Has anyone else noticed the appearance of a fine, whitish matter in the bottle of limoncello while the peels are steeping? It tends to float to the top of the bottle. Reminds me a little of the white cloudy stuff that appears when you're pickling lemons, which is bits of dissolved white pith. This has made me suspect that I was using my Microplane grater too enthusiastically, so that tiny fragments of pith made it into the mix. As for the variety of lemon used for limoncello in Sicily, Lance Walheim of Citrus Specialties in Exeter, Calif. says he expects to pick between 1,000 and 2,000 pounds of Femminello St. Teresa lemons in February and March. The variety is quite new in California and most of the crop is already bespoken by San Francisco area restaurateurs. I have drawn Walheims' attention to bballinger's note -- backed up by a site in Spanish, http://www.pasqualinonet.com.ar/el_limoncello.htm -- that Femminello is picked underripe for limoncello purposes. Lemons are typically picked underripe in California anyway, but Walheim had been planning to pick Femminello fully ripe because its flavor is better. However, he concedes that the oils of the peel might be better when the fruit is underripe, and he will look into this when he goes to Sicily this fall.
