes, in search of the best method of making homemade limoncello.  Goodluck!

All bottles, corked and in formation.