Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

[MooseMan]

Today started out pretty decent at work so I started my day by breaking out the grape juice pouring it into my 5 gallon pot in our work kitchen. The juicer produces a lot of weird foam which had taken up more volume than I thought in the bottles I was storing it in resulting in only about 4 gallons after they were emptied.
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Several of the bottles were showing signs that they were already starting to ferment in spite of being in the refrigerator and made loud POPs when opened.

I then turned the burner on and went to the shop and hung the 2 bags of grape pulp over their buckets, then went and dealt with all the morning stuff that needed done.

By the time that was done the juice was approaching 150f and climbing quickly, so I stayed there and cleaned and prepped the jars I planned on putting it in, frequently checking until the temp reached 170f. Then I put some cheese cloth in a couple of funnels and began ladeling the juice into jars. There were a lot of solids in the juice and the cheese cloth clogged rather quickly and after only a few quart jars full I had to go deal with the mid morning stuff.

Then all Hell broke loose and I had to earn my paycheck for once and it was none stop until 11:30, when I got a very short break, that was just long enough to fill all the jars. Then it was back to work until the end of the day.

When the end of the day came I cleaned up my mess, put the jars in the fridge and went to the shop to check on the buckets under the bags of pulp. I was pleasantly surprised to find at least a gallon of nice clear juice in each bucket.

I then put the bags of pulp in bucket and slapped a lid on it to deal with it Saturday when I go back to work. I then combined the juice into one 4 gallon bucket and slapped a lid on it figuring I'd take it home and deal with it. Then when I went to get my lunch box I had the idea that maybe the 4 gallon would fit in the work refrigerator and I could just deal with it Saturday.

So I took the bucket to the fridge to see if it would fit...It didn't

That's when the bucket slipped out of my hands, fell on it's side, bounced, the lid popped off and the bucket landed upside down on the floor having spilled about half a gallon of the two gallons inside

The cleaning lady, who I wasn't certain spoke any English happened to be standing right there. I found out she knows at least one word. She looked at me HORRIFIED and said WHHYYYY?!?!

I told her I would clean it up and grabbed the bucket spilling the remainder of the juice all over the floor

It ran behind the fridge, water dispenser, and several other things and made a huge sticky mess.

One person I work with stopped to help me move stuff and clean it all up but everybody else just made fun of me and kept playing the song "Red red wine"

It took a half hour to get it all cleaned up but I'm sure it will be months before they stop playing that song over our radios

Oh, dear.

I hope all that sweet juice spilled under the counters, doesn't lead to a rat in the kitchen...

Taxi for Moose!

[cranky]

Oh, dear.

I hope all that sweet juice spilled under the counters, doesn't lead to a rat in the kitchen...

With over 100 people working an operation that's 24hrs a day there is enough food left out that if we were going to get rats it would have happened long ago...plus our "Murder Falcon" would probably snatch up a rat pretty quickly.

[Bradster68]

Oh, dear.

I hope all that sweet juice spilled under the counters, doesn't lead to a rat in the kitchen...

With over 100 people working an operation that's 24hrs a day there is enough food left out that if we were going to get rats it would have happened long ago...plus our "Murder Falcon" would probably snatch up a rat pretty quickly.

Who doesn't like a murder falcon

[MooseMan]

Oh, dear.

I hope all that sweet juice spilled under the counters, doesn't lead to a rat in the kitchen...

With over 100 people working an operation that's 24hrs a day there is enough food left out that if we were going to get rats it would have happened long ago...plus our "Murder Falcon" would probably snatch up a rat pretty quickly.

Ok cranky, there's 2 things to clear up here.
Firstly, I was being a bit of a facetious dick when I made reference to a rat in the kitchen, so I apologise.
I'm guessing that you didn't know UB40 wrote "Red red wine" and also have another song called "Rat in the kitchen" from their heydays in the 80s in the UK.

Secondly, you have a work Falcon as pest control?!?!! Are you serious!?
What kind of falcon is it? I've always been a bit obsessed with birds of prey.
That is truly awesome.

[cranky]

Oh, dear.

