Apple Brandy from Frozen Apple Juice Concentrate

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truckbed
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Apple Brandy from Frozen Apple Juice Concentrate

Post by truckbed »

im planning to try this maybe this week and want to know what yall think. its not apple season around here and ive made pretty good hard ciders from bottled apple juice, adding some sugar to boost abv.

what i plan to use for this is frozen concentrate, for the main reason of keeping more apple flavor without adding sugar and so the abv of the "wine" will be around 10%

i have very roughly estimated that a 5 gal batch needs about 3200g of sugar to be close to a potential 10%. I know i cant use a straight 5 gallons of concentrate cuz that would cost over $100 and i cant afford that, especially when im just going to burn it later and end with only about a gallon! i dont know how much i should use, but i know i want try to use as much natural sugar as i can.

im using a pot still and would prefer to have only 1 run, shooting for 35-45%

any thoughts are appreciated!
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Re: Apple Brandy from Frozen Apple Juice Concentrate

Post by Hack »

Get yourself a beer and wine hydrometer and just start adding water to the concentrate until you get a potential alcohol of 10%. If you want maximum apple flavor I wouldn't add sugar. It will take away from the flavor by reducing the apple flavor to alcohol ratio.
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Re: Apple Brandy from Frozen Apple Juice Concentrate

Post by violentblue »

thats my experience as well, adding sugar reduces flavour.
mad a real nice apple wine thet I though would make an excellent brandy, came out with tonnes of heads tonnes of tails and very flavourless hearts.
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Re: Apple Brandy from Frozen Apple Juice Concentrate

Post by Dnderhead »

Apple are bad to begin with and in "processed" juice they use pectic enzymes and that make it worse. it is used in some boughton wine also
that is why store bought wine does not always make good brandy. (helps git the juice out and makes it clear without all the racking/clearing that
good wine goes threw.
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Re: Apple Brandy from Frozen Apple Juice Concentrate

Post by Hack »

The apple brandy I did from store bought cider this last fall had alot of heads also. After letting it age on a small chunk of toasted oak for the last nine months it's incredible.
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Re: Apple Brandy from Frozen Apple Juice Concentrate

Post by LWTCS »

Hack wrote:The apple brandy I did from store bought cider this last fall had alot of heads also. After letting it age on a small chunk of toasted oak for the last nine months it's incredible.
I did an applesause (sugar head) wash and found that it had lots of heads also. All the flavor was in the heads. That was the only batch that I got complaints (questions really) about. Really hard and hot.
I too was especially beat up the next day after a serious testing session.

I think Hack has it right. To get it good you have to let it rest for a long time...........Which is tough when your trying to get your drinking stock built up.

You should do it.
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Re: Apple Brandy from Frozen Apple Juice Concentrate

Post by Tater »

I do fruits quite often in season and while ya do have flavor in late heads theirs also flavor in the tails.Apples seem to have more heads then other fruits. But try catchin some tails from a apple wash separating tails into a few different jars and air out and taste .
I use a pot still.Sometimes with a thumper
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Re: Apple Brandy from Frozen Apple Juice Concentrate

Post by blind drunk »

Hack said -

The apple brandy I did from store bought cider this last fall had alot of heads also. After letting it age on a small chunk of toasted oak for the last nine months it's incredible.
Hack, does that mean you left the heads in the final cut before you aged. Sounds like, just wanting to make sure. I've been drinking some store bought Calvados I got for a present and I taste the heads but they're soft and appley. It don't rip your throat out and burn your innards. Cheers, BD.

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Re: Apple Brandy from Frozen Apple Juice Concentrate

Post by Hack »

I may have left a tad more heads in than I would normally, but no I set them aside. I did use as much of the tails as I felt I could get away with. Even after that when it was still only a few weeks old it didn't taste very good. In fact, I almost tossed it out, but in the end I decided to keep it and see what time would do for it. I'm really glad I did.
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Re: Apple Brandy from Frozen Apple Juice Concentrate

Post by blind drunk »

Hack said -

I may have left a tad more heads in than I would normally, but no I set them aside. I did use as much of the tails as I felt I could get away with.
I get it, thanks. Glad you kept it and it turned out as good as it sounds. It's encouraging.

