Making your own grenadine

[bostonapothecary]

I just picked up a bottle of Sadaf (read: Persian) pomegranate concentrate - it's just the juice at 8x the strength. It says to dilute it 7:1 water:concentrate. I did that, and it tastes just like eating a pomegrante, tart, astringent, and not very sweet. (So, authentic, anyway!)

How would I turn this into a syrup? I have some 2:1 simple, would it be 7 parts of that to 1 of the concentrate?

the concentrate probably has 800g/l of sugar which is the big guideline for how most of those are concentrated. i make my simple syrup and grenadines at 400g/l so you can just cut it in half with water to get there. now that you have a normal syrup sugar content you still probably have more than usual dissolved aroma. it will either be a cool effect on a drink or if you want a more elegant syrup, you can just dilute it to taste with simple syrup. when i explored freeze concentrating pomegranite juice to make grenadine, i found i could easily over concentrate the aroma.

[Hassouni]

It actually has less than half that sugar in it (394g per litre, or 140g in 355ml), and on its own it has the consistency of a VERY weak syrup, very liquid and runny. It also is not sweet-tasting at all. I've made my last few syrups at 2:1 sugar:water by weight, which results in a VERY thick, and presumably VERY shelf-stable syrup.

I made a test run in a very small jar, just a few ounces - 2 parts concentrate to 7 parts of my 2:1 SS, a dash of orange flower water, and a half teaspoon of pomegranate molasses (Cortas brand, dibis rumman in Arabic) with a little water to thin it out just a tiny bit. Tastes delicious. I need to use it in a cocktail and see what happens.

[weinoo]

I just like to shake the shit out of Pom & sugar. Then add the orange blossom water. With fresh juice, I'd give the JM method a try.

[Hassouni]

Mitch, my last batch was Pom & sugar with the shit shaken out of it. It tasted like slightly thicker, slightly sweeter juice, and didn't have a lot of sweetening or tart-ening power in a cocktail. Mind you, this was at 1:1 sugar to juice ratio. (btw, when people refer to 1:1 or 2:1 do they mean in terms of weight or the imprecise volume measurement? I do all mine by weight)

Sadaf makes a bottled juice NOT from concentrate - I was considering trying that too, and may still yet.

[Hassouni]

Just picked up some Sadaf juice from the Persian grocery - damn is it good stuff! Seriously the closest bottled product I've had to actually eating a pomegranate. I'll be trying variations on Morgenthaler's and Sam's methods

[Hassouni]

My usual procedure is something like this: First I'll make a 1:1 sweetened pomegranate juice with 1 cup each of sugar and juice, which goes into the refrigerator to chill; then I'll reduce down 5-6 cups of pomegranate juice to 1 cup; then I'll put in a touch of gum arabic; then I'll melt in 4 cups of sugar; then I'll set that aside to cool a bit; as the hot product cools and thickens, I'll start to mix in the chilled sweetened pomegranate juice little by little just in the minimum amounts required to prevent the cooked mixture from solidifying as it cools; I try to hold back around half of the chilled mixture until after the cooked mixture has come to room temperature, then I mix in the remainder of the chilled mixture; after this I add orange flower water and vanilla extract to taste; then I decant the grenadine into washed bottles that I have rinsed out with high proof alcohol and, for the bottles I don't plan to use right away, I float around a half-inch of vodka on top of the syrup (it stays stratified until you shake up the bottle due to the thickness of the syrup).

Just made this using the Sadaf juice and the Sadaf concentrate. I didn't have nearly enough non-molasses-y sugar for 4:1 on the concentrate, but the final product is still ULTRA thick and viscous. Despite the presence of the juice (as opposed to my previous version with just concentrate), it tastes a lot more cooked and lacking in that bright flavor.

I made two Bacardi Cocktails daiquiris with grenadine instead of sugar/syrup ( ), one with each of the grenadines I made. With the lime, Sam's grenadine is more balanced. to keep the 2:1 by volume sugar ratio my next batch might be 2:2 juice:sugar mixed with 1:4 concentrate:sugar, for a total of 3 parts pomegranate and 6 parts sugar, and to give a bit more of that fresh juice taste.

This is purely aesthetic, but it gives drinks a sort of dull pinkish hue, almost like the color of pink grapefruit juice. Short of commercial synthetic dye, what's a good way to get it more reddish, to really give a rose color, to say, a Jack Rose?

Edited April 30, 2013 by Hassouni (log)

[Hassouni]

Holy crap. Sam, your method (with a bit less sugar) after refrigeration yielded a syrup almost as thick as jam. Does yours get like that when you make it?

[slkinsey]

It's pretty thick at refrigerator temperature, yea. But you can always thin it out with some additional pomegranate juice until you get the consistency you want. If you look at my formula, it contains 5 cups of sugar and 2 cups of liquid (one fresh, one reduced). This should be thick but pourable at refrigerator temperature. If you add another 1/2 cup of pomegranate juice, you should have the equivalent of a 2:1 syrup.

[Hassouni]

Mine is in a small mustard jar (since I'm just experimenting) but I topped it up with juice, and it seems to be the consistency I want. Haven't tried this doctored version in a cocktail yet though.

[thesun]

First time poster here, thank you for reading:  I've recently become a convert to making homemade grenadine, with pomegranate juice and sugar.  It's tasty, but a bit time consuming and I'd like to add some vodka as a preservative.  Ideally, I'll add the minimum required to retard/eliminate spoilage.  Can anyone tell me how much vodka would be needed to preserve 1 cupful of grenadine?  It starts out as 2 cups pomegranate juice and 1/2 cup sugar, then reduces by about a half.  So it's pretty sugary.  Just not enough (I suspect) to keep indefinitely. 

Thank you!!!! 

[blue_dolphin]

Welcome to eGullet, @thesun

You might want to check out this thread:  Making your own grenadine where people report using 1-2oz of high proof vodka or Everclear in a recipe that yields ~ 8oz of homemade grenadine.

 

[thesun]

Hi, I made my first batch of grenadine a few months ago and will never go back.  It was very simple:  1 cup juice, 1/4th cup sugar, reduced to 1/2cup, and bottle.  No lemon, no rose water, no vanilla.  Planning to try those soon.

But I am someone who will have a week of drinking XYZ and then a week or two of drinking something else, and I'd like to KNOW that my grenadine will be refrigerator stable for at least a few months.  Can anyone tell me how much vodka or Everclear I should add to be certain that I'm going to kill lingering bacteria?  I know it will be sweet, and I will probably make it even sweeter using some of these above recipes.  But I like knowing that the alcohol is going to kill anything that might try to grow.  If I have 8oz of liquid, will 1oz be enough?

Ideally I'd like to know the biological or chemical ratio, something that will apply for non-grenadine liquids as well.  Bitters, extracts, etc. 

I also posted this elsewhere, apologies, before finding this thread -- seems like this will be a good place to find experts.  :-) 

Thanks so much for any and all help!!!