Home Distiller

draw him a picture an put it in a card tell him itll be ready when it ready. best make sure that cider aint been treated to keep it from workin ciderman do tell how you carefuly blendin before white brandy is drinkable. so im tole I meant blending the heads, hearts etc. I been drinkin some of mine ...

The more varieties the better. If starting with unfermented cider it normally takes about six weeks to ferment out to dry. Start now you might just make it. After distilling, if blended carefully it's quite drinkable without ageing or alternatively on the parent site under ageing and flavouring ther...

Years ago I made this recipe for Instant Coffee Wine: 1 level tablespoon instant coffee 225 grams sultanas 900 grams sugar 5 grams citric acid 5 grams yeast nutrient Activated wine yeast To make one gallon It turned out really well and I was thinking about scaling it up to 10 gallons and running it ...

If you are intending to distill it at some point then dont bother turning it into sparkling cider just bottle and keep cool.

If making sparkling cider I normally prime 2 liter plastic pop bottles with 3-4 teaspoons of granulated sugar depending on how dry the cider is. I normally make enough sugar syrup to do all the bottles at one go. The syrup mixes in more easily than the sugar. Syphon the cider into the bottles bringi...

Thanks guys. I hadnt noticed the HD Google Search until you pointed out. Generally I find the normal search boxes pretty good, its just that there is so much info to look at. I never seem to have time to get thru it all.

According to Dunderhead if you use the enzyme then you get more heads in the distillate (See Calvados cuts and ingredients thread).

Search on the net under finings for clearing hazes in wine. Bectinaze is one and there are others.

Also I have never felt the need to use pectic enzyme when making cider. In some home-made wines though it can be useful. Depends on which fruit you are using and what you want to do with it. By the way please see the post I have left on cidermaking in the Beer and Wine Forum under the Hard Apple Cid...

Brilliant!!!! So to avoid heads the less pulp in the juice the better but personally I think the skins give more flavor to the juice when pressed.

I know the master of stating the obvious but this is what happens when I drink cider.

I have found that Cider which is well aged certainly improves in flavor enormously. As far as fermenting the pulp goes you do get a bit of pulp thru the hessian or netting in the press, so the best of both worlds. Also my experience from cider is that if you are going to age the cider then dont leav...

I'm intending to oak mine with toasted oak and hopefully try to hang on to at least one bottle for a few years. I am also trying the backset fermenting method with what I had left from the runs. I have used a third backset in a 5 gallon wash diluted with water but I suspect that I will probably lose...

Get a whole load of apples, as many different types as you can. Run them thru a garden shredder ( well cleaned first), we cut them in half first as the shredder bites better than on globes IMAG0230-1 (386 x 275).jpg IMAG0234-2 (366 x 590).jpg . Get or make a small bucket press and press the pulp (I ...

As far as cuts go the aroma of the apples mainly seems to come out at the beginning and end of the hearts. As you probably know you get a lot of heads with apples. I ran 10 gallons(48 litres) of cider thru my still and got 2 1/2 litres of heads on the spirit run. I ended up adding a litre of this to...

From my experience of making cider I would say to use the greatest variety of apples that you can. There are a whole load of different specific cider apples with all sorts of flavors. I've seen elsewhere on the forum not to bother using the apples with a lot of tannin for distilling but then I've ju...

I've worked out my sugar issue by looking at the parent site. I'd just like to say that I wouldn't have got this far without all the info I've gleaned from here and the parent site. Like you say it's all here somewhere.

Thanks for the the info. Most helpful. I'll have to add yeast though as I had already racked off my cider over three months ago.
Any idea what amount of sugar I should use per liter or per gallon roughly.

Hello I guess my username says what I do. I've recently built a paint pot still and I ran 50l of home-made hard cider thru it at the weekend. Used the guide on cuts and fraction, absolutely invaluable. Give the man a medal. So far so good. I've ordered an alcometer (incidentally called a spiritmeter...