I hope all that sweet juice spilled under the counters, doesn't lead to a rat in the kitchen...

With over 100 people working an operation that's 24hrs a day there is enough food left out that if we were going to get rats it would have happened long ago...plus our "Murder Falcon" would probably snatch up a rat pretty quickly.

Ok cranky, there's 2 things to clear up here.
Firstly, I was being a bit of a facetious dick when I made reference to a rat in the kitchen, so I apologise.
I'm guessing that you didn't know UB40 wrote "Red red wine" and also have another song called "Rat in the kitchen" from their heydays in the 80s in the UK.

Secondly, you have a work Falcon as pest control?!?!! Are you serious!?
What kind of falcon is it? I've always been a bit obsessed with birds of prey.
That is truly awesome.

I don't really know anything about the band UB40 and had never heard of the song "Rat in the Kitchen". It's funny now that you explained it.

Yes we have a Falcon that's sort of for pest control.

The main building I work out of has a very large open area and birds like to get in because it's warm and dry but usually has fairly easy access to the outside. Some years ago a wild falcon, I have no idea what type) decided it was the perfect place to call home. Shortly after that a ducks head was found on the floor and it was dubbed "Murder Falcon". It's advantageous to have in the building even if it sometimes rains feathers of the victims, so it's been allowed to stay.

[Deplorable]

We had a mating pair of falcons that had taken up residence in the factory I worked in before I retired. They were always bringing things back, or killing pigeons that wandered into the building. There was often feather piles, and bird parts on the floors.
Some areas had to put up covering to keep the falcon shit off the computers.

[NormandieStill]

It's a small batch year for me. My partners in the apple pressing business are all otherwise engaged this year, so I've been going solo. Which given the equipment means not too fast.

Anyway, 7 bags (I'm guessing 20kg per bag, but I've not weighed any) per pressing. 1st batch netted 51L. 2nd batch was a little lower at 46L, but I think we lost about 1.5L to some enthusiastic children. I've managed to bottle 36L so far as pasteurised juice. At least 30L will become cider for bottling (I'm gonna steam out the little wooden barrel tomorrow morning). I've got a third batch to do, at least 20L of which I intend to bottle as juice. The rest will all go into a large barrel with some champagne yeast and become apple brandy at some point next year.

The scratter works really well with the little "cider" apples. It tends to just bounce the larger ones around which takes much longer to process as you have to hold them down with a stick while it chews bits off!

[Bradster68]

It's a small batch year for me. My partners in the apple pressing business are all otherwise engaged this year, so I've been going solo. Which given the equipment means not too fast.

Anyway, 7 bags (I'm guessing 20kg per bag, but I've not weighed any) per pressing. 1st batch netted 51L. 2nd batch was a little lower at 46L, but I think we lost about 1.5L to some enthusiastic children. I've managed to bottle 36L so far as pasteurised juice. At least 30L will become cider for bottling (I'm gonna steam out the little wooden barrel tomorrow morning). I've got a third batch to do, at least 20L of which I intend to bottle as juice. The rest will all go into a large barrel with some champagne yeast and become apple brandy at some point next year.

Pressing apples.jpg

The scratter works really well with the little "cider" apples. It tends to just bounce the larger ones around which takes much longer to process as you have to hold them down with a stick while it chews bits off!

I think you're being modest Normandy. Most here including myself would love a haul like that. I didn't have the time to spend this year which is very discouraging. Good luck

[higgins]

This was a down year on apples for me as I only got about 13 gallons this year - 5 of which was canned.
I made cider from the other 8 gallons. Its quite tasty with the natural carbonation right now, but I think I'll combine it with low wines from a peach mush fermentation and run it thru 2 plates to make an apple-peach brandy.

[cranky]

Now that Ya'll mention it... ...I couldn't help myself, My dog and I stopped by the local compost dumpster to dispose of the apple and grape pommas from our last pressings. The dumpster just happens to be 2 blocks away from the easy to pick trees so we stopped by there and picked a few buckets...ok...4 buckets of apples

I know I said I was done but I have reasons...I know that sounds familiar too.

