Off Flavor in Cider - Will it carry over?

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bilgriss
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Off Flavor in Cider - Will it carry over?

Post by bilgriss »

Last season, I bought a cider press and collected just over five gallons of delicious cider from my back yard tree. I planted the tree, picked out of a big box hardware chain purchase, over 20 years ago. Supposedly it was a Red Delicious, but the apples neither look nor taste like it. They're much better, with a perfect tang and sweetness. But they frequently have gone to waste, as they tend to decay and drop before they are fully ripe.

I decided to let the cider ferment, and read so many testimonials about letting the natural yeast ferment the cider that I went with it. Unfortunately, although it fermented out quickly, it has an objectionable flavor which developed. It's a somewhat phenolic, medicinal aroma that translates directly into taste. Pungent, bandaid, vaguely of decay but nothing I've encountered before. I thought it might be bacterial initially, but I think now it's more a product of fermentation and the yeast itself.

I then proceeded to lager the now hard cider, at about 37 degrees F, and have left it in a corny keg under about 10psi CO2 in that environment for almost six months. So many imperfections of fermentation mellow and go away under those conditions. No change. Still not worth drinking.

So here's my question: If I were to distill this batch, is the objectionable flavor/aroma going to carry over? Does my description sound to familiar to someone with more cider/brandy experience than me?

Thanks. This is one of those times where I wish I had left it unfermented, as I really enjoyed the cider itself when it was fresh. I suspect I'll alter my approach for the next harvest.
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Re: Off Flavor in Cider - Will it carry over?

Post by Deplorable »

I've had a really shitty tequila one time that tasted just like the smell of bandaid. So I'd not be surprised if it carries over.
Only one way to find out. Run it and see.
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Re: Off Flavor in Cider - Will it carry over?

Post by bilgriss »

Yeah. It doesn't have much value otherwise, so that will most likely be the path I take....
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Re: Off Flavor in Cider - Will it carry over?

Post by NZChris »

I don't usually strip into jars, but I would for this one. It might be possible to remove the worst of it before the spirit run.
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Re: Off Flavor in Cider - Will it carry over?

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Good point.
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Re: Off Flavor in Cider - Will it carry over?

Post by bilgriss »

(Finally) Doing a stripping run on this batch. It has been sitting under CO2 all spring. My impression of the cider as I put it in the boiler is that it hadn't changed. Still funky, medicinal, spicy smelling; still objectionable.

Started around 70% from the pot. Very intense objectionable flavors, lots of apple as well. Around 40-45% both dropped off sharply. I think I'm going to lose most of the fruit if I cut out the heads on a spirit run, but perhaps I can salvage some. I'll know better when that time comes.

I'm near the end now, and it's a pleasant, low funk, not too tailsy. I'm going to go deep.
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Re: Off Flavor in Cider - Will it carry over?

Post by stillanoob »

I've tried a couple of times to salvage bad tasting cider. I found that the GIGO principle applies. Garbage in, garbage out. One of the salvage runs wasn't totally awful and I found myself thinking that the off flavor would hide behind the good stuff. Then I realized that no matter what the quality would go down and I didn't care if the quantity went up. I'm in it to make the best stuff I can.

Now I wouldn't bother to run something that I wouldn't want to drink. The one exception is a lacto infection. Lacto tastes fine with just a little sour taste that won't come through. Ran some of that this year and added it do the low wines of the apple spirit run I am going to do this week.
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Re: Off Flavor in Cider - Will it carry over?

Post by DAD300 »

RUN IT!

I'm doing about 1,000 bottles of apple brandy a year. I have ferments that smell like apples and some that smell terrible. I'm afraid it has a lot to do with ferment temp. But take a ferment that smells terrible and wait a month and some smell like apples again.

Even if the fresh distillate is a little off, save it, barrel it, age it. I have barrels that smell wonderful and some smell off. A year later they all taste and smell the same.

Good cider doesn't mean good brandy!

Probably why brandy was invented/made, to save bad cider.
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Re: Off Flavor in Cider - Will it carry over?

Post by OtisT »

You should try it, but I don’t think it will turn out for you. That medicinal/band aid smell is a m*#@*&?+ker.

I got that smell/taste in several batches, a rum and a bourbon, both made with infected dunder. I made a bad ester. Re-distillation and 4 years in a barrel did not get rid of that smell.

I poured out the rum, but I could not part with the bourbon. HE stands for high ester. Lol 4 years and counting.....
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Re: Off Flavor in Cider - Will it carry over?

Post by Ben »

Any chance you are using chlorine bleach somewhere in your fermenter cleaning cycle? The taste your describing sounds exactly like chlorophenol, if that's the case get the chlorine out of your brewing, switch to an acid base sanitizer and avoid it completely. Doesn't help with last years apples, but might with this years.

As an aside, I have had great luck with Nottingham ale yeast to make dry cider.
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Re: Off Flavor in Cider - Will it carry over?

