So I finally finished up my first batch of applejack today!
I went into the project mostly clueless, doing a little bit of research online, and using the cheapest materials possible (so that way if I found out brewing wasn't for me, I wouldn't have lost more than $5). I found out that this is awesome and going to occupy a whole lot of my time from now on!
Applejack was chosen for two reasons: one, it's cheap and easy. I wasn't looking forward to buying kits of hops, and apple juice concentrate is $1.09 at the store. Two, it can be jacked to produce something of pretty high alcohol content. Since I live in a party house (college dorm) people drink a whole lot of hard liquor. I was hoping applejack would turn out to be a cheap, easy, and high-alcohol solution. It was!
So here's what I did:
Sterilized a 1-gallon wine jug with bleach
Added 2 pounds of sugar
Added 0.75 gallons of boiling water
Added 1 can of apple juice concentrate
Sealed the jug and ran it under cold water until it cooled off
Poured in a spoonful of bread yeast (Red Star)
Shook the bejeezus out of the jug
Snapped a rubber balloon over the top
Poked a hole in the balloon with a needle
...watch excitedly
Within seconds, the yeast started bubbling and activating, which I took as a very good sign. The balloon is a replacement for a fermentation lock, which I don't have the plumbing to properly use.
After two weeks, I checked on the first jug and found the balloon had inverted itself - sucked completely into the jug! I figured this to be a sign that the yeast was done and racked the jug.
This is what it looked like mid-fermentation
The apple wine turned out to be very yeasty-flavored, something I should have expected from using bread yeast. It was still extremely sweet and had kept plenty of apple flavor.
I poured the wine into an old ice cream bucket and placed it in the freezer overnight, producing a kind of apple-slushie. Running that through a salad spinner worked wonderfully. After the first jack, the liquor was still extremely sweet and this hid the alcohol concentration very well. (I have no hygrometer, so I can only guess that the applejack is around 40 proof right now) The ice chips were also sweet and apple-flavored, and they were so tasty we put them back in the freezer for later.
First lesson:
2 pounds of sugar appears to be too much. (The second jug is still fermenting, I plan on letting it go for 4 weeks total - this will help determine how long the yeast will take and how much sugar per gallon it can metabolize before it dies in its own alcohol)
Second lesson:
Bread yeast produces bread-flavored alcohol. I've really got to go buy some winemaker's yeast...
I'm excited! These 1-gallon test runs are working wonderfully, and the next chance I get I'm going to buy some hops and try my hand at actual beer!
I went into the project mostly clueless, doing a little bit of research online, and using the cheapest materials possible (so that way if I found out brewing wasn't for me, I wouldn't have lost more than $5). I found out that this is awesome and going to occupy a whole lot of my time from now on!
Applejack was chosen for two reasons: one, it's cheap and easy. I wasn't looking forward to buying kits of hops, and apple juice concentrate is $1.09 at the store. Two, it can be jacked to produce something of pretty high alcohol content. Since I live in a party house (college dorm) people drink a whole lot of hard liquor. I was hoping applejack would turn out to be a cheap, easy, and high-alcohol solution. It was!
So here's what I did:
Sterilized a 1-gallon wine jug with bleach
Added 2 pounds of sugar
Added 0.75 gallons of boiling water
Added 1 can of apple juice concentrate
Sealed the jug and ran it under cold water until it cooled off
Poured in a spoonful of bread yeast (Red Star)
Shook the bejeezus out of the jug
Snapped a rubber balloon over the top
Poked a hole in the balloon with a needle
...watch excitedly
Within seconds, the yeast started bubbling and activating, which I took as a very good sign. The balloon is a replacement for a fermentation lock, which I don't have the plumbing to properly use.
After two weeks, I checked on the first jug and found the balloon had inverted itself - sucked completely into the jug! I figured this to be a sign that the yeast was done and racked the jug.
This is what it looked like mid-fermentation
The apple wine turned out to be very yeasty-flavored, something I should have expected from using bread yeast. It was still extremely sweet and had kept plenty of apple flavor.
I poured the wine into an old ice cream bucket and placed it in the freezer overnight, producing a kind of apple-slushie. Running that through a salad spinner worked wonderfully. After the first jack, the liquor was still extremely sweet and this hid the alcohol concentration very well. (I have no hygrometer, so I can only guess that the applejack is around 40 proof right now) The ice chips were also sweet and apple-flavored, and they were so tasty we put them back in the freezer for later.
First lesson:
2 pounds of sugar appears to be too much. (The second jug is still fermenting, I plan on letting it go for 4 weeks total - this will help determine how long the yeast will take and how much sugar per gallon it can metabolize before it dies in its own alcohol)
Second lesson:
Bread yeast produces bread-flavored alcohol. I've really got to go buy some winemaker's yeast...
I'm excited! These 1-gallon test runs are working wonderfully, and the next chance I get I'm going to buy some hops and try my hand at actual beer!