Anyway, my son has some serious health problems, including neurological problems, losing his eyesight, (He's legally blind) and some other stuff that comes and goes.

Currently he is having a lot of trouble eating, digesting and keeping food down.

Mrs Cranky and I thought maybe he could manage to eat apple sauce, so my intention is to process most of these apples into apple sauce and can them for him.

To make sauce I need a little bit of extra juice to add and a couple of people asked me if I had any more apple juice. One is one of my favorite bosses who was out of town when I offered the juice to everyone. So I figure maybe I'll set up and press a bit more juice to give to the people who missed out.

So, I stopped the truck at the apple trees and went about filling up some buckets. The dog waited patiently in the truck. It didn't take long to fill the first 2 and I put them in the truck and grabbed 2 more buckets. Because the neighbor doesn't like his apples falling in his (the neighbor's) lawn, I pick that side first. Then I was working my way around the tree but staying underneath it, which kind of made it look like I was hiding while picking.

I suppose I should note that I didn't ask for permission this year, which is a habit I have. After picking a place several years I generally just assume it's OK and don't bother the homeowner. I do keep an eye on real estate and make sure the house hasn't sold before picking.

So, there I was working my way around the tree and turned around and there was the owner just a few feet away

I startled a bit but quickly recovered and greeted him and made sure what I was doing was OK. As expected he was fine. He's an old man somewhere around 90 years old and happy to not have the problems with the neighbor. We talked a bit about apple maggots and how prevalent they've become and my truck, which he complimented me on. I think that's the real reason he came out, to talk about the truck, because you just don't see them any more. He also complimented my dog for being so patient while I picked the apples.

He was being much more patient than usual, especially given the dog across the street was constantly barking but we had just come from the local park and he knew I was going to take him to the dog park in a couple hours so he was being very good.

After I filled 4 buckets I headed home to get some work done on the house.

Today was my Monday at work and it wasn't particularly busy so I had a little time to clean some bucket, bring some apples into the shop and start some careful processing. The apples I'm making juice out of are being sorted, the worm free ones are being separated, the wormy ones get chopped up and blended in a food processor (I'm going old school) and put in a bag inside a turkey fryer basket, which I plan on setting up in the press tomorrow to see how well it works as a smaller press.

The worm free ones will get peeled before chopping and blending into apple sauce, than juice will be added back. It will probably get frozen to keep until I get everything done, then I'll cook it and can it when I get the time.

[ckdistills]

Picked 175 lbs of hachiya persimmons from a friends tree - about 1/4 of the fruit on the tree! May go back for more to make it an even 250 lbs. Last time, I chaptalized the wine before making brandy and very pleased with the flavor that carried through. This year I plan to use less sugar and to steam strip on the fruit.

[cranky]

Picked 175 lbs of hachiya persimmons from a friends tree - about 1/4 of the fruit on the tree! May go back for more to make it an even 250 lbs. Last time, I chaptalized the wine before making brandy and very pleased with the flavor that carried through. This year I plan to use less sugar and to steam strip on the fruit.

I'm jealous, persimmons are one of the few things I miss about Oklahoma.

[Beerswimmer]

My first time with apples this year as a test is going pretty well, and I'm learning a lot!

I planned on fall 2024 being my learning experience with apples year. I planned on letting my fermenting apple mash sit until winter as my boredom beater. Lesson learned, apples are dirty and need to be run ASAP when done fermenting. My 3 55 gallon barrels of apple mash are mostly vinegar now, strip runs are much less than I expected. 20 gallons of apple mash steam stripped only gives me about 1.5-2 gallons of low wines. Smells nice though...

My barrels are covered with plastic tied to it, it keeps out the flying insects and dirt. I'll be using them again next year. I started with hand chopping all the apples for 5+ hours at a time, then modded a chipper and that cut it down to 30mins. Using a keg with 10-12 gallons of water as my boiler, my 25 gallon milk can as the thumper is easy as pie. No issues with it at all. Raising the thumper up so that the steam goes uphill from the boiler works the best so far. The small 1" ball valve drain on my milk can boiler plugs nearly immediately, need a 2" for next year. Not having a press isn't the big deal I was expecting.

