The two major standouts in my reading are: Take my time with the ferments as it's the nature of apples anyway and that there's a lot of flavor in the late heads. This is very new to me BTW.
Over at the mothership Ups474 writes about shooting for a low ABV wash to concentrate flavors. Seems what what I've read so far is that members here are running washes a few clicks north of what Ups474 recommends..
http://homedistiller.org/fruit/wash-fruit/brandy" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
What he says:
As always your comments and experiences are welcome for this old fart to absorb.It seems that the flavor of the brandy can be improved by fermenting the wine out to a lesser amount of alcohol. Most of the time, when reading about someone who made a brandy (don't get me wrong here, I'm positive you are already making top of the line stuff, I'm just showing another way of doing it) they use a starting wine with a minimum of 10% alcohol.
It is a well known (obvious) fact that distilling concentrates alcohol, it is a lesser known fact that it also concentrates flavor. If you have ever had (or made) a very high alcohol white wine, you've probably noticed that it was pretty insipid in the taste department, that is because alcohol seems to displace flavor, so the less alcohol there is, the more the flavor can come through.
Consider these numbers: A wine of 10% alcohol that is distilled to a final 70% has been concentrated seven times (so has the flavor!), a wine of 5% alcohol distilled to the same final 70% has been concentrated a total of 14 times! This would allow for a richer flavor to be concentrated in the resulting spirit.
This is how commercial apple brandies and the like are produced (no added sugar is allowed-keeping the starting % low), and may be part of the reason for the great flavor they have. Hope this helps someone. Cheers!
TIA,FMH.