? Head cut for 1x distill apple brandy ?

possum · Post by **possum** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 7:08 am

Has anyone her done an apple brandy with 1 distillation in a potstill ?

My plan: I have 5 gallons apple wine at 7%abv (no sugar was added). I want 1 gallon wine undistilled to blend back into the distillate. And then age on toasted apple or oak chips. That gives me 4 gallons to distill. What I am wondering, is with 1x distill, how much head cut+ foreshots should I remove ? I'm hoping to get alot of apple taste, but I don't want to make popskull liquor. I previously always did the foreshot + head cut on the second distill.

I would appreciate any advice.
thanks,
possum

Bujapat · Post by **Bujapat** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 7:26 am

I did it...
I distilled 24 l (6,3 US gal) and I cutted 200 ml (6,7 OZ) as heads.
Can't explain why 200 ml... I remember it has been a question of proof, smell and taste...
I added sugar, so I calculated the total sugar of the wine : ± 20%, thus 4,8 kg. I don't remember the expected wine proof.

Good luck with your apple brandy!

Uncle Remus · Post by **Uncle Remus** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 9:35 am

We did a couple runs of apple mash last fall. The apples had to be picked so to keep the bears away, so since we went through the effort of picking them, we figured we might as well make some hootch. After one distill the product had too much flavour, so we ran it through again and the product was much better and still had good apple flavour.

Run it through once and give it a taste, if you don't like it run it again.

possum · Post by **possum** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 9:11 am

Thanks to all of you, tater,UR, Bujapat. I hope I can run it this week. I'll update after it runs.

Aidas · Post by **Aidas** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 10:50 am

Here's my two cents: (caveat emptor -- my runs are tiny compared to most others in this forum -- my boiler is 4 liters, so I'm really "boutiqueing"it.). I've been running apple for the last couple of days. Beginning ABV at 12.5% (apple wine that I've simply decided to offer up to the new hobby god). I discard the first 50 ml (as foreshots), put aside the next 50 ml (for a future "multivitamin" run with bits, heads and tails from rasberry, grape and other washes (wines) I'm distilling). The next 750 ML I collect and end up with 40% ABV, full of flavor and nice nose. The rest I collect to about 15% ABV to throw into the "multivitamin" bottle.

I've thrown some toasted oak into it, as well as a couple of raisins. I've always had a problem with patience, so I've already tasted the first batch, which has a nice almost golden color (this, only a week in), and a nice calvados nose and taste. I'm very happy with it.

Aidas

possum · Post by **possum** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 11:00 am

thanks...I'll probably scale up your numbers for my 4 gallon run(tasting spoonfulls as I go). I might keep the undistilled wine for use at the time of serving...like scotch and water, so guests or myself can mix at will.

Brett · Post by **Brett** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 11:40 am

currently with my rums and apple n blackberry brandy iv cut the first 40ml per gallon of wash, but recently iv started to go a little more on smell taste and touch, ends up being between 25-40 ml per gallon, the yeast i use and the ingredients dont seem to chuck out to much meths and nasty flavours. Good luck n happy sippin.

possum · Post by **possum** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 12:44 pm

A head and foreshot cut totaling 200-250ml for a 20l(5gal aprox) run is about on par with my whiskey and rum cuts. But as I mentioned, I usually do this on the second distill. I was mostly nervious because I observed that the seperation of the constituants is more distinct on the second distill. I may go 2x, after tasting and collecting in small jar increments...also plan to deep into tails. The blending should be quite interesting. I just want to avoid getting methanol in the main body of the run. Apple wine,and its child, brandy has a bit of noteriety for high methanol.

furball · Post by **furball** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 2:01 pm

I have been noticing that as my ability to detect the methanol through taste has been developing, I have not been making deep enough cuts in the beginning. I usually run about 10gal at a time and the washes are in the ball park of 12-15% at the start. I was collecting 200-300ml and chucking as the fore shots and collecting for keeps until I reached the tails. I now think that collecting 500ml in the beginning as fore shots would be much better to making a better quality product.
The last series of runs, I ran multiple batches and collected about 300ml of fore shots until I had a 5gal carboy filled with first runs. When I did the second run I collected another 500ml as fore shots. I believe that this is the cleanest batch I have run so far. I have several gallons of whiskey from previous runs and think that once I have the time I will combine them in the still and run them again so as to get more of the methanol and heads out of them. I noticed the difference right after making that second run whiskey, that these first runs weren't as good as I initially had thought they were! Live and learn.....
I would do the same for the brandies, and probably collect more then the whiskeys because of the tendancies of pectin to produce higher amounts of methanol, then the grain. If I was going tobe making another 10gal run of peach brandy where the was eas at about 15%(sugar fortified in the beginning) I think I would go as far as collecting thr first liter as the fore shots/ heads cut, and maybe even further depending upon what the tast is like.

Furball

Chapiteau Arabe · Post by **Chapiteau Arabe** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 4:48 am

I once distilled 8 liters of dry "scrumpy cider" (7% ABV, available locally) in a pot still as an experiment. I didn't do anything to manage heads, on the assumption that the cider itself was fit for consumption, and not wanting to miss any interesting flavors. The cider brewer must have done a nice job, as there was no perceptable ethyl acetate.

Anyway, I collected about a liter of hearts, then another 500ml of tails. The tails were very low alcohol and tasted quite bland, but they had a nice, almost floral nose. I redistilled the hearts and tails together, collecting again about a liter. After that, the tails were bland both in taste and smell; the fragrant part of the tails migrated to the hearts in the second run. I was very happy with the resulting product, and intend to repeat the experiment one day.

I suppose this is consistent with feints-recycling practice for whisky. You might give it a try.

Cheers!

possum · Post by **possum** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 7:11 am

thanks Chapiteau Arabe