Dumping 20 gallons of apple mash that still smells nice has me thinking about re-using it somehow. I don't like to make sugar "moonshine", but I might mix some brown sugar with some of the spent mash and see what it's like.

[Wooday]

My first time with apples this year as a test is going pretty well, and I'm learning a lot!

I planned on fall 2024 being my learning experience with apples year. I planned on letting my fermenting apple mash sit until winter as my boredom beater. Lesson learned, apples are dirty and need to be run ASAP when done fermenting. My 3 55 gallon barrels of apple mash are mostly vinegar now, strip runs are much less than I expected. 20 gallons of apple mash steam stripped only gives me about 1.5-2 gallons of low wines. Smells nice though...

My barrels are covered with plastic tied to it, it keeps out the flying insects and dirt. I'll be using them again next year. I started with hand chopping all the apples for 5+ hours at a time, then modded a chipper and that cut it down to 30mins. Using a keg with 10-12 gallons of water as my boiler, my 25 gallon milk can as the thumper is easy as pie. No issues with it at all. Raising the thumper up so that the steam goes uphill from the boiler works the best so far. The small 1" ball valve drain on my milk can boiler plugs nearly immediately, need a 2" for next year. Not having a press isn't the big deal I was expecting.

Dumping 20 gallons of apple mash that still smells nice has me thinking about re-using it somehow. I don't like to make sugar "moonshine", but I might mix some brown sugar with some of the spent mash and see what it's like.

yeah, that's way too long to store apple pulp.

Cider well stored will last a lot longer without going south.

[Copperhead road]

I have stored peach pulp for much longer after it finished fermenting and it turned out really good. (I thought it would be no good but still run it) why would I still got a good result)
I think it is buried somewhere in this thread as I posted pictures and spoke to cranky about it)
Never done apples though.
Has anyone else stored pulp for a long time and still had success?
Sorry for off topic but I think it’s still relevant.

[Tummydoc]

Apples harbor vinegar organisms so you’re safest to press with metabisulfite in the juice if you don’t want apple cider vinegar, then pitch yeast after overnight dissipation of the metabisulfite

[NZChris]

I suspect that there has been some confusion due to the misuse of the term 'mash'.

[Tummydoc]

Apples are roughly 12 brix, if you added water you’re probably 8 brix which is just above 4% abv if fermented dry. Once alcohol is created my understanding is it’s not degraded to acetic acid, only the fermentable sugars are canabalized to vinegar. So either you had competing fermentation, or you just overestimated your yield because you were so dilute. Did you check a specific gravity before pitching yeast?

[higgins]

Wikipedia:

Acetobacter is a genus of acetic acid bacteria that can convert ethanol to acetic acid ...

[Tummydoc]

Yup my bad! I was confusing a lactobacillus superinfection in a mash which competes for sugars. Acetic acid production does deplete ethanol.

[cranky]

I just read this and here is my take.

I planned on fall 2024 being my learning experience with apples year. I planned on letting my fermenting apple mash sit until winter as my boredom beater. Lesson learned, apples are dirty and need to be run ASAP when done fermenting. My 3 55 gallon barrels of apple mash are mostly vinegar now, strip runs are much less than I expected. 20 gallons of apple mash steam stripped only gives me about 1.5-2 gallons of low wines. Smells nice though...

OK, here is the math I worked out on this.
20 gallons of apple pulp equals about 170-200 lbs.
From 200 lbs of apples I can expect 12.5-14 gallons of juice at about 6-8% potential alcohol so total alcohol in the must would be .75-1.12 gallons. I don't know how deep into the tails you ran them but it's possible you just didn't run it far enough or if it was watered down to begin with I'd guess the amount collected was spot on.

Because I press my apples there has to be some figuring but since you had the equivalent of what would be a single 12.5-14 gallon stripping run I'll tell how I strip.

