applejack procedures

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HopHeaven said:
So I just did 1 bottle of this in a plastic container in my freezer to see how if like it and it was great! Very apply, slight note of alcohol. I was wondering, could I make a 5 gallon batch of cider, transfer it to my bottling bucket and leave it outside on some freezing days and then drain the applejack at the bottom from the bottling spigot?
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That may not work too well but may be worth a try. I'm thinking ice jams. Just have a screen colander and another bucket handy to pour into in case it fails. It may work for half a yield or so.
 
All of you guys may want to bottle a little up too. It is absolutely great when those first spring days break out in their glory. Just don't get started too early in the day.
 
I have 5g of finished apfelwein. Fg of ~7%. Could i now freeze this to make applejack?
 
Is it better to divide my 5g down to 1g bottles or even 2L bottles? Which one would be better?
 
Anybody know of the drawback of pouring off the non frozen liquid? I mean what about oxidation? For this reason is it better to sift the chunks out of the vessel then turn the jug over to drain as suggested?
 
LAbrewer said:
Anybody know of the drawback of pouring off the non frozen liquid? I mean what about oxidation? For this reason is it better to sift the chunks out of the vessel then turn the jug over to drain as suggested?
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This is a good question for long term jack which just never happened in my experience, long term jack hanging around that is.

The solution to me is a cylindrical screen which could be inserted into a bucket of jacked cider to form a sump well, let it fill then siphon off the jack. I haven't done this and don't have any cider on hand in a fermentor or secondary. I think it would need to be a 2-3" diameter cylinder of screen, the height of the bucket for easy handling. Should work well enough. The problem for some may be the lack of a below freezing ambient environment to work in. I do all of my procedure outside.
 
For those of you putting it outside to freeze, what temperature is it? I just racked five gallons into a bucket and have it outside. Right now the temp is 24 but is supposed to get down to 15 tonight and -4 tomorrow. I am going to try and scoop the ice out with a strainer throughout the night and tomorrow night. I'm not sure if I will get cold enough temperatures though. It us supposed to warm up after Monday.
 
I found the teens worked better than the twenties. Too cold it might freeze solid when its still less than 10%. After jacking once or twice the apple jack will easily drip thru the ice flakes. Just turn the jug upside down over a bucket and leave it below freezing.
 
Has anybody froze in a corny and pushed the liquid out? I feel sure it would have to be pushed slowly to let the liquid drain down instead of blowing lots of co2 bubbles.
 
MarkKF said:
I found the teens worked better than the twenties. Too cold it might freeze solid when its still less than 10%. After jacking once or twice the apple jack will easily drip thru the ice flakes. Just turn the jug upside down over a bucket and leave it below freezing.
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Do you mean teens and twenties belie zero or above? I am assuming below.
 
jeepinjeepin said:
I know you couldn't use a full corny and letting it freeze solid would be risky. Otherwise...
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I have to deal with freezing a lot. My wife seems to burn through her fancy stainless waterbottles because they freeze and the bottom always warps outward so they won't stand up straight. It doesn't seem to matter if they're full or not. But obviously they're also not as strong as a corny.
 
mike_in_ak said:
I have to deal with freezing a lot. My wife seems to burn through her fancy stainless waterbottles because they freeze and the bottom always warps outward so they won't stand up straight. It doesn't seem to matter if they're full or not. But obviously they're also not as strong as a corny.
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And the cornies should already have domed bottoms. That should stiffen that weak point.
 
I just finished 'extracting' my Applejack from only about 1/2 gallon of 5% hard cider, for a 'test' of how this turns out. The finished cider was fairly dry, tart and not too much else. The applejack was also, dry, tart and slightly more flavor. I was expecting a lot more sweetness for whatever reason (thinking of Port), but this was pretty good.
I will use a little of this to 'fortify' my couple of large bottles of the dry cider, giving it more flavor, and keep the rest to sip.
My next thought is to ferment out the 100% cherry juice I picked up from Trader Joe's and try a small batch (1 gallon) of CherryJack.
 
One thing you can try is backsweeten the apple jack. I tried it with a batch. I used 1 can of old orchard apple juice concentrate to 5 guarts of "jack" also added a couple of cinnamon sticks. And let it sit for a few days. I had a few friends over and let them try it. Needles to say it didnt last long.
 
Backsweetening sounds like a good idea since you will probably have gone past the tolerance of the yeast.

Jackin in a corny? I'd like to hear about your results. I can't imagine why it wouldn't work unless water freezes in your out line. Then you'd need to wait for temps to raise enough to melt the ice which might defeat the purpose.

I would think a better bottle might be more suitable for larger batches.
 