Post by stillanoob »

DAD300 wrote: Wed Jun 08, 2022 3:58 pm RUN IT!

I'm doing about 1,000 bottles of apple brandy a year. I have ferments that smell like apples and some that smell terrible. I'm afraid it has a lot to do with ferment temp. But take a ferment that smells terrible and wait a month and some smell like apples again.

Even if the fresh distillate is a little off, save it, barrel it, age it. I have barrels that smell wonderful and some smell off. A year later they all taste and smell the same.

Good cider doesn't mean good brandy!

Probably why brandy was invented/made, to save bad cider.
I make about 1/2 of what you do a year, some for drinking and some for distilling. I've only been distilling for three seasons now but have been making hard cider for decades. I can't say that I have ever found fermentation temp make a ferment smell terrible. Warm temps can make an estery or sometimes a slight medicinal smell but never what I would describe as terrible. Slow ferments never develop these smells but are more likely to develop infections. My current cider house is unheated and so ferments there are very cool and slow. I do have the occasional infection but with a large pitch I generally avoid problems.

Terrible taste is always a result of an infection in my experience. The OP mentioned terrible taste and that he had done a natural ferment. My guess is infection. I have only some experience with warmer ferments and none with distilling the results of a warm ferment. So you may be right that warmer ferments that don't SMELL good can make good brandy. Those flavors may manage to integrate and change.

I also agree that good cider doesn't mean good brandy. After all, you can royally screw up the distillation process. And maybe brandy was invented to salvage bad cider. But does that make it good brandy? Or the best brandy? I don't think so. In my limited experience the best brandy comes from good cider. The folks in Calvados seem to agree with that. The one commercial maker of spirits I know personally agrees. The infected cider I ran tasted awful, even the heart of hearts. With tasty cider the hearts would be great as an eau-de-vie. The problem of course is that the best apple flavor is hiding in the heads. So the trick with apple cider is to make the cut to include enough heads. This makes it rough at first but time and oak sorts it out. I don't think that off flavors will make that transition. They are not volatile enough to interact and change.

Anyway, I still think that bad tasting cider will make less than ideal brandy. If you want the best brandy possible you want to start with the best possible cider.
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Re: Off Flavor in Cider - Will it carry over?

Post by bilgriss »

No bleach, normal fermentation temperatures. This batch was fermented with the natural years- just pressed apples. I'm absolutely certain that it indeed was an infection, as I made no initial attempt to suppress anything.

I got a small batch. The low wines are in a carboy waiting for a future effort. I do have some other fruit wines in the basement which are of similar dubious quality, some which have been in bottles for a decade or longer. I've considered running all of that kind of stuff, clearing things out, and then figuring what I can salvage. It might end up getting discarded, but on the other hand, I could make the best cuts possible and give it another decade. One day, it might be awesome. Or not.
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Re: Off Flavor in Cider - Will it carry over?

Post by bilgriss »

Follow up:
After two years, and a couple batches from the backyard tree, I supplemented with another local cider to get a volume sufficient for a spirit run. I knew all along that the first batch with the objectionable funk might spoil the rest, but I really wanted to see how it would turn out in the end, and whether this would end up concentrated in the heads and leave me with a decent cut beyond. Also, after a year, I believe the original low wines smelled better than the year before.

Final spirit run and cuts complete. Mostly this is disappointing, but I thought I'd comment on how it turned out anyway. The weird flavor and smell, which at this point I can only describe as the smell of the inside of a radiator hose (rubber) that developed an infection just before it burst and left your car along side the road, was indeed concentrated toward the start. Unfortunately, it carried well into hearts, and it stood out the most in the jars that also had the most apple character.
Relatively small batch.
Tossed the part of the run until all the nail polish smells went away. From the rest:
Jars 1-2 were just nasty heads and funk.
Jar 3 definitely had some fruit, apple, vanilla, but the aftertaste from a diluted sample was intensely bad, and the aroma was mostly hot rubber.
Jars 4 and 5 were bad, but less intense. Jar 5 had some sweetness that mingled with the funk.
Jar 6 was unpleasant, but not intensely so. Nothing in there said I should give it a chance.
Jar 7 had more fruit again, but a bad aftertaste, and I didn't like the smell.
Jar 8 was clean. Sudden change. Not much flavor though.
Jar 9 was pretty neutral.
Jar 10 was similar to 9, but maybe a touch of sweetness. Something in the aroma told me tails were about to hit.
Jar 11 tasted okay, had some sweetness, not a lot of flavor, and there was a lingering cardboard thing.
Jar 12 was total tails. Sudden change.

I decided to just stop and abandon the rest. No way was I going to be surprised by something special past this. Jar 12 was super cloudy, and proof dropped off.

I'm going to age the jars that aren't objectionable on some pear heartwood from a tree I cut in 2021 that spent about 18 months outside, and then was baked for 90 minutes at 400F. We'll see what I get in a year or two. But mostly this was a bust.
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