Apple Schnapps Concept

[Brendan]

I put some red apple on this morning too just for comparison, along with some other fruits

We'll see how they go

The Granny Smith skins are definitely imparting an awesome clear crisp green colour, I hope it tastes good!!

[Brendan]

Here's the aforementioned other fruits...

The same three from yesterday on the left, then Royal Gala apple (was red, and went brown within 30 mins), watermelon, and green table grape

Still an experiment for apple schnapps though...the skins-only are giving a magnificent colour that looks artificial, and even if the apple flesh provides a better flavour, i'll be using some skins-only for colouring

edit: you'll also notice that both trials of apple with both flesh and skin have gone quite brown and dull, whereas the skins-only have remained fairly bright green while still giving off that vibrant colour.

[Jimbo]

Makin me thirsty. Looks great Brendon! Dont forget to add some flavor notes for us.

[Brendan]

Makin me thirsty. Looks great Brendon! Dont forget to add some flavor notes for us.

Will do Sir

I've got a few ideas in mind that I'll toy with...I'm told this tincture of the fruit soaked in near-azeo is very concentrated, but I have my doubts as the smells are only subtle.

If the taste isn't strong enough after dilution, I may consider diluting to 65% or 40% and adding new fruit. It will extract flavour and colour slower, but might help (or maybe adding new fruit with the azeo would be better).

If the dilution and soaking is beneficial, I might even soak new fruit again at the final 20%abv for a finish off, and then filter and age...

[Jimbo]

Following this closely. Love the idea of making an all natural dessert schnapps. Nice work Brendon.

How about fresh pressing some aromatic varieties of apples, filtering the cider through some coffee filters and using that for dilution? Youll get the flavors and some all natural fructose sweetness. You could even do varietal schnapps, with color match from appropriate colors of apple skin coloring.

I bet the pectin in the skins will also help with filtering later. You should chill the spirit some before you filter, the pectin may be more effective that way to help as a fining agent. A little bit of lemon juice will help hold the color longer, but youll still need to keep these bottles in the dark. natural colors like this will yellow and brown with time with UV hitting it.

I dunno if you brew beer also, and keg, but if you have a mechanism to CO2 pressure filter through something like this I bet you could get the spirit crystal clear while maintaining the color. You can buy these at home improvements stores cheaper. http://morebeer.com/products/beer-wine- ... g-kit.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[plaztikjezuz]

Following this closely. Love the idea of making an all natural dessert schnapps. Nice work Brendon.

How about fresh pressing some aromatic varieties of apples, filtering the cider through some coffee filters and using that for dilution? Youll get the flavors and some all natural fructose sweetness. You could even do varietal schnapps, with color match from appropriate colors of apple skin coloring.

I bet the pectin in the skins will also help with filtering later. You should chill the spirit some before you filter, the pectin may be more effective that way to help as a fining agent. A little bit of lemon juice will help hold the color longer, but youll still need to keep these bottles in the dark. natural colors like this will yellow and brown with time with UV hitting it.

You could add some pectic enzyme to the fresh juice to break it down before adding it to the spirit. Once the enzyme works the juice will fall pretty much crystal clear. You could siphon off the fresh cleared sweet juice and use that for blending.

[Brendan]

I bet the pectin in the skins will also help with filtering later. You should chill the spirit some before you filter, the pectin may be more effective that way to help as a fining agent. A little bit of lemon juice will help hold the color longer, but youll still need to keep these bottles in the dark. natural colors like this will yellow and brown with time with UV hitting it.

Thanks for the tip on chill filtering Jimbo...not a bad idea at all.

As for the UV and colour, stevia has been shown to provide good photo-stability, as well as stabilising the 'louche' if there is one and prevents settling. Can be very effective in stabilising and maintaining a consistent louche created by oils in citris infusions.

[Brendan]

After a week, everything possible has been extracted from the apple (the other fruits are just coming along for the ride).

I poured a few ml into a shot glass and diluted with about 3 equal parts of stevia/water mixutre to bring to around 20%abv for tasting. It tasted great! Needs a slightly stronger apple flavour, but great. (I tasted all of them, but the skins-only was the nicest by far). The stevia is definitely the key to making these things work, so I have to thank Doc (The Doctor) for sharing his experience and suggestions on using stevia with tinctures in his commercial distillery over the last year.

Here's the tinctures with the fruit removed.

Now I thought about the fact that I want to bottle a schnapps liqueuer at 20%abv. So to get that stronger apple flavour, I could use more skin in the 93% tincture...or the alternative I had been thinking, was the possibility of diluting down to say 50%abv, and soaking new fruit, and then diluting down to the final 20%abv and soaking a third lot of fruit before straining.

The problem with this, is that I would need to add the stevia into the water that i'm diluting with, so I didn't know how it would go having fresh fruit macerating in a 50%abv solution with stevia already in it...I know I like the initial method of soaking at 93% and diluting, so i'm moving on with this to continue the experiment.

When I first added the stevia water, the solution stayed nice and clear while the colour just weakened...as soon as I added the fresh apple though, it 'louched' and went a slight cloudy colour...I'm not worried, it still looks great, just a cloudy green apple colour...from what Doc has mentioned in regards to this, I expect that the cloudiness will stay as is now, so it will come down to a final taste test between the clear and cloudy schnapps at 20%abv that will determine the final winner.

I've also put down a larger batch of the Granny Smith apple skins to make a full size bottle of the clear version, which will serve as a great comparison between the two. The other fruits aren't showing anything special so far...

[Brendan]

Oh, and I put some peach down today too. I have high hopes for it, as it seems to be a favourite schnapps among people.

I've already been playing around with some labels I don't know why, but I went with an apple logo apple as I thought it was funny...might change that later now i've seen the other ones.

[Brendan]

Ok, I've taken this way off track from Apple...

Today I put on to macerate:

Peach skin, peach flesh, plum, raspberry, black grape & more apple skin

Will post more progress pics...and final tasting notes on the final bottled apple schnapps next week

[Jimbo]

haha COOL! So the name of your distillery is 'Name of your Distillery Here' ? Thats an odd name