Apple Rye

[bbbark]

Living in WA State I had to do something with apples, will run it this weekend and give a report. Here is the recipe:

50 pounds of apples, cut up and cooked to a liquidy "mush"
12.5 pounds of malted rye, brought up to 152 degrees and let it stay there for 2 hours
Mixed the apple mush solution with the rye wash and added sugar to get it up to 12% potential
Pitched the yeast, fermented for 8 days
Strained, then warm water rinsed and fine strained through cheese cloth to recover as much as possible
Ended up with ~10.5 gallons of wash, prior to final racking
Now allowing yeast to settle, then will rack and cook this Saturday

Smells great, will see what comes out of the pot still. Planning on very conservative cuts, a lot of work that I don't want to mess up.

[Bushman]

I will follow your results but have to say I was more intrigued before you mentioned adding sugar. Personally if I wanted to raise the abv I would shoot for no higher than 10%. Do you know what the abv was before pitching the sugar?

[bbbark]

It was around 6.5%, a bit lower than I desired. I am using an alcohol tolerant yeast that can handle up to 15%, that is why I added the sugar. My hope is that I get a decent hearts yield with the full flavor of the apple and rye. I could have added apple juice, but that is basically loaded with sugar and I wanted to maintain the flavoring of the apples I purchased locally. I will let you know how it turns out.

[cranky]

My hope is that I get a decent hearts yield with the full flavor of the apple and rye.

I can't speak for the rye but the best way to get the full flavor of the apples is to use nothing but apple juice. Adding sugar removes apple flavor that is already hard to find. You also need to get a bit sloppy with the heads cut since most of the apple flavor is in the heads.

[goose eye]

Use your cider hot slops an pour right out of the kettle on your rye. Mash it in after that if that your druther.

So I'm tole

[bilgriss]

I imagine you'll be able to get something nice out of what you did, provided you make really good cuts. Since you pushed up the abv, it's going to be harder. Like Cranky says, some of the pronounced apple flavor is in the heads, and with the added sugar, it's going to probably be challenging to figure out what to keep. But I'm mostly speculating. I'd give it some extra time to air out before making cuts, which usually helps me to detect some of the nuances better.

[bbbark]

Did the run on Friday, cut very conservative, after fores retained 1/2 quart jar increments. Allowed it to air until Sunday, then selected. Kept the last ~quart out of 2.5 quarts of heads (clearly heads without question), the 6th jar was very clean so considered it the start of the hearts. Kept 1.5 quarts of the tails (~2.5 quarts of tails retained, the 1.5 quarts did not cloud when a bit was mixed with water) for the mix as well. It started coming off at 140 proof, I ran it down to 110 and then cut it off. It did run a bit higher than I thought it should, my prior whiskey and bourbon tend to come off 125/130. I diluted with distilled water to 90 proof and sampled. Definite first "rye bite" with a late taste of apple to finish, kind of what I was looking for. Ended up with ~2.25 gallons after cutting, now in the glass carboy with a piece of charred oak (French oak from a used Cab barrel - have a buddy who owns a commercial winery), will let it age. That is except for my occasional tasting, lol. Posted a pic of my setup as well.

*** Ok, no setup pic, it was 1.8 MB which is too large. Setup is put away, will have to take a pic on next run and save in a smaller format.

[bbbark]

Update, did a tasting yesterday and it is smoothing out very nicely with the oak. Back in the dark and will sample again in 90 days.