Apple Brandy Recipe

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cranky
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Apple Brandy Recipe

Post by cranky »

From time to time a member comes on here looking for an apple brandy recipe but can't seem to find anything in spite of doing a thorough search.So they then start asking questions that have been answered many times over in various places but those answers have probably been buried over time. So I thought maybe it was time I posted my apple "recipe" and maybe lobby to try to get it posted in tried and true so the novices can find it :mrgreen: So if you guys can do me a favor and read through this and see if I have missed anything I would appreciate it. I will be posting it in Shared Recipes in a week or two with any changes that are necessary.

The big problem with an apple brandy recipe is there really isn't one as such but here are the basic steps.
Step 1) Get a bunch of apples.
Step 2) Grind or chop the apples.
Step 3) Press the apples.
Step 4) Add a good wine/cider yeast to fresh pressed apple juice/sweet cider.
Step 5) Wait for cider to ferment. Don't worry if it takes a while, just be patient.
Step 6) Distill cider
Step 7) Patience, lots and lots of patience. As GaFlatwoods says "Patience is the hardest thing to put in a bottle" but it is one of the most important ingredients, particularly with apple brandy.

I would like to note, I did not list sugar, Compden tablets (or any metabisulfite) or any other added ingredients. The best recipe for apple cider to be used for brandy is apple juice, yeast and time.

Some things I would like to explain at this point are some terms I may use. Because I live in the USA we tend to use some terms other parts of the world may have trouble with.

Apple juice = filtered and clarified apple juice

Apple cider / sweet cider = apple juice that has not been fermented or clarified, this is commonly referred to in the US as just "cider". I try to use the older term "sweet cider" for clarity's sake.

Hard cider = Apple cider / apple juice which has been fermented

Now on to the details

Steps 1-3) Getting apple juice / sweet cider

It is possible to make brandy from store bought apple juice or cider. Ideally it would be unpasteurized fresh pressed purchased at the source. You cannot legally buy any unpasteurized sweet cider in the United Stated except at the source. Next on my list would be pasteurized sweet cider and last would be store bought apple juice. Personally I find the final product made from store bought apple juice is a bit lacking over home pressed juice. If you use commercial juice you can skip steps 1 through 3 because someone else has already done that for you but make sure the juice contains no preservatives besides citric acid.

Now if you want to do things the hard way you will go out and find some apple trees and pick your own but be aware that on average you can rely on it taking approximately 16 pounds of apples to get a single gallon of juice. Some apples produce a bit more juice per pound and others a bit less but generally it runs about 16 pounds per gallon which makes buying store bought apples and pressing them yourself something I wouldn't recommend. However there is one more alternative and that is to buy a bin of apples and process them yourself. Not far from where I live, from time to time some people offer 1,000 pound bins of apples for cider or livestock for as little as 10-15 cents a pound. So if I do the math right that could potentially give you 62 gallons of sweet cider but is going to be a lot of work to make. The advantage to this is for $150 you could potentially have enough cider to make up to 3.75 gallons or around 19 bottles of finished 80 proof brandy, maybe a little more. That's about $8-10 a bottle after figuring the cost of yeast and electricity.

A question that is often asked about apple brandy is "What type of apples are best for brandy?"

There has always been debate about which varieties of apples and in what proportion make the best brandy but people who know me know I have a simple answer to that that question.

In my personal opinion the best apples to use for apple brandy are free apples :wink: . I have actually found an even better apple than free apples which is, free apples somebody else picks but those tend to be few and far between :lol: . Of course I am aware that not everybody is going to be able to get free apples but as explained above buying them can get costly. If you have to buy them I would recommend selecting a variety of apples making sure to include sour or bitter "cooking" type apples if possible. It seems like the worst apples make the best brandy.

My own apple scrounging season lasts from early July to around the first of December and has been known to include more than 20 distinct varieties of apples, it often includes various pears as well. Of course there is no need to go to extremes but ideally you would include at least 3 varieties.

Step 4) A little bit about yeast

Once you have figured out how to get your juice / sweet cider it is time to ferment. This is actually where the real magic happens. Yeast absolutely love apple so leave a bit of head space for foaming, particularly if you are using unpasteurized sweet cider.