Once I load up the pot and start stripping I just collect til it reaches 3 gallons. If there is still alcohol coming out I'll run it til I can't taste any alcohol. Usually by the end whats coming out pretty much tastes like water. I don't even measure the low wines, I don't really care what % they are as long as it's below 40%. I think it helps the final flavor to run extra deep in the strip but I could be wrong... ...I was wrong once

Now about vinegar.

I know it's buried in my back posts somewhere over the years but I think I've mentioned several times that I don't do large containers because of the risk of losing a lot of hard work with a single infection. Once in the past I was using 10 gallon fermenters and when I opened one I found 4 or 5 inches of mother on top and other large ferments often wind up with some type of infection. Infections aren't always a bad thing, even vinegar. That 10 gallons of vinegar that had the 4-5 inches of mother made a very fine brandy when I ran it. There wasn't even a hint of vinegar taste, in fact I think it made it much more complex than a standard ferment.

A while back I sent some samples to Michigan Cornhusker and he asked me what made one of them taste a certain way as opposed to the others and the only answer I could come up with, besides the use of 3 different yeasts, was that there were also 3 different infections, also making the final brandy more complex, so I don't worry all that much about infections anymore.

All of that said I now try to avoid large ferments because of the risks of losing a lot of hard work to a single infection. I now try to keep ferment containers to 5-7 gallons when possible and keep an eye on them for signs of infection.

[cranky]

I would like to note that on January 5th this year I picked 5 good apples off my Braeburn/Fuji tree in my front yard making it the latest I've ever picked apples.

Oh, and while prepping my garage for replacing the furnace I discovered 5 or 6 quarts of shinseiki pear low wines that I thought I had included in the 2024 brandy but somehow didn't now everything is taken down and put away for an indefinite amount of time and I don't know what to do with it

[NormandieStill]

Oh, and while prepping my garage for replacing the furnace I discovered 5 or 6 quarts of shinseiki pear low wines that I thought I had included in the 2024 brandy but somehow didn't now everything is taken down and put away for an indefinite amount of time and I don't know what to do with it

Put it somewhere safe until an "indefinite amount of time" has passed and they can be added to the next run?

[juana_b]

First loquat of the year are ready. Laid down a small ferment to test. 12.2 brix, so seems promising. Reposting that since it looks like forum has been rolled back.

Storms that rolled through the islands last night were a tad bit rough, just finished picking up over 200lbs of avocados that fell. Now that power and internet are restored I'm calling friends to give them away.
I guess I could have worse problems.

[cranky]

Storms that rolled through the islands last night were a tad bit rough, just finished picking up over 200lbs of avocados that fell. Now that power and internet are restored I'm calling friends to give them away.

I wonder if Guacabrandy is possible

[Beerswimmer]

Here are my final #'s : 150 gallons of apple "mash", 12 gallons of pressed juice. Steam stripped gave me ~17 gallons of low wines, I didn't check abv. Slow spirit run that I collected in quarts down to where it was bitter and bad gave me 6 gallons to cut from. 2 friends came to help with the cuts, I ended up with 4 gallons @ 70%. I watered most of it down to 55% for long term bulk aging in a carboy, so around 6 gallons total. I have 4 bottles that I need to give to the tree owners, the rest will sit until the next season is underway.

[cranky]

Here are my final #'s : 150 gallons of apple "mash", 12 gallons of pressed juice. Steam stripped gave me ~17 gallons of low wines, I didn't check abv. Slow spirit run that I collected in quarts down to where it was bitter and bad gave me 6 gallons to cut from. 2 friends came to help with the cuts, I ended up with 4 gallons @ 70%. I watered most of it down to 55% for long term bulk aging in a carboy, so around 6 gallons total. I have 4 bottles that I need to give to the tree owners, the rest will sit until the next season is underway.

I don't think those numbers are very far off of what I get from 16-1800 lbs of apples. I think it's probably a little bit lower than mine but not enough to be too concerned about.

Now, the tough part is letting it age out for the next couple of years

[Beerswimmer]

I just put it into a corny keg that's now in my attic. I'll open it and stir every month or 2 until the fall and see how it is. If it's bland I can put it in a barrel. I can also add it to fresh pressed juice.