My adventures in Hard Cider gave me quite the humbling experience. I tried making H/C in a 2 liter soda bottle using frozen concentrate and having to remember to crack the cap every day to keep the pressure under control. I have since figured out how to not only relieve the pressure building in the bottle, but as a benefit leaving the contents quite nicely carbonated too. I really like the the pressure relieving caps I came up with, and at some point I will start marketing them. No more bottle bombs. Ever. My first cider making experiment turned out decent, so I put what was left of into a water bottle, and into the freezer it went. Three days later I turned the water bottle upside down and let if partially defrost. The first few teaspoons were like drinking fire, so I left the bottle upside down until the ice that was left looked sort of white. I then tasted what had drained out, albeit a couple ounces, and definitely contained alcohol. The yeast I used was ESB 1968 because that was what I had. The clearing was not perfect, but most of the trub was still frozen in the bottom of the bottle.
Fast forward to the latest batch; I made 5 gallons of home pressed cider to make into hard cider. We drank very little of the cider before the yeast was pitched. Once again I used the ESB 1968 yeast, but something odd happened, the cider continued to ferment for two months, and I sampled it and still had good flavor, so I let it go until I saw no more fermentation happening so I put the cider into 2 liter bottles, and 20 oz soda bottles leaving 2 plus gallons in my fermenting bucket. After 1 week in freezer, I pulled out the bucket turned it over in a pot big enough to hold the now concentrated apple cider. I then waited until the ice was clear, tossed the ice, and put my now very concentrated cider into a gallon jug in the freezer. The freezer I have has a large range of settings and I kept setting it warmer and warmer, until the liquor drained out and the ice did not. It tastes like I think moonshine would taste; alcohol hot, slightly sweet, and very deceiving. I had what I thought were small sips, and in a few minutes I starting feeling the buzz. No more sampling while working. I just checked the 1 gallon jug in the freezer, and there is 3 inches of liquid sitting below the ice block. Yay! Booze, almost Free Hooch, and undistilled Calvados. Damn, I love this web site.
 
MindenMan said:
It tastes like I think moonshine would taste; alcohol hot, slightly sweet, and very deceiving. I had what I thought were small sips, and in a few minutes I starting feeling the buzz. No more sampling while working. I just checked the 1 gallon jug in the freezer, and there is 3 inches of liquid sitting below the ice block. Yay! Booze, almost Free Hooch, and undistilled Calvados. Damn, I love this web site.
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Yay! go HBT!


Although, IMHO, Calvados and moonshine are maybe not the best comparisons. It is like a port... potentially a dry, tawny port depending on the base you use.

Very flavorful (can be good or bad flavor depending on cider), hot, like you said, and deceivingly strong.

Drinking normal hard cider after good apple jack is like drinking scotch and soda compared to a neat snifter of single malt.
 
MindenMan said:
It tastes like I think moonshine would taste; alcohol hot, slightly sweet, and very deceiving.
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Do y'all not have commercial corn liquor over there? NC, TN, VA have quite the history in untaxed corn liquor. The benefit is that several have gone into business now and we have several brands on the store shelf. It doesn't have to be hot, well not any hotter than any other whiskey. Sweet? Can be. Think sweet corn. Deceiving? Yes.
 
I finished my applejack but wasted half of it. Without completely understanding how it worked i thought you were supposed to discard the ice and what was left over was the applejack. Fortunately I realized my mistake about halfway through my five gallons of cider. what i ended up with tastes really good but has a little metallic taste. Any ideas on what the metallic taste would be from?
 
BWN said:
I finished my applejack but wasted half of it. Without completely understanding how it worked i thought you were supposed to discard the ice and what was left over was the applejack. Fortunately I realized my mistake about halfway through my five gallons of cider. what i ended up with tastes really good but has a little metallic taste. Any ideas on what the metallic taste would be from?
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Any more info on your original base? ingredients? OG/FG? Fermentation temperature? fermentation vessels? yeast used?

I've noticed some champagne yeasts can give a metallic taste to apple juice. I think it has something to do with the types of acid in Apples compared to grapes... either way, it tends to go away after a few months, some light oaking, and some calcium carbonate. I only use champagne yeasts for wine style ciders, everything else I use ale yeast for.
 
BWN said:
I finished my applejack but wasted half of it. Without completely understanding how it worked i thought you were supposed to discard the ice and what was left over was the applejack. Fortunately I realized my mistake about halfway through my five gallons of cider. what i ended up with tastes really good but has a little metallic taste. Any ideas on what the metallic taste would be from?
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You don't discard the ice? So what are you supposed to do with it?
 
