Applejack-like Apple Spirit without Distillation

I am planning to make a very strong, spirit-like drink. My plan is to use a yeast with very high alcohol tolerance (more than 20%), give it enough sugar to ferment to completion and make a very strong apple wine. Then I want to Ice it in order to take some of the water out, leading to an even stronger drink. My goal is to get to at least 30%. So a few questions for you guys. If you have any experience in any part of this, please share!

1. Can anyone recommend a good yeast with very high tolerance? I can just try one but a recommendation would be great haha. Advice on getting it to approach its rated tolerance would help too. (I have nutrient, what else should I do?)
2. When making a strong wine, do you typically dump all the sugar in at the beginning or can I just add some after the first week? It looks like I am going to need an original gravity of 1.150 or higher, which could be tricky lol...
3. Does anyone have any experience with icing beverages or know of any good resources for it? I don't really know anything specific about it.
4. After I ice it, is there anyway for me to figure out the ABV? Or am I just gonna have to guesstimate?

I suppose you would want to repitch anyway, so perhaps start it off with something like notthingham, ferment it for a week and repitch a champagne yeast, or even better a sake yeast to finish up?

Update: I found this super-high tolerance yeast from white labs "WLP099 Super High Gravity Ale Yeast" (http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/strains_wlp099.html) which seems like it would be ideal since it can get to 25% ABV potentially. It looks really hard to use based on the information on the page. All the things seem doable, but I have some questions.

5. If I wanted to get to that ABV, it requires an insane amount of aeration. They recommend using an aquarium pump to constantly pump air into the brew. Will this cause problems, such as the whole thing turning to vinegar? It seems to me that the airlock would be made pointless.
6. It also says that I should probably add sugar in tiers, so I guess I have my answer for number 2.

I am excited to try this now that I found a yeast that goes even higher than I thought possible!

More info on the WLP099 http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/homebrew_super.html

"Turbo yeast" and a lot of sugar will give you greater amounts https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/applejack-centrifuge-190156/index2.html

of methyl. These yeasts are meant for heat distillation where the first and last alcohols are discarded. I simply froze a few liters of Edworts Applewine, and upended it w/ a funnel to retrieve the unfrozen portion.

You will want to research standard nutrient additions, degassing and step-feeding. I'm definitely not encouraging this, concentration of alcohol by freezing will do just that, concentrate everything else other than the water. You are going to be stressing out the yeast in all sorts of ways to get this to work, which will mean a high amount of fusel alcohols. I wouldn't expect this to taste that great but would expect a hell of a headache at the very least after consuming.

ThunderPanda said:

Update: I found this super-high tolerance yeast from white labs "WLP099 Super High Gravity Ale Yeast" (http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/strains_wlp099.html) which seems like it would be ideal since it can get to 25% ABV potentially. It looks really hard to use based on the information on the page. All the things seem doable, but I have some questions.

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Keep in mind that the 25% quoted by Wyest is for beer wort...not apple juice/cider/must. It may or may not work as well, even if you go through the extensive manipulations they suggest. From what I understand, the sugar profiles of the two sources are different, which would obviously give different fermentations.

I would think you would want a turbo yeast, or a L-1118 at the least. You will likely lose a lot of good flavor so you may want to consider back sweetening with cider. I freeze my fresh pressed cider and thaw it halfway to get a nice concentrated, apple filled backsweetener. I would think this would give you the best results for flavor.

It might need some serious aging before it is any good.

broadbill said:

Keep in mind that the 25% quoted by Wyest is for beer wort...not apple juice/cider/must. It may or may not work as well, even if you go through the extensive manipulations they suggest. From what I understand, the sugar profiles of the two sources are different, which would obviously give different fermentations.

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I would assume it would work better on musts compared to worts. Musts are made of simple sugars compared to complex sugars that are in worts (easier to break down in must).

CidahMastah said:

You will likely lose a lot of good flavor so you may want to consider back sweetening with cider. I freeze my fresh pressed cider and thaw it halfway to get a nice concentrated, apple filled backsweetener. I would think this would give you the best results for flavor.

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I like this. Would you mind describing the procedure and results? I use store bought concentrate to prime with but this would allow me further control. What happens to the ph? It seems obvious that more flavor would be retained vs a heat reduction. Have you compared?

Sorry for the hijacking.

It is a really simple process - but by far the best rated flavor wise **for an appley tasting cider** That is, what most people expect a cider should taste like. I am a big fan of malolactic dry ciders too. . This gives you a cider concentrate, not a cider from concentrate.

1. Leave a little head room in you cider jug and freeze it.
2. Take the cap off the cider jug and leave it upside down , draining the juice into a container until you get about half of your volume out. You can also just leave it on your counter with the cap on, draining it out here and there until you get half your volume.
3. Discard the rest of the ice in the bottle down the drain.
4. Add your now concentrated cider to a bucket and add in your alc. hooch into the sweetened liquid, tasting as you go until it gets to the right flavor.
5. You may need to add a little water to reduce the harshness

If the drink is too sweet, or needs balance (its lacking character), add some malic acid (malic is the acid produced naturally in apples). It will help give a tart tang of green apple. Usually a tablespoon is about all you need for 5 gallons, if that.