Never use bread yeast for apple brandy, it simply doesn't work out well. If this is your first time making apple brandy I always recommend you start with EC-1118 yeast. It is a good honest yeast that will ferment clean and make cuts much easier. After you get some experience with apple brandy you can start branching out to other yeast. I like to use 47B-1122 and D-47 because they actually add some extra fruitiness but they also make cuts much more difficult. Other yeasts that are popular for hard cider and brandy are Nottingham and Safale S-04 but I haven't used those yet so I cant say how well they work. Some people also prefer to use wild yeast which is fine but while my experiences with wild yeast have produced acceptable results I personally find my results are better with store bought yeast.

Step 5) Wait

One thing to be aware of is yeast should match the temperature of the ferment and the temp of the ferment should match the yeast. I feel I get best results fermenting at lower temperatures which will take a bit longer so don't get in a hurry. If your temperatures are too high to ferment with the yeast you want to use find a way to cool your ferment down or a wine or ale yeast that will ferment at the temperature you have but don't use bread yeast.

After the cider has finished fermenting I like to let it rest for a while. This is not really necessary but I feel it improves the final product. I actually wait 30 days for the cider to ferment, then usually rack it off the sediment into another carboy. I fill the carboy to within an inch or two of the top to minimize airspace, then let it rest at least another month. I actually don't consider a ferment "finished" until it sucks back on the airlock. I seldom take an SG reading after the initial one because I figure it finishes where and when it finishes and whether that is .999 or .995 is largely irrelevant to me, when it sucks back it's ready. Often I will let the finished cider rest for a long period of time. I'm in no hurry so it may even go close to a year provided no infections show up. If an infection does show up I will run as soon as possible.

Step 6) Run it

When my cider is finally finished I rack it to my boiler, flip the switch and let it run. I have run apple brandy through a pot still, a flute with 4 plates and 3 plates and the flute without using any reflux and have to say my personal preference is to run it through a simple pot still. The reason for this is that although I get higher ABV out of a single run through the flute no matter how it was run, cuts tend to be very difficult because most of the apple flavor is in the heads and the heads are so compressed it makes it difficult to reconstruct the apple flavor.

I have often been asked if I prefer a single run or double run, or a 1.5 run. The answer to that isn't easy either. The truth is the apple varieties I pick can vary considerably from year to year and even if they didn't the apples themselves can produce significantly different juice from one year to another. Often I will do a stripping run but run it like a spirit run to see if I like the results. More often than not I will go ahead and run it a second time. Usually the second run will produce a much nicer final product. Sometimes I will decide to run 2 or 3 stripping runs and top up my boiler with fully fermented cider for a sort of 1.5 or perhaps better put a 1.75 run. The big problem for a lot of people is getting enough cider for 3 stripping runs and a spirit run but I feel if you can it is worth it.

Cuts

Although brandy is generally regarded as a difficult thing to learn to distill the real problem is with the cuts. If you learn to distill making whiskey or cereal washes chances are you are cutting most if not all of the heads out and perhaps collecting into the early tails for the flavor and complexity they provide. Apple brandy requires thinking a bit differently about those cuts because the majority of the apple flavor hides in the heads. The real trick is in trying to blend back the flavor without giving yourself too much of a headache. It can be very tricky because what you really have on your hands is apple flavor that has been deconstructed and has to be put back together. This is why I collect in very small jars. By very small I mean for 12 gallons of low wines I collect in half pint increments. It means using a lot of jars but I think it makes blending much easier.

The next problem you encounter with brandy is you can't expect it to taste like the fresh fruit you made it out of. What you should be after is actually the ghost of that original fruit, after all that's why its called "spirit" isn't it? That brings us to the real problem with apple, that ghost of the original fruit may take months to finally show up and that brings us to the final step in the process.

Step 7) Patience, or as some like to call it aging.

