Home Distiller

I've made both. And although the brandy has less apple profile, I would never blend it with applejack. The brandy is refined, delicate, and simply a better product.

FWIW I make the brandy from one spirit run, charging the still with apple jack.

I also got apples for the first time in a few years so there are 30 gallons of cider bubbling away right now

Over the summer I was cleaning out my low wine / feints stash, and found some apple jack that has been sitting for at least a year. So I ran it and put it on used oak and at a lower proof of 112. Much better result already only after a few months. I think aging the apple jack did a lot. I noticed th...

Thanks Cranky. It was about 3 or 4 months ago since I last sampled it and was so unimpressed I just put it to the side. I bought it out again tonight, and tried another sample and the tannin has dropped a lot, and the toffee apple is now much more pronounced. I'm thinking this may just be a natural ...

Another failed harvest means I don't have any cider to jack for 2 years running. I made 10 gallons of apple wine from store bought juice, but I added a bit of molasses for fun, and it tasted so good that I'm drinking the wash haha! My 2 year old brandy made a bad turn because I made a mistake. I am ...

We have a butt load of sunchokes to dig out of the ground this spring when the ground thaws. If you chop them up and boil them for 45 mins to an hour with an acid, the sugars break down into fermentables. I did this the other year to make sunchoke mash for eating using vinegar and it was rather too ...

OK my apple brandy has been ageing 2 years and I made a mistake. I aged on wood at 63% and it has imparted a distinct tannic influence on the brandy which I do not personally like.

I wish I had proofed it down to 55.

I've had success with adding kelp meal to the spirit run, and blending the result back into the main batch.

I've already noticed a change. I had to remove some of the fortified wine so I could add sugar syrup (port is sweetened).
There are some beneficial reactions going on, and the sugar helps a lot in offsetting the residual astringency.

I found that time doesn't reduce the astringency all that much. Even after 2 years it was still hard on the taste buds. I'm guessed the astringency was from polyphenols, so I fined it with gelatin. The wine went from crystal clear to chunky immediately. I waited a few days for the sediment to drop o...

I'm sitting in the shade during a heat wave and have discovered that this is pretty darn good on ice. Must be the heat (stroke)

OK it's been a few months and the molasses character is starting to assert itself. The rum is getting "bigger" and as a result, the lime is not quite as dominant as it was. Certainly a good mixer, and in another 6 months it could be a decent drink once proofed down. The strongest lime cuts...

Crème de cassis is dark red in colour and legislation says that the liqueur must have at least 400g of sugar per litre and have a minimum alcoholic content of 15%. The best brands will include 600g of fruit per litre and you can tell the quality by performing a couple of tests. If you tip the bottle...

Thanks everyone.

Blackcurrants are not all that pleasant to eat raw because of the strong medicinal / terpene flavors. But when they are cooked their wonderful flavor and deep color comes out.

It appears that raw berries are used in this process which is a surprise.

This is a classic liqueur made from black currants.

Does anyone here make it? Any tips?

I have a bunch of frozen berries and I'm not sure how to proceed.

I was following a recipe that called for lime or lemon juice. So I thought I'd throw the entire lime and some extra peelings for good measure.

Hmm thanks for the tips. I blended cuts tonight and it appears the worst of it is in a large hearts cut. I took a portion of it out and proofed it down from 120 to 50 using coconut water and I think it might turn out ok once things settle down. My main collection still has lime but not nearly as str...

I think I did something dumb. I added lime juice to my wash and also added the peel.

After stripped it and just finished the spirit run. It is intense lime. I'm hoping it fades with time but I don't know.

Anyone done this before and can shed some light on the future of this batch?

I took some new make at around 120 and proofed it down to 50 proof using coconut water tat I strained through a coffee filter.
After about 6 months, it had taken on a light golden color and tasted great.

I made a small fire box and connected an aquarium air pump to it to feed the smouldering peat and bubbled the smoke through my new make. It worked really well and I used a small amount of peat. Someone mentioned carcinogens in the smoke. They are in the finished tradtitional product as well as BBQ s...

BTW I have some rye in my recipe and I'm using a pot still

Just did my first spirit run of corn liquor similar to the op recipe. Big difference compared to malt whiskey. First off the stripping runs tasted terrible. So bad they sat there for about 9 months because it just tasted like corn silage and wet dog. Imagine my surprise when I went to sample my cuts...

Yes , I do quite a bit of jacking. In the first few cycles the wine tends to freeze solid if it gets too cold and it's hard to handle.

After a few cycles the alcohol goes up and the ice forms shards and large flakes which make separation and general handling much easier.

The second cycle begins. Things are much clearer, and the ice crystals have formed nice large flakes:

OK the second batch has slowly made its way into the strainer phew! 20201203_165618.jpg This is what the first cycle liquid looks like. It's hard to tell here but it's an intense yellow color compared to what I'm used to. Almost like antifreeze lol! 20201203_170145.jpg BTW, that is an ice cap you se...

From my first pail of mush, it looks like I got half a pail of liquid which is reasonably close to the amount of volume I would expect from pressing. There is quite a bit of ice in with the pulp if you look carefully, and when I tasted it, it was pretty close to plain frozen water. I'm hoping the se...

Usually I transfer the material when it is partially frozen, but I ran into an issue with this one because it's a solid block. These 5 gallon pails are tapered slightly which means it doesn't fit in the strainer upside down!

Here is the pulp after it has been in the strainer at 3 degrees Celsius for 24 hours. Not too bad.

The collected liquid is cloudy, but free from chunks. I'll post a photo of the next batch when I put it in the strainer.

This year I'm going to try fermenting on pulp and skipping the press completely. My still doesn't do chunky wash so I'm going to try and freeze the fermented juice out of the pulp. Now that it's cold enough outside I'm going to begin the process using a 5 gallon pail I drilled holes in so I can tran...

So the next stage in experiments begin. This year was a terrible harvest due to a cold dry spring and poor fruit set. It also killed a lot of trees around here. I got 10 gallons of apple pulp, which I simply fermented. It looks like baby puke but smells fresh. now it's turned cold, I added some wate...