Scumble

[Bradster68]

If it's unfermented, how can there be heads in the final product? Am I missing an obvious clue here?Advise or something to read up on is greatly appreciated.

I didn't say 'heads'. I said 'heads components', meaning VOCs that would be at high concentrations in jars that you decide are heads. The term 'heads' is often misused on forums, but let's not turn this thread into a discussion about the definition, look it up.

I'm on it thanks

[Bradster68]

You say you jacked "unfermented apple juice " for proofing yours. If it's unfermented, how can there be heads in the final product? Am I missing an obvious clue here?Advise or something to read up on is greatly appreciated.

The potential for heads components comes when jacking fermented juice. Which is why he advises against it and jacks unfermented juice (also for the flavour). Reread the passage you quoted.

I knew there was something I missed. Got some reading to do now.

[NZChris]

I just found my 2015 version. Tangy, oxidized, yummy, not much left, should have made more of it.

There is not much of that batch left now. A couple of later attempts are shaping up very nicely.

[cranky]

I'm glad you reopened this thread Chris.

Reading through what you wrote last year and the other day I realized something, I hadn't considered...I have all the stuff I need to make a batch right now When the Karen's delights came ripe I ground them up and froze all the pulp to eventually press and make iced apple out of. In the process of making room in the freezer for the pulp I found some bottles of frozen juice that I thought was from a previous year of KDs so I jacked that juice but it's just a little sharp for iced apple so it and a liter and a half of Rome apple juice have been sitting in the fridge occasionally being sipped by Mrs Cranky until recently when, in spite of it being just on the verge of freezing they both started to ferment and get sparkly.

Now what just occurred to me is that I have a partially filled barrel of brandy that I ran off last year (I'll have to look up when exactly ) but I also have a the aged out brandy from '21, either of which would be good to add the slightly fermented jacked juice to.

I also have three or four 1.5 liter bottles of frozen Rome apple juice that could easily be jacked as well or used as just juice to mix in.

[Kareltje]

The books of Terry pratchett are translated into Dutch by a person called Venugopalan Ittekot. This is a not-original Dutch name, so I looked it up.
See: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venugopalan_Ittekot
I read the books, but could not remember a name looking like Scrumble. The books are very well translated, in my opinion. Although I do not know the English originals. But the connection between berelak and scrumble I did not gather. The sentence: "Mainly apples...." was the trick.
In a copy of Berevaar (Hogfather) I found this sentence.

I still do not understand the connection between Scumble and Berelak.
In Dutch the word beer is a male pig or an animal called bear.
In Dutch the word lak means lacquer or "giving no damn" (heb lak aan = giving no damn about)
So I interpreted the word Berelak as "lacquer of a boar" or "giving no damn about a male pig", or maybe: "lacquer the boar/male pig".

Maybe you can explain the word Scumble?

[cranky]

The books of Terry pratchett are translated into Dutch by a person called Venugopalan Ittekot. This is a not-original Dutch name, so I looked it up.
See: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venugopalan_Ittekot
I read the books, but could not remember a name looking like Scrumble. The books are very well translated, in my opinion. Although I do not know the English originals. But the connection between berelak and scrumble I did not gather. The sentence: "Mainly apples...." was the trick.
In a copy of Berevaar (Hogfather) I found this sentence.

I still do not understand the connection between Scumble and Berelak.
In Dutch the word beer is a male pig or an animal called bear.
In Dutch the word lak means lacquer or "giving no damn" (heb lak aan = giving no damn about)
So I interpreted the word Berelak as "lacquer of a boar" or "giving no damn about a male pig", or maybe: "lacquer the boar/male pig".

Maybe you can explain the word Scumble?

I'm afraid you may be asking for more than I can provide.

My guess on the origin of the word as used in the books is this line
"You can't describe a scumble hangover.The best bit of it is a feeling that your teeth have dissolved and coated themselves on your tongue."
There is a technique to dull down shiny paint by coating it with an opaque duller paint that is called "scumble" so I'm guessing the inspiration to use of the word in relation to a drink came from that.