At this point what GaFlatwoods says bears repeating "Patience is the hardest thing to put in a bottle" but it is necessary, especially with apple brandy. Whether you age on wood, or age white apple brandy needs time to develop. Novices often make the mistake of thinking they can age something in a week or two, or microwave it with some oak and it will magically be like 10 year old spirits in a few days. Sadly this is not true and there really is no substitute for time. Put it away and wait, when you think you have waited long enough wait some more. wait at least 6 months before trying it, then put it away and wait a year, or two, it will only get better with time.

I personally use some pretty complicated and perhaps strange aging processes at times but that's part of the beauty of hobby distilling, although that is also a subject for another thread.
Last edited by cranky on Sun Jul 30, 2017 2:19 pm, edited 7 times in total.
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

Post by MichiganCornhusker »

Outstanding post, cranky, thank you!
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

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:thumbup:
Perhaps it's another link in your signature?
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

Post by still_stirrin »

Just started reading the "epic", but I found this error:
cranky wrote:...I would like to note, I did not list sugar, Compton tablets (or any metabisulfite) or any other added ingredients. The best recipe for apple cider to be used for brandy is apple juice, yeast and time...
"Compton" should be Campden...https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campden_tablet" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
ss
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

Post by still_stirrin »

Also, this correction:
cranky wrote:...Apple cider / sweet cider = apple juice that has not been fermented or clarified, this is commonly referred to in the US as just "cider". I try to use the older term "sweet cider" for clarities sake.
Clarity should be possesive, not plural...."clarity's" instead of "clarities".

I don't mean to be an ass, but I'm trying to help proof-read the "epic" for publishing, or posting as a sticky to perpetuate forward. Just trying to help, not nit-pick.
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

Post by still_stirrin »

A little help here, as I don't quite understand this:
cranky wrote:...Step 4) A little bit about yeast

Once you have figured out how to get your juice / sweet cider it is time to ferment. This is actually where the real magic happens. Yeast absolutely love apple so leave a bit of head space for foaming, particularly if you are using unpasteurized yeast.
What is "unpasteurized yeast"? It seems pasteurization would kill yeast because that's what pasteuriaztion does. So, unpasteurized yeast seems superflous (to me at least). Can you clarify what you mean?
ss
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

Post by Shine0n »

Cranky, thanks a million for this post although it will limit our conversations this year about Apple brandy. SAD but in a good way!

I've seen your name passed around quite a bit when people ask about fruit just because of your knowledge and your responses to those who need your help. I for one can't thank you enough for your contributions to me alone as well as the many you've helped.

So, Thank you sir Cranky!!!
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

Post by The Baker »

still_stirrin wrote:A little help here, as I don't quite understand this:
cranky wrote:...Step 4) A little bit about yeast

Once you have figured out how to get your juice / sweet cider it is time to ferment. This is actually where the real magic happens. Yeast absolutely love apple so leave a bit of head space for foaming, particularly if you are using unpasteurized yeast.
What is "unpasteurized yeast"? It seems pasteurization would kill yeast because that's what pasteuriaztion does. So, unpasteurized yeast seems superflous (to me at least). Can you clarify what you mean?
ss
Maybe a typo for 'unpasteurized juice'.

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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

Post by cranky »

Thanks for your help while I can still make corrections guys :thumbup: I read through that thing at least 6 times and still missed things. I even looked up Compden and the clarity's sake and still got them wrong :roll: Corrections have been made and yes I did mean unpasteurized juice rather than yeast :oops:
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

Post by still_stirrin »

Fantastic job Cranky. Another value-added thread from the "fruit master". Thanks.
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

Post by Kareltje »

still_stirrin wrote:A little help here, as I don't quite understand this:
cranky wrote:...Step 4) A little bit about yeast

Once you have figured out how to get your juice / sweet cider it is time to ferment. This is actually where the real magic happens. Yeast absolutely love apple so leave a bit of head space for foaming, particularly if you are using unpasteurized yeast.
What is "unpasteurized yeast"? It seems pasteurization would kill yeast because that's what pasteuriaztion does. So, unpasteurized yeast seems superflous (to me at least). Can you clarify what you mean?
ss
My bold!
Your comments made me happy, for they show that you read Cranky's work and you are very intended to help him to make it perfect by correcting minor flaws.
So I dare to make a comment myself: should it not be superfluous? :mrgreen:

