It's that time of year... Applejacks!

[Lo_Kai]

Hey all, I recently made friends with a gentleman who has a few dozen Red Delicous trees in his little orchard who runs the apples up north to have them squeezed for cider. Imagine my surprise when he said I'd be welcome to ten gallons and all the apples I want for helping him fill up a couple bins. I squeezed about five to six bushels myself and got roughly eight or so gallons of freshly squeezed cider along with what he already gave me. I wondered what to do with all that, so here's my recipe as I thought would be the proper way.

Lo Kai's Applejacks (I did ten gallons side by side)

-First, boil down about four and a half gallons of cider into a thick syrup.
-While its still hot, add in another gallon of cider to thin it out.
-Add two pounds of brown sugar and stir until its dissolved.
-Using 1 1/2 teaspoons each throw in some yeast nutrient, acid blend and some pectin to help it clear.
-Add this to your fermentor and top off with more cider until you've reached five or so gallons.
-Start some Lalvin's EC-1118 in a gallon jug of cooled wash and pitch it into the fermentor after letting it bubble for half a day.
-Ferment for two weeks or until it runs dry and rack off into a secondary to make sure no lees sneak into your final product.

Now, I didn't distill this stuff as my pot still is now nonexistent, so to my surprise I was happy to find that my six gallon plastic bucket fermentor fit perfectly in my freezer. I adjusted the temperature so that it would be a steady -6 faranheit so for the last couple days all I have to do is take the bucket out once in awhile and scoop off all the ice that floats ontop, its drastically been reducing more and more so whenever the level goes down enough I'll top it off with more wash and hopefully reduce this entire ten gallon batch into maybe four or three gallons.

I'm planning on aging this all inside a corny keg for a month before bottling, I'll be distress aging it with some toasted pear wood I toasted at 340 degrees for a nice sweet/vanilla profile and maybe a couple handfulls of raisains to sweeten it better. Its getting nice and chilly out so I thought letting it sit in the garage would make a nice drastic rise and fall between night and daytime temperatures and let it breathe into the wood better. Any thoughts?

[Dnderhead]

happy hangover!

[MuleKicker]

happy hangover!

sometimes folks just gotta experience it fer themselves.

[Lo_Kai]

Yeah yeah, I know the whole controversy around fractional crystalization. Where I'm moving in the next few months I doubt they'll approve of me making my hooch so I won't be allowed a still, but since Blackberries are almost like the Oregon state plant from the sheer number of them I see whenever I've visited (Holy cow is all I can say) I thought it might give me an excuse to try freezing. I've heard about boiling off the methonol that gets built up but I don't think it'll work in a big open pot or anything, but my cornelius keg boiler only has a 3/4" hole in the removable lid so I'm wondering if perhaps that might be suitable for the job if I let it cook for a little bit, maybe go into the 'heads' a little just to be extra cautious. This is basically wine, so I won't be heart broken if I lose a little proof for safety reasons. Anyone else ever just collect the foreshots out of a charge of brandy and just let it cool in their still after turning off the heat?

This isn't something that's going to be drank very often, if I have half of what I'm making in five years I'll be happy. Worst case I'll be cooking alot of pork in the future, haha. On a side note, cider syrup is by far the BEST thing to glaze a ham with while its in the oven. If anyone else is making hard cider or Applejacks of their own I highly recommend setting aside a couple gallons for boiling down. Its great on toast too with your coffee in the morning.

[demonrichie]

well you could prolly work the foreshots out but with the ec1118 yeast you shouldnt have too much trouble i used it for an apfelwein recipe(which when done with the originally reccomended montrachet it is known for the evil hangover) and a hard lemonade and the hangover was minimal.

[goose eye]

http://www.extension.iastate.edu/Wine/R ... lewine.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

strike one

[ammo man]

Excellent article goose eye. It should be required reading for anyone wishing to make apple wine.

Bert

[plaztikjezuz]

well you could prolly work the foreshots out but with the ec1118 yeast you shouldnt have too much trouble i used it for an apfelwein recipe(which when done with the originally reccomended montrachet it is known for the evil hangover) and a hard lemonade and the hangover was minimal.

there are huge differences in these yeasts.
the montrachet is generally used for reds, which, generally will age for a few years.
1118 works ok for cider, i think it is kind of bland, mutes the flavors of the must and takes for ever to age out properly.

i suggest ale yeast. i really like the whitbread english ale yeast, this yeast originally came from apples, so it does work well for cider. the safale s-04, wyeast, and white labs all make a version.
the cider yeasts white labs and wyeast make are also pretty nice.
i feel these yeast preserve more of the apple flavor then a wine yeast/champagne yeast.

but for the evil hangover. the higher alcohols are going to more affected by fermentation temperature then the yeast strain. yea some strains do produce more then others, but not going outside of the max temperature range is more important. you can do the same with champagne yeast ferment it at 104, 9 degrees above the "max" for 1118. it would be a rough drink.