How'd you do your oak piece? BD.
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Re: Apple Brandy from Frozen Apple Juice Concentrate

Post by schnell »

I've had great success with store bought juice, a pinch of nutrient, and bread yeast to make a drinkable cider. This makes a very good brandy. I've always aged on charred apple wood chips. This has been my favorite.

Apple heads require some attention. The aromatic apple flavor is early and mixed with heads. Apples tend to produce much more methanol and you'll find it mixed with the flavors. Be deliberate and judicious and you'll find the right cuts.

Use all your senses, smell and taste, and you'll find the happy medium. If you get to much MeOH you won't like the taste as much and you'll get that skull popping pain right behind your eyes,
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Re: Apple Brandy from Frozen Apple Juice Concentrate

Post by snuffy »

I've had good luck with the frozen concentrate. I get mine from a restaurant supply. A case of quarts makes about 8 gallons. If you dilute carefully and watch the s.g., it's about 1:1. A little sugar doesn't hurt.

Any skinned fruit with pectin will have a lot of heads. The flavor is towards the end of the heads, but there will be more than with a sugar wash.

If using a pot still, a thumper and very slow collection of the heads helps. With a column still, long equilibration and heads compression techniques work pretty well. I've done both and get a higher yield with a column.

I age at 120% abv with medium or heavy toast oak chips and half an apple (quartered) in each quart. Somehow the apple pulls the harshest part of the heads out and traps it. Like fine brandy - very smooth. I'm going to experiment with ground apples in the thumper come fall.
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Re: Apple Brandy from Frozen Apple Juice Concentrate

Post by Tater »

snuffy wrote: I age at 120% abv with medium or heavy toast oak chips and half an apple (quartered) in each quart. Somehow the apple pulls the harshest part of the heads out and traps it. Like fine brandy - very smooth. I'm going to experiment with ground apples in the thumper come fall.
Ive had old timers tell me that apple brandy would taste better if ya fermented in chunks rather then ground or mashed into a fine pulp.takes lot hell of a lot longer to ferment em though.
I use a pot still.Sometimes with a thumper
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Re: Apple Brandy from Frozen Apple Juice Concentrate

Post by blind drunk »

Somehow the apple pulls the harshest part of the heads out and traps it.
I guess it's like what a whole potato does in an over salted soup - pulls the salt out and traps it. That's a good tip snuffy, thanks. bd.
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Re: Apple Brandy from Frozen Apple Juice Concentrate

Post by junkyard dawg »

I like my apple without adding any pectic enzyme and adding a little bit of sugar to boost the yield to around 9 or 10%.

I don't have apples down yet... I've made some head cracker and also some fine fine brandy that improves greatly with age. I'm pretty sure the pectic enzyme contributes to the hangover potential... The best stuff was distilled 3 times with fresh fruit on the last two rounds... Great flavors and smooth as silk after a few months ageing.
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Re: Apple Brandy from Frozen Apple Juice Concentrate

Post by MuleKicker »

[quote="snuffy"]

If using a pot still, a thumper and very slow collection of the heads helps. With a column still, long equilibration and heads compression techniques work pretty well. I've done both and get a higher yield with a column.


Long equlibration, collumn still??? Wouldnt that produce more neutral, leaving flavors behind? Can you get away with collumn stilling brandy and getting good flavor, if so how? do you run with full packing, same way as doing a neutral, just save heads/tails to mix in with hearts to get desired flavor?
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Re: Apple Brandy from Frozen Apple Juice Concentrate

Post by scotty »

Hack wrote:Get yourself a beer and wine hydrometer and just start adding water to the concentrate until you get a potential alcohol of 10%. If you want maximum apple flavor I wouldn't add sugar. It will take away from the flavor by reducing the apple flavor to alcohol ratio.
Here is an easy way to calculate the needed amount of sugar that you mus add to alter your P.A. in any liquid before adding yeast

Down load wine calc

http://www.geocities.com/napavalley/8280/winecalc.html

Yes by all means get a tripple scale hydrometer
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Re: Apple Brandy from Frozen Apple Juice Concentrate