@Cranky: I am afraid I will not have much apples this year, but thank you for making the effort of writing down and sharing you experience. :thumbup: I will store it to profit from it in the future.
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

Post by cranky »

SS your comments make me happy too because I want this thing as perfect as I can make it for future brandy makers and I appreciate the help.
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

Post by JellybeanCorncob »

Cranky: Earlier this year you helped me with some apple brandy questions. It was a big help. This post would have saved me hours of reading posts on apple brandy. Some good, some not so good. This is a fine post.
By the way: I'm on step #7. And yes, it's the hardest part. :wink:
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

Post by cranky »

JellybeanCorncob wrote:Cranky: Earlier this year you helped me with some apple brandy questions. It was a big help. This post would have saved me hours of reading posts on apple brandy. Some good, some not so good. This is a fine post.
By the way: I'm on step #7. And yes, it's the hardest part. :wink:
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I think that's one of the problems people run into, the actual process gets fragmented and buried in threads and requires a lot of reading to sort out. I've been meaning to post something like this for a long time and a couple days ago I had a slow day at work with no projects so I sat down and wrote this out. I hope it will help people who want to do apple brandy.
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

Post by Stargazer14 »

Thanks for this and your info in the past was a help to me. I have 2 gallons aging from different runs and found my looooong ferment has more flavor.
I have some on French oak and some on American,
looking forward to this winter when I will break into them more.
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

Post by cranky »

I took advantage of this years apple ferment to take some pictures to show exactly what I mean when I say leave some head room.

This first one is the fresh press apple juice just before I added the yeast.
CIDER 03 AUG 17 #4 - C.JPG
That's 8 gallons in the 12 gallon carboy on the left and 4 gallons in each of the 5 gallon carboys.

This next one was taken about 36 hours later
CIDER 05 AUG 17 #6 - C.JPG
You can get an idea of just how much it has foamed up

One of them had actually foamed up within a couple of inches of the airlock
CIDER 04 AUG 17 #4 - C.JPG
Probably one more inch of apple juice and I would be cleaning out an airlock. 2 more inches and it probably would have blown out completely. The really big problem with one blowing out is the vinegar flies and other bugs get in, which can give you 4 or 5 gallons of vinegar rather than the hard cider you want to turn into brandy.

It takes about a week to calm down and when it does I normally add another half gallon of juice , then a week later top it up with more juice so I have a full carboy without blowing out an airlock.
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

Post by JellybeanCorncob »

So when it's all said and done with your ferment, about a month, you let it sit at least another month and up to a year before distilling? I wish I had the space to do the quantities of apple you do. I love apple brandy and will be gearing up for this. I hope next year. My tree only gets around 25 lbs of Apple's a year. There are more trees in my neighborhood. Gonna have to schmooze the ones with apple trees. :sarcasm:
This post is really helpful.
I love the details you give.
Thanks again.
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

Post by alohashine »

Nice write up indeed. I've gone the lazy route with apple brandy and just used tree top apple juice. 5 gal is dirt cheap at my local Costco. Throw in some champagne yeast or ec-1118 and let 'er rip. After done fermenting, done a slow spirit run on the pot still and placed on toasted oak sticks in Mason jars. Probably some of the best stuff I've produced thus far.
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

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Thanks for sharing this cranky. I have been thinking about doing an apple brandy this fall as one thing Michigan does well is apples. The only thing holding me back is the press. I really think I am going to get one soon though as I would like to get a little more out of my mashes. I am also thinking about starting a new still and just have to balance my hobby with my honeydo list. Just finished our basement so am trying to get as much as I can while in the good graces of that!