It's been a while since I've read the books but if I recall correctly one of the earliest mentions of it is a passage in the book "Lords and Ladies" (I think that is "Edele heren en dames" in Dutch) where a group of men are in the woods, perhaps near a fairy ring, and get drunk drinking Scumble from a jug. These are the men who later do the stick and bucket dance.

Again, if I recall correctly, this was a very early version of it which seemed to be a sort of strong cider, maybe something similar to apple jack. It seemed to evolve in later books into something much stronger.

Note: Mrs Cranky insists I add this She said it should have been translated "eigenzinnige likeur appel" but I think that may be too literal a description rather than a translation. I think it being sort of a made up nonsense word that could become whatever the author wanted it to may be the best explanation

Edit: I wonder if instead of "lacquer of a boar" if it could be translated as "Hog Piss" not that that is much help

[NZChris]

Hog Piss wouldn't describe any of the batches that I've made so far. LOL

I've recently finished making a pH adjusted version. After the first tasting I expect it will be inferior to my previous attempts, but I've had surprising results before. It's in a dark glass container in a cupboard where I'm unlikely to stumble upon it very often.

[Kareltje]

The books of Terry pratchett are translated into Dutch by a person called Venugopalan Ittekot. This is a not-original Dutch name, so I looked it up.
See: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venugopalan_Ittekot
I read the books, but could not remember a name looking like Scrumble. The books are very well translated, in my opinion. Although I do not know the English originals. But the connection between berelak and scrumble I did not gather. The sentence: "Mainly apples...." was the trick.
In a copy of Berevaar (Hogfather) I found this sentence.

I still do not understand the connection between Scumble and Berelak.
In Dutch the word beer is a male pig or an animal called bear.
In Dutch the word lak means lacquer or "giving no damn" (heb lak aan = giving no damn about)
So I interpreted the word Berelak as "lacquer of a boar" or "giving no damn about a male pig", or maybe: "lacquer the boar/male pig".

Maybe you can explain the word Scumble?

I'm afraid you may be asking for more than I can provide.

My guess on the origin of the word as used in the books is this line
"You can't describe a scumble hangover.The best bit of it is a feeling that your teeth have dissolved and coated themselves on your tongue."
There is a technique to dull down shiny paint by coating it with an opaque duller paint that is called "scumble" so I'm guessing the inspiration to use of the word in relation to a drink came from that.

It's been a while since I've read the books but if I recall correctly one of the earliest mentions of it is a passage in the book "Lords and Ladies" (I think that is "Edele heren en dames" in Dutch) where a group of men are in the woods, perhaps near a fairy ring, and get drunk drinking Scumble from a jug. These are the men who later do the stick and bucket dance.

Again, if I recall correctly, this was a very early version of it which seemed to be a sort of strong cider, maybe something similar to apple jack. It seemed to evolve in later books into something much stronger.

Note: Mrs Cranky insists I add this She said it should have been translated "eigenzinnige likeur appel" but I think that may be too literal a description rather than a translation. I think it being sort of a made up nonsense word that could become whatever the author wanted it to may be the best explanation

Edit: I wonder if instead of "lacquer of a boar" if it could be translated as "Hog Piss" not that that is much help

Thanks Cranky! And Mrs Cranky, of course!
Your guess about the dulling of shiny paint might well be to the point. Could also explain the part -lak in the Dutch translation.
I will reread Edele heren en dames and now with the name berelak in mind. Before this I did not relate it with scumble.
It is no punishment to reread these books. I found them in our local library, so don't have to buy them.

[cranky]

For the past few weeks I've been trying to get everything in my garage packed up and put away. This includes way more brandy than I thought I had A couple days ago I got down to the barrel I filled last summer. Emptying it and doing some measurements and realizing that I happen to have everything needed for a batch of Scumble I decided to make some and post about it here. This would probably be a good time to make a thread about it in recipe development but it's not like I do this often or have a set recipe I follow, I just kind of wing it and don't have a lot of time to develop a proper recipe so I just plan on posting what I'm doing as I go.

After putting aside a couple of bottles to remain as straight brandy I measured what was left to be just a scosh over 3 gallons at 140 proof. I used a calculator on the parent site to determine that to bring the proof down to 80p I need to add 2.25 gallons. NZChris and Higgens tell em the calculator is incorrect and it should actually be 2.33 gallons. I may even go a bit under 80 proof...or maybe over since it will likely be in storage for a couple years...I'm not really sure at this moment where I'm going with it or what strength I want but I'm aiming for around 80 proof at the moment.

