Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Discussions of fruits, veggies and grains other then just mashing

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cranky
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by cranky »

Just finished that strip run. looks like well under 2Hr to get about 4 gallons out of it :D It looks like I have about 18 more gallons to go. I'm debating how I'm going to approach this one, two 9 gallon runs or one 12 plus add whats left over to the spirit run :problem: I also have a few random sample bottles left over from previous years that I will either chuck in there or maybe go ahead and make them into vinegar, I like having some home made apple cider vinegar around. Guess I'll decide all of that tomorrow.
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cranky
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by cranky »

I didn't get around to the mixed fruit today because I did a 10 gallon and an 8 gallon of apple. I just finished up. Now I have 13 or maybe a little more apple low wines to run. Hopefully I get around to that mixed fruit tomorrow as well as the spirit run on that apple. This will actually be the earliest I have ever finished apple. I was going to add the feints from last years brandy but I don't think there will be enough room so maybe I will follow the spirit run with a small feints run.
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cranky
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by cranky »

Well here it is,
Apple 05 DEC 17-C.jpg
the results of an entire apple season, many hours of work, 4,000+ apples weighing approximately 672 lbs, picked, chopped pressed fermented and distilled twice to give me somewhere around 20.5 qts before cuts. So this should give me about 5 gallons after aging and tempering to 80 proof. Not too bad really :D

I now only need to run off the mixed fruit and start thinking about the next ferment, maybe making the press bigger for next year. I've also started to put my fementing stuff away to try to get the garage a bit more organized for the future.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by Johnny6 »

Congratulations Cranky on getting it through distillation. I love reading this thread. Totally motivates me to keep fine-tuning my process and trying new things.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by Bushman »

Feeling sad, as I was in Europe and we never processed the apples on the island thus they went to the sheep and deer.
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cranky
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Johnny6 wrote:Congratulations Cranky on getting it through distillation. I love reading this thread. Totally motivates me to keep fine-tuning my process and trying new things.
Thank you, I like to try to keep things as entertaining as I can :D
Bushman wrote:Feeling sad, as I was in Europe and we never processed the apples on the island thus they went to the sheep and deer.
That is sad but if it is any consolation the apples this year were not as prolific as previous years. The long wet winter caused the early apples to not produce well and the exceptionally dry summer left the late apples small but higher sugar and more concentrated flavor which meant a lot more work to get a decent amount of juice.

I'm starting to have thoughts about what I want to do in the future. The truth is if I ever get whats in the barrel to the point I actually like it and after this years batch is aged out and bottled I will probably have a lifetime supply of apple brandy. I do enjoy making it though.

Maybe next year I will spend more time picking blackberries, or blueberries, or other fruit like raspberries or even madrone or some other odd fruits I have found around that get neglected, or maybe just concentrate on building a shed and finishing the fence, porch, kitchen and bathroom for a while.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by OtisT »

cranky wrote:Well here it is, ......the results of an entire apple season.......
Congrats on completing this Apple season. :-) It’s been fun following you exploits. Thanks. Otis
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cranky
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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OtisT wrote:
cranky wrote:Well here it is, ......the results of an entire apple season.......
Congrats on completing this Apple season. :-) It’s been fun following you exploits. Thanks. Otis
Thank you.
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cranky
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by cranky »

It's hard to believe that fruit season is actually over...or did I only say apple season was over? :think:

You see, in an earlier post I mentioned thinking about seeing what I could do with madrone berries...well as it turns out I had to run some errands with my wife today and happened to notice quite a few madrone trees with berries ripe and ready for the picking :roll: So maybe fruit season isn't quite over after all :mrgreen: When I saw them I mentioned them to my wife, who after inquiring what madrone berries were, just rolled her eyes... that is until I found an article a little while ago that calls them fairy berries :lol: now she is all about me picking at least some so she can try some "fairy berries" :D
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cranky
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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I don't know if this should go here or the tell us about your mistakes thread but I guess it belongs here more.