I like your little cuts advice. I am a little over a year into the art so am still making small cuts like that for pretty much everything. my first few runs I actually collected heads in baby jars until I was positive I was into the hearts...helped out a lot.
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

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Thank you everybody for the nice comments :D
JellybeanCorncob wrote:So when it's all said and done with your ferment, about a month, you let it sit at least another month and up to a year before distilling? I wish I had the space to do the quantities of apple you do. I love apple brandy and will be gearing up for this. I hope next year. My tree only gets around 25 lbs of Apple's a year. There are more trees in my neighborhood. Gonna have to schmooze the ones with apple trees. :sarcasm:
This post is really helpful.
I love the details you give.
Thanks again.
JBC
Yes, it may be taking things to extremes but I do let mine go at least 2 months and up to a year. This is partially something from the Calvados makers, who do the same thing and partially from my own observations. Prior to finding out that's how the Calvados makers do it I personally observed that there is some sort of change that happens around the 2 month point. Reading a bit about yeast I think it has something to do with compounds combining and yeast cleaning up after the party or something like that but I feel it actually helps give a better product. That's not to say it isn't fine to run it as soon as you finish.
alohashine wrote:Nice write up indeed. I've gone the lazy route with apple brandy and just used tree top apple juice. 5 gal is dirt cheap at my local Costco. Throw in some champagne yeast or ec-1118 and let 'er rip. After done fermenting, done a slow spirit run on the pot still and placed on toasted oak sticks in Mason jars. Probably some of the best stuff I've produced thus far.
Thank you. I know not everybody can go out and pick apples. If someone must use store bought apple juice and can't get the fresh pressed cider from the source I always recommend juice from USA apples. Tree Top is one of my preferred producers, mainly because they only use USA apples from the Pacific Northwest and you can get "Fresh Pressed" which has not been concentrated then reconstituted. They also have a nice 3 tree blend. Some producers use apple concentrate from all over the world but mainly China, in fact China is the largest producer of apple juice in the world so it is in a lot of the juices from concentrate. Fortunately most of the USA apple juice producers are very proud of only using USA apples and print it right on the label. I actually use Tree Top concentrate for priming cider that I will keep as cider when I bottle.
BloodMoses wrote:Thanks for sharing this cranky. I have been thinking about doing an apple brandy this fall as one thing Michigan does well is apples. The only thing holding me back is the press. I really think I am going to get one soon though as I would like to get a little more out of my mashes. I am also thinking about starting a new still and just have to balance my hobby with my honeydo list. Just finished our basement so am trying to get as much as I can while in the good graces of that!

I like your little cuts advice. I am a little over a year into the art so am still making small cuts like that for pretty much everything. my first few runs I actually collected heads in baby jars until I was positive I was into the hearts...helped out a lot.
Thank you, Michigan is one of those big apple producers. I lived there for a couple years and used to drive past Apple Charlies regularly. A press isn't that hard to make, there are lots of examples about. This is mine basically made from scrap wood.
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 50&t=62539

Bushman made one out of a Harbor Freight hydraulic press here
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 83&t=51537

and Jimbo's is documented here
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 83&t=32309

Don't let that Honeydo list stop you, I don't... :problem: ...Of course that is probably why I have been working on the same 6x12 porch for 3 years now :roll:
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

Post by Lawfish »

I'm glad you posted this. I searched the forum for a comprehensive post about brandy but only found bits and pieces. I have some pear cider (I know, this thread is about apples, not pears) that's been bottled for a year. I made it for a guy who gave me a bunch of pears and he never came back to get his share, so I plan to distill it into brandy. After that, I can't decide whether I want to age it on wood or add a fresh pear for macerating as they do in France.

Anyway, thanks for the post.
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

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Lawfish wrote:I'm glad you posted this. I searched the forum for a comprehensive post about brandy but only found bits and pieces. I have some pear cider (I know, this thread is about apples, not pears) that's been bottled for a year. I made it for a guy who gave me a bunch of pears and he never came back to get his share, so I plan to distill it into brandy. After that, I can't decide whether I want to age it on wood or add a fresh pear for macerating as they do in France.