To begin with I had 6 liters of sweet apple cider (unfiltered, unfirmented apple juice) in my freezer from last fall, which was perfect for freeze concentrating (Jacking). So I pulled it out and tipped the bottles up on top of some half gallon jars to drain as they thaw. Once the volume reached about half of what I started with I took that juice and refroze it. Once frozen I repeated the process and maybe did it one more time but I'm not sure until I got the juice concentrated down to 2 liters. I added a half gallon of that concentrated juice to the brandy and that is where I stand currently.

Now I'm considering my next step but it will likely involve adding some hard cider, possibly some apple jack and I might see if I can find some juice at the store that isn't from concentrate to jack and add that to increase the apple flavor. Like I said in thew beginning, I'm just sort of winging it so any suggestions are welcome.

[subbrew]

Wouldn't the frozen apple concentrate from the store be similar to jacking sweet cider? I assume it was vacuum distilled to concentrate it before being frozen.

[cranky]

Wouldn't the frozen apple concentrate from the store be similar to jacking sweet cider? I assume it was vacuum distilled to concentrate it before being frozen.

In theory, yes...but... At my local stores they only have frozen concentrate from dubious locations, like China, and it doesn't taste the same. It teds to be quite tart.

I stopped at the store this afternoon and picked up a gallon of Tree Top 3 tree blend, which I like and isn't from concentrate. They also had unfiltered "Sweet and Tart", which is also not from concentrate. I chose the 3 tree blend because I think concentrating the other might bring out too much tart. I like Tree Top because if the juice says "Not from concentrate" it's made with American-mostly Washington apples, so I'd rather buy their juice and concentrate it myself than buy frozen concentrate from China.

[cranky]

This morning I added hard cider to what was left of the 2 liters of concentrate and added that to the batch. What was leftover from the 2 bottles I opened I froze with the intent of jacking and possibly adding a small amount to the mix...possibly not, we'll just have to see.

As it stands, I've added total of a gallon to the brandy, with 1.33 gallons to go to get around 80 proof...of course with the hard cider in the mix it's pretty much impossible to hit 80p but I'll get close enough.

My plan is to lean pretty heavily on the concentrate in the hopes Mrs Cranky isn't totally put off by it.

I'm also working on concentrating what was leftover after jacking the first juice. It won't be a lot but I've gotten it down to about a half liter that tastes like store bought apple juice, so another concentration or two will probably produce something Mrs Cranky would like, that she might get with breakfast in a couple days...or might wind up in the batch of Scumble

[subbrew]

In theory, yes...but... At my local stores they only have frozen concentrate from dubious locations, like China, and it doesn't taste the same. It teds to be quite tart.

I stopped at the store this afternoon and picked up a gallon of Tree Top 3 tree blend, which I like and isn't from concentrate. They also had unfiltered "Sweet and Tart", which is also not from concentrate. I chose the 3 tree blend because I think concentrating the other might bring out too much tart. I like Tree Top because if the juice says "Not from concentrate" it's made with American-mostly Washington apples, so I'd rather buy their juice and concentrate it myself than buy frozen concentrate from China.

Thanks for the knowledge sharing. This sounds really good. If we get apples this year, always a question in northern colorado due to late freezes, I will jack some sweet cider and give this a try. If not, I will go the treetop way.

This winter I used apple brandy for my almost nightly hot toddy. Shot or two of apple brandy, teaspoon of cinnamon, teaspoon of honey, dried lemon or orange peel depending on what I had, and fill the insulated cup with hot water. Perfect cold weather sipper while watching a 1923 or Landman episode with the Misses. Scrumble should intensify that apple. Might drop the citrus peel.

[jonnys_spirit]

We discovered this spring that we have a couple nice sized apple trees and a crabapple tree in the back yard so will hopefully be collecting whatever we get for harvest this fall and figuring out how to best prune them for coming years Will check this thread out as we see what yield and processing looks like.

Thanks @Mr&MrsCranky!

Cheers,
jonny