This morning I got up planning on finally running off that mixed fruit. I let my wife sleep late with the intention of surprising her by doing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen while I got everything racked to the boiler. So I get the first carboy going into the boiler and head to the kitchen to start loading the dishwasher. That went well and a little while later I went out and switched over to the other carboy, then went back to the kitchen and continued cleaning and loading the dishwasher. About this time I started thinking since this is my last vacation day I might make some French toast and have breakfast at the table with my wife before I flipped the switch, which started me thinking I should go check on things out in the garage real quick. I knew something was wrong when I opened the door and heard what sounded like a cow peeing on a flat rock :esurprised: Since I don't own any cows and my cats are very picky about peeing in the litter boxes I knew it had to be the racking tube :( Rushing over to the boiler I found the tube had come out and was now pouring my hard earned black and blueberry juice all over the garage floor :cry: The garage looked like some kind of murder scene with all that red juice all over the floor! Then I realized it could be running under the door, down the driveway and into the street. So then since I don't want the neighbors calling the cops reporting that there is a stream of blood flowing from my garage, I had to go put clothes on so I could check the driveway because the neighbors don't approve of me going outside in nothing but a Spongebob speedo and snow boots, plus it is below freezing out there...OK really the wife doesn't approve of that even more than the neighbors. So I go get dressed and check to make sure there is no big red stain running down the street, then go back inside and finish racking what I could into the boiler, then went back to the kitchen to finish the dishes and make French toast. I now had a lot less fermented juice than I had planned so instead of doing the 2 runs I had planned I decided I I'm going to try to make this work on a single run. It's running now with a take off rate of a half pint every 4 minutes or so and it smells absolutely amazing! The big problem now is finding enough jars to collect this in since all my pints were used for the apple the other day and I haven't yet finished blending the apple. Now I need to go and clean up this mess.

The worst thing of all is when I started making the French toast I found out we are out of eggs so we had to have cereal :eh:
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by raketemensch »

I keep a clamp on the boiler frame for just that reason — I’ve lost several gallons of UJ to a hose that fell out of the boiler. Now I take no chances.

That hurt, and it was just a sugarhead, so sorry cranky.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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raketemensch wrote:I keep a clamp on the boiler frame for just that reason — I’ve lost several gallons of UJ to a hose that fell out of the boiler. Now I take no chances.

That hurt, and it was just a sugarhead, so sorry cranky.
I usually clip the hose to the boiler but couldn't find my clip and since all the apple did fine I thought I could get away with it on the mixed fruit but I knew better. It still sucks because an all fruit ferment it so time consuming. I do have some good news though, while cleaning at the garage to make room for new fermenting shelves I finally found my missing juicer so if I can manage to get enough blackberries, or blueberries, or madrone berries, or fuchsia berries, or maybe even plums, or any other fruit I should be able to use that to juice it a bit easier.

Now that I think about it I know where a huge old rose bush is and it might still have ripe rose hips, I wonder how many rose hips it would take to reach 13 gallons of juice?
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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I forgot to mention, today was my first day back to work after a 2 week vacation. It sucks to be going back to work but while I was gone there was a big project happening which actually finished up today ( timing is everything ). The project left behind quite a bit of .125 thick aluminum, much of which is slightly curved. So what I'm starting to formulate now is a complete redesign on my apple chopper blades. I'm thinking the curve of the metal can be used to my advantage by pitching the blades and adding bounce and for the apples. Sort of like a mulching blade on a lawn mower. I'm also thinking about maybe giving at least some of the blades a forward curve so they hit the apples a bit better and maybe adding some teeth made out of screws and or safety wire strung between blades to see if I can get a finer chop :think: There are lots of ideas going through my head for potential uses for that metal :D
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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I just went out to the garage and blended some more on the apple, It really can be pretty difficult. I've blended 17 of the 50 or so jars back in and am moving towards the heads which is where things get difficult so I blend 3 or 4 and take a break. I also started the blend on the mixed fruit. I only have the middle three 1/2 pints blended so far but I have to say if I don't get a single more drop from this batch it would be totally worth all the effort I put into this one just for the pint and a half I have now. It is really something special so far. It kind of tastes like fruity pebbles only real, with a distinct fruit overtone that you can't place exactly what fruit. This one will definitely stay as a white Eau de Vie.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by Kareltje »

Very good to hear it at least did turn out well tasting!!

Are you sure the aluminium will not be eaten by the acid fruits? Might be a bias on my side, but I do not like aluminium with my food.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Kareltje wrote:Very good to hear it at least did turn out well tasting!!

Are you sure the aluminum will not be eaten by the acid fruits? Might be a bias on my side, but I do not like aluminum with my food.
I haven't had any issues with aluminum blades yet but it is something I keep an eye on given the acidity of apples. If I had access to thick stiff stainless steel I would use it but the aluminum is free, I may some day replace them all with SS once I get the final design worked out or come across something I feel is better.

