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So I'm trying to tweak my apple pie recipe. Right now I think it's too sugary and would like to get more flavoring from spices and less sugar and juice/cider. I was wondering if it would be better to fill a gin basket (I'll be using a 4 plate modular copper flute) with my spices (All spice berries, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon sticks, ect.) And run it. Or steep the and strain them after? Of coarse I'm still planning on steeping with apples (instead of using apple juice) and adding some brown sugar and cider after. I figure it it works better at extracting flavours for gin I don't see why it would be any different for my situation.

Why not add apples to the basket as well?

Yea I would love to if that'd work aswell? Wasn't sure if I'd be able to pack enough apples in a 4" column basket for a 25 gallon run? And how the apples would hold up to that.

I don't have experience with apple pie spirits, but:
Basket flavoring works with some fruits very well, with other not. Most famous for this method are raspberries I think. But also apples work very well. But for a full flavor you will need double apples than alcohol. For example: For each liter 12% in the boiler, I would use 240g apples.

der wo wrote:I don't have experience with apple pie spirits, but:
Basket flavoring works with some fruits very well, with other not. Most famous for this method are raspberries I think. But also apples work very well. But for a full flavor you will need double apples than alcohol. For example: For each liter 12% in the boiler, I would use 240g apples.

Hmmm, well I obviously couldn't fit 22 kilograms of apples in any kind of basket. So I guess that would just leave the spicing.

What about apples in the boiler?

Id change recipe to less sugar. I use 1 gallon apple juice 1 gallon apple cider and 1 gallon 100 proof and mullion spice pack for 3 gallons tied up in piece cloth.Keeping simple to start with then tweaking to taste is way to go can always add more hard to remove once added.

Blend very aromatic apples with neutral alcohol and put that in the boiler. Distill some alcohol through spices separately. I say this because each ingredient will have its own set of flavors that come over at different points, e.g. fresh (non fermented) apple tails might be great, but cinnamon tails might not be so great, and putting them together could decrease the yield of one ingredient vs another. Blend them all to taste as you see fit, and like always, let it age.

Tater wrote:Id change recipe to less sugar. I use 1 gallon apple juice 1 gallon apple cider and 1 gallon 100 proof and mullion spice pack for 3 gallons tied up in piece cloth.Keeping simple to start with then tweaking to taste is way to go can always add more hard to remove once added.

Yea I'll be doing that, I was wondering about how to add spices though.

MDH wrote:Blend very aromatic apples with neutral alcohol and put that in the boiler. Distill some alcohol through spices separately. I say this because each ingredient will have its own set of flavors that come over at different points, e.g. fresh (non fermented) apple tails might be great, but cinnamon tails might not be so great, and putting them together could decrease the yield of one ingredient vs another. Blend them all to taste as you see fit, and like always, let it age.

Is there any benefit to redistill the alcohol that has been steeping with the apples?
Is there any benefit to basket infusing the the spices over steeping them?
Has anyone compared using apple juice vs steeping apples? I currently use juice along with my cider and other ingredients and thought maybe steeping the apples might give a better finished product?

Shovelhead89 wrote:What about apples in the boiler?

Good. But it would be better, to place the apples above the alcohol. You need a stainless or copper mesh with the diameter of your boiler and three threaded rods with nuts, so you can adjust the heigth of the insert. Of course this only works with a cooking pot still, not with a keg.
Macerated and distilled tastes not so fresh, more cooked, but very clean. Unmacerated in the vapor tastes more exact like the raw fruit, more intense (so you need less fruit), and with some fruits you get more of the oils into the distillate (if you do this with lemon peels for example).

In general, if you distill unfermented fruits and alcohol, of course the sugar and the color, but also the bitterness, which many fruits have, remain in the boiler.

The way I do it, der wo, is to puree the whole apple with water and leave it to macerate, like with cidermaking, because there are subtle flavors in the skin of the apple.

I know what you mean about cooked flavor though. That will come over in the tails.

Macerating a while and redistilling is the traditional way. In my country this is the only way you are allowed to do, if you want to name it "Geist", which is a better rating than "Spirituose", which normally is neutral alcohol and added flavors.
My method normally is used for aroma distillation with water in the boiler. But who cares, I like it this way. The only downsides of this method are in my opinion, that sometimes it tastes too artificial like alcohol + synthetic aroma, not so harmoniously, and the more oils sometimes taste bitter (so next time hazelnut-Geist I think I will try the traditional way).