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Infusion and maceration

Alcohols ability to draw out flavoursome substances from herbs and spices by infusion and then preserve those flavours has been used since the Middle Ages...
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Falih Junio Rahman’s Avatar Falih Junio Rahman
8th November 2023 at 13:57
So what is the definition of maceration? and the example
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Simon Difford’s Avatar Simon Difford
20th November 2023 at 16:10
Maceration is an infusion where the botanicals are broken up by grinding, crushing or chopping. e.g. cinnamon powder versus whole cinnamon quills.
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Nikola Djordjevic’s Avatar Nikola Djordjevic
26th May 2020 at 00:36
How many hours are recommended to stay in alcohol for basil, apple, mint, lavender...
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Arild Anda’s Avatar Arild Anda
5th January 2021 at 11:39
I use an excellent Danish site for reference. It is unfortunately only in Danish and probably not updated anymore, but you could use Google Translate and ctrl+F-search (cmd+F on a Mac) using the latin name of the plants you seek as search terms.

http://www.engelund.dk/de-gode-sider_mad-og-drikke/snapseurter/
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Simon Difford’s Avatar Simon Difford
26th May 2020 at 07:42
It is not as simple as a list of herbs and fruits and corresponding times as temperature, alcohol strength, ripeness and hard/softness of what you’re infusing all influence the perfect infusion time. Best to taste after 12 hours and then assess every 12 to 24 hours for up to 5 days, (although if something with you know infuses easily (e.g. tea leaves) then think minutes rather than hours. Over infusion can extract unwanted bitterness. It literally is a case of “suck it and see.”
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