I will be posting updates on the apple chopper on this thread from now on
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... &start=120
Last edited by cranky on Sat Dec 09, 2017 4:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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I finished blending blending the mixed fruit. I went a little deeper into the tails than I had planned so it will need some time to age but I think it is pretty nice. I think it was better before I added those last 2 jars but I think time will fix that. It is very fruit forward, for lack of a better word because it is actually more fruit after. It finishes with a very nice fruitiness that lingers long after you drink it. I really like that. Finished proof is somewhere around 90 which is just perfect for drinking. My wife says it has a tropical taste which is funny since there aren't any tropical fruits in there.

So here is the picture of the final amount
EdV 09 DEC 17 - C.jpg
That's a 2 Liter lightning jar so the final yield is somewhere around one liter. I also have somewhere around that in feints that will get recycled the next time I do something like this or maybe when I rerun my apple feints.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by raketemensch »

Hmmmmm, lawn mower blades... Some all-thread rod, and that big-ass motor I have in the basement....
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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raketemensch wrote:Hmmmmm, lawn mower blades... Some all-thread rod, and that big-ass motor I have in the basement....
That was kind of the concept I had with the super chopper. The super chopper uses 3 H.P to spin about 30 blades, I'll probably get that up to 50 with various other mods before I'm finished. At the moment I have capabilities to do over 1,000 lbs of apples per Hr but the press is only capable of handling maybe 150-200 lbs per hour depending on just how much juice I really want to get out of the apples. I should be putting my efforts into rebuilding the press to handle at least 500 lbs per hr instead of continuing to mess with the chopper but I can't really do much to the press at work because it is too big and heavy to haul around.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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I had to hide the mixed fruit from myself so I will stop drinking it and let it age out :roll: It's just that good but really needs to age a bit because of the tails. It's already improved considerably, my wife even likes it but complains about the alcohol content :think:

Today on my way home I noticed a couple small madrone trees and stopped to see if there were any berries to pick. There were, exactly 4 berries to be precise, but I picked them anyway :ebiggrin:
MADRONE BERRIES - C.jpg
Since they are the size of a pea it would take about a billion of them to make a decent ferment but I think that may be doable if I caught them a month or so ago.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by Odin »

Here's some fruity goodness Indonesian style:

https://www.dailybuzz.nl/media/2017/12/ ... web_wm.mp4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

:)

Regasrds, Odin.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by zapata »

Odin thats rad!
Cranky, sorry for your loss, but good job rescuing something from it.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by Bushman »

Interesting video, glad I don't work that hard for a product!
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cranky
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Odin wrote:Here's some fruity goodness Indonesian style:

https://www.dailybuzz.nl/media/2017/12/ ... web_wm.mp4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

:)

Regasrds, Odin.
That's awesome Odin and makes me feel pretty good about the amount of work that one liter of mixed fruit took :D
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by cranky »

This morning I had to go out to my garage to get something and noticed this sitting by my boiler
MIXED FRUIT 11 DEC 17 - C.jpg
That's the gallon of plum wine I froze when it looked like it was getting infected. I took it out and thawed it and apparently forgot to add it to the boiler when I filled it :roll: Now the debate is, do I break out my small boiler and use it to do a 1.5 run on the mixed fruit or do I put it back in the freezer for another year? I'm really of two minds because I really do like the mixed fruit but not getting the tails cut right makes me consider going ahead and making that second run.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by Kareltje »

Odin wrote:Here's some fruity goodness Indonesian style:

https://www.dailybuzz.nl/media/2017/12/ ... web_wm.mp4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

:)

Regasrds, Odin.
After such a hard day's work you deserve a drop of likker.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by Odin »

Not even any real cooling ...

Odin.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by Bushman »

Odin wrote:Not even any real cooling ...

Odin.
That was my question in watching it, wouldn't think there is a large difference in Ambient temperature either.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by cranky »

I remember seeing something like that in an old book about distilling. I noticed that many of the very early stills depicted had short takeoffs and no cooling.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by Kareltje »

A week ago I found Jess Carr's book: The second oldest profession" In Chapter one he shows some old designs, taken from the Encyclopaedia Brittannica. Among them a pot like this one, but with longer cooling tube.
The clay that is put on top of the banana leaves and around the top of the bamboo riser is, of course, wet. I can not discern whether this clay gets dried out during the run, but I know vaporizing water from damp cloths can effect quite a cooling effect!
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