Anyway, thanks for the post.
I found with different grains and fruit very little tweeking to the original recipe and it works.
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

Post by Bushman »

Looking back I found this chart posted by Tater should help deciding on how much to tweek recipe:
Fruit Chart
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

Post by cranky »

Lawfish wrote:I'm glad you posted this. I searched the forum for a comprehensive post about brandy but only found bits and pieces.
Thank you,
That was the whole thing about it, the info seems to get scattered which makes it harder to find and require a lot of reading to sort out. That's why I decided to try to make something a bit more comprehensive that will be easy to find and hopefully help prevent people from making some of the more common mistakes. Any way you go brandies can tend to be expensive, either in money or time invested and if they make a mistake you either have to wait a whole year to try to do it again or go spend a lot more money. This may cause some people give up on brandy and that would be a shame.
Lawfish wrote: I have some pear cider (I know, this thread is about apples, not pears) that's been bottled for a year. I made it for a guy who gave me a bunch of pears and he never came back to get his share, so I plan to distill it into brandy. After that, I can't decide whether I want to age it on wood or add a fresh pear for macerating as they do in France.
Pears ferment pretty much the same as apples, Most fruit does, some are better juiced and others are best fermented on the pulp and some may need added nutrients but the process is largely the same. Often cuts can be much different with different kinds of fruit, the key is don't make a rash decision and toss something because you think it is too soon or too late in a run until you are actually blending because good flavor can be hiding anywhere in a run and is often broken up so you don't find it until it is blended back together. With pears, I find the flavor tends to be distributed through the entire run rather than concentrated in one spot, often I find it comes over heaviest just at the end of the hearts.

When I get enough pears to make it I personally prefer to keep my straight pear white. I do like to macerate a pear in the brandy if I can. Not that there is anything wrong with oaking, or perhaps better called "wooding" because a lot of people are starting to use woods other then oak. Lots of people prefer brandy lots of different ways. I do like doing a lot of my brandy the French way.
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

Post by cranky »

I'm getting close to getting the post together for shared recipes, so if anybody has anything I missed or need to add, I would appreciate the input :D
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

Post by JellybeanCorncob »

Hey Cranky:
I’m doing another apple brandy. My first attempt came out good. And I have another batch that is about a year old. I haven’t tasted it yet. I’m hoping it will be even better than my first try. Both batches have aged in my workshop. The temperature only fluctuates 5 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit. My question to you is how do you age? I have a shed that I age my whiskies in and the temperature fluctuation range can be 50+ deg in the summer. Is this ok for brandies? Where do you age your brandies and is there temperature fluctuation?
Thank you
JBC
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cranky
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

Post by cranky »

JellybeanCorncob wrote:Hey Cranky:
I’m doing another apple brandy. My first attempt came out good. And I have another batch that is about a year old. I haven’t tasted it yet. I’m hoping it will be even better than my first try. Both batches have aged in my workshop. The temperature only fluctuates 5 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit. My question to you is how do you age? I have a shed that I age my whiskies in and the temperature fluctuation range can be 50+ deg in the summer. Is this ok for brandies? Where do you age your brandies and is there temperature fluctuation?
Thank you
JBC
Currently I am aging in my garage but it is in a very well used barrel and going to be for a very long time. My garage is cool and while doesn't fluctuate very much, it's about 45 in the winter and might get up to 80 in a hot summer. My best results for aging to date have actually been done in half gallon mason jars placed on top of a heater vent through the winter with loose fitting lids. My thermostat is never set above 70F but the temp range directly on the heater vent varies greatly throughout the winter and I feel the brandy greatly benefited from it.
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JellybeanCorncob
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

Post by JellybeanCorncob »

Thanks cranky: I think I’ll put the year old Apple brandy in the shed for the summer, and when I run the 10 gallons I have fermenting now I’ll put the brandy it in there also. I age my liquor in gallon and 1/2 gallon jugs with corks. I tent to put the corks in lightly so the Angels can have some too!
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Jimy Dee
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

Post by Jimy Dee »

Cranky, you are the acknowledged guru with brandies and more power to you. Hefezelle has a thread going Tried and True PDF where he is tring to compile the t&t recipes. I put up a post just now that he should contact u to incorporate the finished product from this thread and it would be a win win for all. Like two good yeasts coming together to make a better super yeast! Just an idea. Your the boss of course. Keep up the good work. JD
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Re: Apple Brandy Recipe

Post by DetroitDIY »

Oops. I see this thread has moved here: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=68085

Moving my comment as well.
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