It usually takes a good 12-24 hours in my house (room temp) to melt about 1 gallon of cider halfway.

Wildman, I bought a freezer this year, almost exclusively with the plan to fill it with fresh pressed cider from this coming years pressing event - so I can make more cider this way. Right now I bottle this style of cider in champange bottles. I usually pick my top two ciders (best tasting) and make at least 5 gallons of each if I have enough frozen cider to use.

note I should mention, if you do this to cider you plan to bottle you have to do the typical cold crash 24-48hrs, k-meta and sorbate. I have a kegging system so I cold crash the cider, add sorbate, sweeten and add malic acid if needed, add kmeta and keg it, to bottles it goes. If you don't have a keg set up you can't naturally carb it in this way after adding kmeta and sorbate.

In this instance, he would have exausted the yeasts ability to ferment any more sugar due to the higher alc environment, so I doubt he would have to add sorbates, kmeta, etc.

Have not compared the heating method - just believe the heat method ruins the cider flavors (IMO). Haven't checked the PH either, though I would wager it would *slightly* go down, as in, become more acidic.

Well I'm actually trying to avoid malic acid. The vast majority of trees that are planted here are cookers and keepers. Not one of 30+ trees that I have tested has measured above a ph of 3.8. If I could make it a little less tart more people would enjoy it. I let it sit all winter on its lees to encourage MLF.

Thanks for the write up. I wonder if this could be done in a bottling bucket. I plan on expanding to 130 gallons this fall so I need lots of juice to prime with.

ThunderPanda said:

I am planning to make a very strong, spirit-like drink.

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I made many of batches last year like that. I run it up to 20%abv and it seems to be the cut off line between sipping/drinking and having to get out the shot glasses.

Here is my thread but kinda hard to follow.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f25/just-started-my-christmas-apple-cinnamon-wine-dec-8-a-210624/

No need to use the malic, only if you don't have a good variety of apples and your blend frements out ok. If you are using cider that has gone malolactic already, your acidity, unless an extreme case, should be pretty good, but doesn't taste sharp.

You could definitely do it in a bottling bucket, but you would need your gravity readings to ensure you don't get bombs. I assume you meant to carb with the cider concetrate.

3.8 and up is pretty standard for most of the american dessert apples. Makes a pretty good utility cider. Most of my ciders have finished in the 3.2-3.6 range at bottling time. I hear you on the juice! I keep adding to my pressing each year.

You may want to rack once at 3-6 weeks to get rid of the bulk of lees then top off and let it sit. Do you keep your cider at 64-66F after primary ferment? If you keep it above say 62F, and it is unpasteurized cider, you should get a malolactic ferment (at least I do every year). I usually get a couple ciders that don't have a malo ferment too, but I would say 80% or greater do.

I don't keg yet, I keep spending my money on expanding production. If I do a sweet and fizzy next spring ill pasteurize as per Pappers.

It makes sence to me also that it would become slightly more acidic. It probably doesn't matter in the end I just have to watch my acidity. Don't get me wrong I love my cider and will keep making this way. It is crisp, clear, clean and just screams apples.

I also agree on not boiling off cider to get concentrate. I had ruled it out a long time ago. I think you would lose all the volatiles and the nose with it.

wildman said:

I don't keg yet, I keep spending my money on expanding production. If I do a sweet and fizzy next spring ill pasteurize as per Pappers.

It makes sence to me also that it would become slightly more acidic. It probably doesn't matter in the end I just have to watch my acidity. Don't get me wrong I love my cider and will keep making this way. It is crisp, clear, clean and just screams apples.

I also agree on not boiling off cider to get concentrate. I had ruled it out a long time ago. I think you would lose all the volatiles and the nose with it.

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And I should say, while it might become very slightly more acidic - I doubt it would be even close to palatable. Not to mention all of the sugars that would offset any acid. Sounds like your cider could seriously benefit from some aging. That acidity will mellow with time - how old is it?

There are hardly any desert apples here and the few I've run into are insipid and or poor producers. If I had land I would be planting every bittersweet I could get to grow. I do plan to run a side by side comparison concerning racking off the lees this fall to end my doubt. I actually expect racking off to be harmfull. There have never been any off flavors in my cider. It just makes some people pucker to much. I'm gonna search high and low this year for some subacids to mix with the lower ph juices since they less apt to under go MLF. I'd guess my average starting ph was 3.4, never took a finished reading. And yes I'm doing everything I could to promote MLF. I press my own don't pasteurize and the only addition is a half dose of k-meta before pitching.

6 months in the primary before bottling. It got better and better all summer till i finished drinking it up at 7 months in the bottle.

I'm also gonna pay a lot more attention to ripeness this fall before I press. Probably going to do a starch iodine test. I know it will help.

