It has officially been 90 days (yesterday) since I have started this project. Since my last post till yesterday, I have taken my jars of maesil out and have stirred them occasionally (more like when I remembered to) so that all the sugars would melt . I have also left them out over night to help with the sugar melting process. And yes, I have taken some taste tests along the way and boy did it smell and taste good. My batch is sweet and tangy.
So what we (my mom and I) did during the day was first, we tried to mix all the batches in so that we could have one uniform taste. One jar was slightly sweeter and / or tangier than the other so we mixed it. Second, we tried to strain out all the little particles that have formed or was part of the maesil and also the maesil itself. With your shriveled up maesil, you can do whatever your feel like with them (see next steps for your options). Lastly, jar the extract.
From what was left after numerous taste tasting was 4.5 jars left. From there, the liquid alone (which is your maesil extract) ended up being 3.75 jars (what I mean by jars are those 1 gallon-ish kimchi glass jars).
Next Steps:
1. Refrigerate your extract and use whenever you need it (in my previous post, I mentioned waiting 6 months, but my mom said that it doesn’t matter, but for sake of the project, I plan on hiding one jar for 6 months)…
- Option 1: mix some extract with cold water and have an iced drink (your preference on the ratio),
- Option 2: mix some extract with hot water and have a hot drink (your preference on the ratio),
- Option 3: just eat a spoonful to help with your stomachache.
2. What to do with your maesil that you strained out from your extract…
- Option 1: store it in the frig. and consume when you have an upset stomach,
- Option 2: store it in the frig. and boil them to make hot maesil tea (another way of using maesil as a drink),
- Option 3: make plum wine (I wasn’t thinking and used it all for plum wine, I ended up with 3 batches of what will be plum wine made with the maesil and soju, and maesil and vodka, again, the ratio of liquor to maesil was my preference so no rules here, I filled the maesil about 1/3-1/2 way in a jar and added soju / vodka until the jar was 2/3-3/4 full).
- Option 4: use it for cooking (make a side dish, add it to a dish to bring out the flavor, etc)
3. Either way, I am going to save up all the seeds and make a small pillow out of it. I heard that it’s good for people who get hot easily when sleeping.
More Stuff Learned (from Customers, Experimenters, and the Project Itself):
1. The maeil without any imperfections on them will have shriveled up. The maeils that had tears on them, some of them bloated up to the 1.5 sizes of the original size. It’s kinda cute.
2. The thing about brown sugar from my previous post, one of the employees used brown sugar and constantly mentioned that her batch smelled and tasted like alcohol. But after awhile, or to get rid of that, give it some love. Every week or when you remember, stir you batch to air it and this will help to get rid of the alcohol scent.
3. For future reference, I don’t mind implementing the 1 scoop to 1 scoop rule (sugar to maesil ratio). The batch can be tangy. When my mom and I spilt the original batch into 5 different jars, one had more sugar in it and that one was really good.
4. The issue about the mold, who cares said the customer who sparked my whole curiosity on this project. Apparently the mold will eventually trickle down when you continuously stir the batch throughout your 90 days period. The mold DOES NOT AFFECT the taste. One of the 5 different jars, is the one that my mom and I washed and removed the molds from the maesil and filled up the 5th jar with that. Of course we couldn’t get all the mold, and yes, mold did form again since we didn’t refrigerate that one right away; BUT, this one tasted just as good as the other ones and I didn’t catch the “this has gone bad” feeling / taste at all.
During one of them times I took out the batch to stir. Notice the sugar at the bottom, it hasn’t melted yet.
**Sorry, I wasn’t thinking and forgot to take pictures today. I promise to take pictures tomorrow of the end product will upload when I get a chance.**
Woory Market 