Post by snuffy »

I run a packed column 3' to 9' depending on the phase of the moon with either a VM or CM (100% reflux) head. The flavors have to go somewhere. Column stills can do a good job on flavored spirits. I'm leaning more towards the cooling management head because it can separate the heads into several distinct cuts, runs like a dream in hearts and compresses the tails to the point they don't matter as waste. I do some neutral, but apple is the most important to me. I can get it from rip-your-head-off-and-fart-fire applejack through smooth brandy to lightly flavored apple vodka. It's all in the cuts, blending and aging.
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Re: Apple Brandy from Frozen Apple Juice Concentrate

Post by HookLine »

I'm leaning more towards the cooling management head because it can separate the heads into several distinct cuts, runs like a dream in hearts and compresses the tails to the point they don't matter as waste.
I find that with my VM. By the end of the hearts, the tails are so compressed it is not worth collecting them. A full boiler charge (40 litres @ 40 %) only gives me about 300-400 ml of tails. But brother do they stink!

With all your CM experiments, would you say that the critical factor for maximising CM performance is the proper regulation of the coolant input pressure (and hence flow rate)?
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Re: Apple Brandy from Frozen Apple Juice Concentrate

Post by olddog »

The wine calc does not work with Vista.
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Re: Apple Brandy from Frozen Apple Juice Concentrate

Post by snuffy »

The tricks to getting the CM head are a precision flow control valve, a water pressure regulator and power management. I'm using a micrometer hydraulic flow control valve and it gives very precise control. I tried a fixed regulator at 40psi, but that was too high and am now using an inexpensive plastic regulator off eBay to hold around 5psi - this makes the valve more precise. And power management. At first I used pint's Triac controller and now use an Arduino and solid state relay. The Arduino allows me to regulate the power to a couple of watts.

Find the good reflux rate for the column, then dial down the water until the temp above the dephlegmator jumps, turn down the power a tad and it's dialed in. I gave up on trying to control reflux by coolant with manual valves. I'm going to try solenoid valves on the Arduino in a while. I also have a temperature sensing valve to experiment with.

I'll be running the latest batch in a week or so and will post some results.
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Re: Apple Brandy from Frozen Apple Juice Concentrate

Post by I-GOR »

snuffy wrote:The tricks to getting the CM head are a precision flow control valve, a water pressure regulator and power management. I'm using a micrometer hydraulic flow control valve and it gives very precise control. I tried a fixed regulator at 40psi, but that was too high and am now using an inexpensive plastic regulator off eBay to hold around 5psi - this makes the valve more precise. And power management. At first I used pint's Triac controller and now use an Arduino and solid state relay. The Arduino allows me to regulate the power to a couple of watts.

Find the good reflux rate for the column, then dial down the water until the temp above the dephlegmator jumps, turn down the power a tad and it's dialed in. I gave up on trying to control reflux by coolant with manual valves. I'm going to try solenoid valves on the Arduino in a while. I also have a temperature sensing valve to experiment with.
This is kinduv gettin into "Distillation and Design" page material, but pics would be most efficacious if you haven't posted them already. Arigato!
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Re: Apple Brandy from Frozen Apple Juice Concentrate

Post by snuffy »

Did the spirit run last night on 3 gal of low wines from concentrate. By very slow distillation in the CM rig, was able to separate the apple flavor from most of the heads.

At the risk of a derail on technical matters:

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Re: Apple Brandy from Frozen Apple Juice Concentrate

Post by Alchemist75 »

This recipe sounds almost identical to one of my early experiments with creating new ferments. I jokingly named it dumpster wash due to the overwhelming sulphide production which stunk up my apartment for days. I used bakers yeast which in the end was just insult to injury. the spirit run was devoted to REMOVING the bizarre and off tasting congeners even going as far as using sodium carbonate to completely split the esters. It gave a lot of ethanol with a faint hint of apple abstraction funk. I think I tried three variations on the recipe before I canned it. Essentially what I was making was a sugar wash with an over priced ingredient. Waste of perfectly good apple juice.
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