Apples/brandy/distilling newbie

[Britishstiller]

G,day all.

A few newbie questions, I joined here as you lot seem nicer than homedistiller.

My dad and I have got a bramley apple tree and every year have more than we can handle so decided to ferment a load off. We built a press from a load of oak and a car jack and pressed out about 10 gallons. Really impressed with what we got.

Now we know it's bramley/cooking apples and they are very tart so did some research and mixed the juice with a few kilos of sugar (it being our first go didn't take notes) we brought the SG to around 1.060. As it was done in two lots the first we let ferment naturally and the second lot we pitched in yeast. Both fermented off fine, once fermentation settled we racked it off into 1 gallon dj's and left to decarbonate and settle. From start to finish has been about 2 months.

So the cider is still very tart but the FG was about 0.990 so we reckon about 10%. Hopefully it will mellow out a bit more after time.

Next we decided to try and make calvados or apple brandy. So as a basic tester I build a still from and old pressure cooker with a 12" copper upright pipe, 90' bend, 18" copper straight, 90' bend into a worm made from around 2 1/2 metres of copper.

Trial run was done with water and all worked fine with no leaks.

So stuck a litre in of our cider wash and ran that slow, collected and dumped the first 100ml and collected three lots of 200ml roughly.

The heads and hearts is pokey high content stuff and the tails tasted mainly like dirty water. So binned that and just mixed the heads and hearts together.

Did a second run of a gallon and ran that as slow as the still would go and collect off about 1.5litres. After that it was tasting like water.

I probably got the cuts completely wrong so just mixed the lot minus the tails all together.

Yes it worked and we have some high proof liquid but it tastes horrible and smells rough too, we are waiting for a spirit hydrometer to see what % we have.

And that's where we are at, any suggestions or pointers as to why the output is nasty?

We binned the backseat but have read people put that into the next wash, is it necessary? We have no more apples so won't be fermenting any more.

I'd like to try a molasses rum wash but want to be sure I'm doing the right thing before I start spending money.

[R-sole]

Probably unnessercary to chuck the firswt 100ml if you are doing a second run, it can be chucked on the second run. Also don't need to seperate tails until later.

Sounds like you haven't made a heads cut, so that's why it's tasting rough.

I'd be very inclined to wait until you have some distilate of your rum waiting for a second run and blend a portion of your aplles into it.

I've only done a cider/rum blend once and i jealously guard the spirit.
It's very good stuff.

[Britishstiller]

Thanks for the reply. It's only a 5ltr still and by second run I meant I did another run, not a double distil.

When I ran it with the gallon I collected in 500mls, is that too big for a little run of 5 ltrs to accurately gauge heads from hearts?

The first 500ml was pokey stuff and not too pleasant, the next was no where near as strong but not what I would call 'brandy' and from what I've read the hearts is the stuff your after. The last was very watery with a hint of ethanol but by that point I had sniffed and tasted so much I had trouble distinguishing between it all.

I know it's hard to explain smell and taste but what should I be aiming for?

[SBB]

I would say that 500ml lots is far to big to be taking if your pot still only holds 5 L. probably 100mls or 150 might be better. It will also help a lot if you let the spirit sit in these smaller jars / containers to air for a day or two before smelling it. Read the information in the following link to better understand what you are trying to achieve when it comes to sorting the good from the bad.
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=13261

[busman]

Hi Britishstiller, welcome to Aussie Distillers

I joined here as you lot seem nicer than homedistiller.

Cheers for that, it's because we have shorter sticks up our arses :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:

Anyway, to answer your questions, your gallon test batch at 9-ish% would have only contained about 400mL of pure alcohol, so yeah I'd say collecting in 500mL containers will smear the cuts. To start with, collect everything in smaller containers so you can be more certain of the cut points, with more experience and familiarity with your recipe you'll be able to smell and taste the difference pretty easily (water down to around 30% for taste testing, and spit it out to avoid getting pissed and not being able to tell the difference anymore! :laughing-rolling: )

Cheers :mrgreen:

busman

[Britishstiller]

Now you have said that it makes obvious sense, kinda feel a bit stupid. Lol, simple maths.

Busman, I saw that comment about sticks, made me chuckle. Over there the usual answer seems to be 'read more and use the search'.

Ok so now I have 2 ltrs of single run distillate sitting there made up of heads and hearts, foreshots have been binned should I rerun it?

Won't I loose any taste that has transferred by doing that though?

I'm guessing I need to check the abv first to know what I'm working with though

There doesn't seem to be much info on calvados or apple brandy, I guess it's a guarded secret.

On another note I made some amaretto too and that tastes lovely!

[wynnum1]

You may be better making up a separate tpw sugar wash for some neutral you can put carbon in the wash or carbon filter after it is run .Ferment the apples with out adding sugar when fermented and cleared add some of the good alcohol and when you run this will get more out of 5 l run .

[busman]

If it tastes like shit then yeah, re-run it. If you run it with the remaining 40-odd litres of your apple wash you won't have to worry about losing any of the flavour.