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I’ve loads of apples and rather than make cider from apple juice, (crushing and pressing) I thought if I popped the apples in a oven (the aga is in all the time), let them soften and caramelise, into a fermentor with sugar and use a paint paddle to mush them up, may work.
What do you think?

The apples were soft enough to mash easily. The sugar had caramelised and the smell was like mama’s apple pie.
I tipped it into a tub added water and bread yeast and it’s off like a rocket.
It’s got a really Apple pie smell....may take a week or so to ferment out.

I'm interested to see how this works out

Stew8 wrote:added water and bread yeast

Bread yeast is a mistake with fruit, you will get better results with a good wine yeast.

I’ll try it with the next batch -I’ve mountains of apples on the trees
Thanks for the suggestion Mr Cranky

If I had a mountain of apples I'd figure out a way to chop them and press them so I could do straight juice without watering it down and adding sugar. Of course I'm kind of a purist when it comes to the apples. In the past I have done hundreds of pounds with nothing but a small press, a food processor and some pillow cases. I'm not sure what your definition of a mountain is but I've been known to do a crazy amount of apples. Adding sugar and water are going to make it difficult to find the apple flavor. I'm not sure what baking them will do.

For the first run, I cut 8 apples in half added them to the boiler and the result is rather Apple-ly.
The first ferment, the apples were not caramelised. I can’t wait to do the next barrel.
I’ll keep you posted....

Doesn’t look like Stew8 has been active here for a while, but I’d love to hear how the baked apple brandy turned out. Has anyone else tried making it? I’ve been considering the same thing myself.

I may have to try this next year.