Macerating Dried Cider Apple

[Bryan1]

G'day Guy's,
Well the summer here on the farm is proving to be a hot one and our young cider apple has a bumper crop but the hot weather is taking it's toll. So everyday we collect the fallen apples along with the ones that don't look the best. Then we dice them up and put them in my solar hotbox to fully dry but not to crispy stage.

Now as I'm always looking to do something different in the quest to make the best drop I can so I'm doing a small trial where I put a handful of dried cider apple in some 52% neutral along with a dash of cinnamon powder for good measure. After about 6 hours close to 1/3 of the neural has been soaked up by the apple and the smell is just out there.

As the apples will be soaked with neutral I do figure once my MiniMe gets upto temp the alcohol stored in the apple will part along with the flavour of the apple. Now in the thumper I will put a scrubber about 2/3's up to help stop the puking also so the lighter componets can rise and goto the PC and the heavier components will fall back into the thumper fluid.

The question I'm asking has this been done before as this my own thought but with so many people around the globe distilling surely it has been done before.

Cheers Bryan

[Saltbush Bill]

Have you thought about putting the apples, after soaking, through a juicer to get all the neutral and apple flavor back to a liquid before distilling.
Not saying it will work better , just a different way of doing a similar thing.
Works for me when I make Apple Pie using large chunks of fresh apple to flavour the spirt.

[Bryan1]

That did cross my mind but there's no fun in that is there mate. As this is only a litre to be boiled it will be interesting to see how it goes. As the still will run around 80C degrees any alc in the apples will leach out along with the apple flavour.

[Bryan1]

Had time to this afternoon to setup MiniMe and run this Dried apple maceration. I watered down the maceration to 40% and I put a SS scrubber in the thumper to help stop the puking and let the higher vapours through.

I used those 50ml beakers I got from fleabay for the cut jars and got 11 of them filled to 50ml so 550ml and I measured the abv of the last cut jar 30% and a gentle smell of cinnamon and no wet dog smells at all.

About 1/2 way through the run I took a D.P. so watered down some going 50/50 with rainwater and the taste WOW this is Apple Jack. After I do the cuts tomorrow somehow I don't think this is going to Brandy if it's going to taste like i think it will.

Next job is soaking some in my 5 litre boiler and I'll use my old 2" SS potstill so I can get a couple of bottles and may even put some down for Brandy.

Cheers Bryan

Edit: Now on stripping the still I found the diced apple had no alcohol or taste left and the backset was dark brown and having a small sip of it the taste of apple was prominent. About 200ml was left so I'm going to add that to the next maceration.

So it does look like this trial has worked nicely and tomorrow more apples will be picked and dried so I can do the 5 litre maceration.

[Bryan1]

Well last night got motivated and put down two equal maceration's.

Dried Cider Apple 50 grams

Dried Manzano Chilli 10 grams

Licorice Root 10 grams

Cinnamon 3 grams

The rest of the Mulling mix

Cassia, Allspice and pepper corns a good sprinkle

This went in 750mls of 40% Neutral and I'll wait until the dried fruit is fully saturated then do two runs in MiniMe so I can get a litre of 65% to put on French Oak. The inclusion of the Manzano Chilli and the Licorice Root should bring a nice taste profile and it will be interesting to see how it mix's with the Cider Apple.

Now as I'm only doing a litre to age it won't take too long to age, I found with the first batch 3 month was the sweet spot. In order to get the best out of the oak on the second batch I did I used an oak stick from the chilli mix I had on oak. Just gave it a quick sand then hit it with the blow torch, I also got a smaller new oak stick to include in the aging process and after a week on oak this is one nice drop.

Cheers Bryan