I mean I didn't let the ice melt. I was just scooping it out and throwing it away. I used cheap apple juice with s 04 yeast OG was 1.055
 
The first time using the bucket, after I flipped the contents over, I thought the brown layer was what I wanted, so I began to scrape the ice, later finding out the brown layer on the bottom was trub, not cider. It is amazing what a coffee filter will do to fix errors. My gallon jug that is currently upside down has passed all the trub into the alcohol layer, once again needing a coffee filter to clean it up. BTW, cheap apple juice makes a decent tasting product used by itself. I have not added sugar as an ingredient yet, but I may try it out. The first batch I made, after what seemed like forever, I added apple concentrate to really stimulate active fermentation again, and while adding more apple flavor, it also fortified the alcohol level.
 
I started with cider, racked a few times. It was clear to start. After the first freeze. I strained off the ice. The second and third freeze only had flakey crystals. I threw all the ice away. I think if its too cold the first time with a low ABV you loose too much good stuff.
 
MarkKF said:
I started with cider, racked a few times. It was clear to start. After the first freeze. I strained off the ice. The second and third freeze only had flakey crystals. I threw all the ice away. I think if its too cold the first time with a low ABV you loose too much good stuff.
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I think that was my problem I was losing too much good stuff. Oh we'll live and learn.
 
I made a gallon of pretty high gravity cyser (OG 1.014; FG 1.01; ABV est. 17%) and threw it in the freezer last night.

This morning (about 12 hrs later) there are no signs of freezing... not even ice crystals on the edges.

I don't know what my freezer temperature is but I'm thinking not terribly far below freezing. I had no trouble freeze concentrating the 12% cider before. think i need some dry ice?
 
I would think that if it was at 17% it is going to be hard to freeze at any temp.
 
BWN said:
I would think that if it was at 17% it is going to be hard to freeze at any temp.
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Here ya go. I found this little gem. It looks like getting up to 30% ABV frozen is fairly easy. Somewhere around 35-40% ABV is gonna take a colder than normal freezer.

image-3855041613.jpg
 
I guess my freezer doesn't even go down to normal freezer temps, then. The damn cyser is still liquid. Argh! I'm going to find a friend with a deep freezer.

I guess it has too much alcohol in it to jack... :D
 
So as we get back into that time of the year, I thought I'd bump this thread and also ask a question.

Does anyone believe that adding water to cider for applejack produces a better product then using only fresh apple juice/cider?

I always thought adding water was the cheap/hoochy way of going about it until on another forum I came across a few posts insisting that water gives it superior flavor.

Many were calling for 2:1:6 ratio for gallons of cider,water,lbs sugar.
 
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Please post a link to those articles, I am curious why they talk about adding extra water, if that is what they are talking about. If they are using aggressive yeasts and fermenting warm, then it might make sense.. a lot of sugar will make a lot of alcohol. Since the only thing that we want to collect is alcohol and not water, the more water in the solution ratio-wise there will be less ounces of bad tasting stuff per gallon. In the real world freezer there will always be some water in your applejack, and if that water has less crap per ounce of finished product, then I can see their logic in that method.

I saw the link; they are talking about the "D" word to concentrate the alcohol, not the freezer.
 
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In the last two years I have discovered a few things about making applejack, making a very high ABV% to start with makes applejack collection easier. Fermenting bone dry before jacking and bottling doesn't make as good of a product, the sugar needs to be there. The old recipes I have found come from a barrel of hard cider left outside in winter in New England in the late 1800s. They would collect the applejack and before bottling they would add 4 tablespoons of sugar and 1 tablespoon of activated charcoal into a pint bottle, and then top up with the a/j. The kicker is, this method was used in bottles that aged for a minimum of 2 years. After bottling a slightly sweet batch by accident, and misplacing those bottles for 10 months, the results were spectacular; not sweet, not alcohol hot anymore, apple flavor that was amazing. So I now never ferment all the way out, I leave a little sweetness on purpose before bottling. I have made with an apple juice base, cran-apple jack, cherry-jack, apricot-jack, mixed berry jack, white grape jack, white grape peach jack, and many more flavor combinations. Cherry-jack needs a really long time to mellow as the tartness is almost overpowering.I have been using Pasteur Red (not champagne) yeast with great results, and just did a test batch with Irish Ale 1084 yeast using a 1.060 O.G. apple only. I ferment my ales and ciders in the low 60s F to not create any off flavors; I made a cider based starter for this batch and added nutrient as well. It took off like like a rocket, and is now almost done fermenting. I will add table sugar to this current batch to fortify the alcohol percentage after fermentation re-starts to see what I get flavor-wise. All of my other batches have been fortified with frozen juice concentrates. I have tasted a fellow cider makers' applejack, and the flavor was great. He just adds sugar to the juice and lets it go until fermentation is finished; he uses a 20% ABV strain of yeast, although I don't know which variety.
 

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