CampFireWine said:

I made many of batches last year like that. I run it up to 20%abv and it seems to be the cut off line between sipping/drinking and having to get out the shot glasses.

Here is my thread but kinda hard to follow.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f25/just-started-my-christmas-apple-cinnamon-wine-dec-8-a-210624/

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Thanks for that! I will probably have to do about exactly what you did. Only I brew in 1 gallon glass jugs at the moment.. Might have to do things a bit differently. And I wonder if the degassing will be necessary with just a gallon?? Might have to experiment a bit... And I will probably have to determine whether it is safe to freeze-concentrate it pending drinking of the original.

Well I guess I meant dessert apples by traditional cider maker or french and english cider maker standards (even apples like granny smith are considered dessert apples). Almost all american apples are considered dessert apples (by cider maker standards) due to the high sugar content and absence of tannins.

This isn't to say that you can't make decent cider with them (I and many others do). I have yet to try a true english or french cider with the traditional method of fermentation. That is why I am planting trees. Let's hope they do well enough to produce apples to try!

I would consider the over acid taste an off flavor (unless you have young cider). If your cider is aged and still overly acidic it could be vinegar formation. This might have something to do with the lees, sanitation or oxidation. I got into the habit of racking my ciders at 4-6 weeks and I personally found that I liked them better. You still have lees while you bulk age it in your secondary, but you remove a lot of the dead or dormant yeasts and prevent autolyzing.

I never read this before, but it sort of supports my racking theory; I follow a very similar process:
http://www.bacchus-barleycorn.com/catalog/article_info.php?articles_id=85

See paragraph 4

wildman said:

6 months in the primary before bottling. It got better and better all summer till i finished drinking it up at 7 months in the bottle.

I'm also gonna pay a lot more attention to ripeness this fall before I press. Probably going to do a starch iodine test. I know it will help.

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I would let them sit outside for about a week or more depending on temps. You can do a starch iodine test, or simple smell, taste, feel. You want the apples to be at the point where they smell sweet, like almost overripened, but not rotting. depending on the variety, (if you have late pickers) they will go from very firm to denting with a finger pressed firmly on an apple.

Too bad you didn't reserve some of the cider for a 1 year tasting! If you bump up your pressing you won't have a hard time letting them age

Final alcohol from freeze distilling has nothing to do with the starting alcohol before freeze distilling or the number of times you freeze distill. Final alcohol is completely dependant on how cold you get it. Period.

So you're better off making the best cider you can, rather than the strongest cider you can. Of course, the stronger it is, the less total volume you'll lose to the ice, but you can fix that by just making a bigger batch of the best cider you can make.

I'm not an expert on this, it is just one of the simple observations found on every page about freeze distilling that I've read.

MazdaMatt said:

Final alcohol from freeze distilling has nothing to do with the starting alcohol before freeze distilling or the number of times you freeze distill. Final alcohol is completely dependant on how cold you get it. Period.

So you're better off making the best cider you can, rather than the strongest cider you can. Of course, the stronger it is, the less total volume you'll lose to the ice, but you can fix that by just making a bigger batch of the best cider you can make.

I'm not an expert on this, it is just one of the simple observations found on every page about freeze distilling that I've read.

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I'm not really sure what you mean by that first part... About how cold you get it??? Water freezes at 32 degrees, why would I need to go much lower than that, and more importantly, what does that have to do with the final ABV? I have looked at a handful of resources about freeze distillation and have not heard anything like that.

Also, If I make a delicious, 3.2% ABV cider, then freeze distill it, I am going to have to take out 90% of the content in order to get the ABV I am looking for.. Whereas if I have a 20% ABV, I only have to take out 33%. My yield for option two would be 7 times greater for the same starting ingredients (mostly). These numbers are, of course, somewhat hypothetical but I think the concept is there.

Granted, I see your point, if what you are saying is true and I am understanding correctly, that you could get the same ABV from any original ABV. So maybe rather than using distillers yeast which is evidently not the greatest, I could use a more standard yeast that will still have a fairly high alcohol yield but taste better

Sorry, i suppose it was unfair to say that without a link to read about it... the simplest place to find info on anything may not be the most trustworthy, but i've read a dozen sites that back this up:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_freezing#Concentration_of_liquids

Water freezes at 32*... unless there is alochol in it. As you cool further, more water will freeze, but as you cool even further you'll start to freeze the ethyl alcohol - this is why temperature is strictly related to final ABV.

Yeah, definitely going from 3.2% up to 32% is a poor idea, I'm just suggesting that you don't stress the hell out of your yeast if you're just going to freeze it anyways. I mean, you're probably more likely to get a tasty drink at 12-14% than 20+, then you concentrate it. Also, the lower ABV you start out with, the more concentration of FLAVOUR you'll end up with because you're removing more water.

Please take all of the above as banter on the subject of freeze distilling (fractional freezing), rather than advice for your particular situation... I was just throwing numbers out.

ThunderPanda said:

I'm not really sure what you mean by that first part... About how cold you get it??? Water freezes at 32 degrees, why would I need to go much lower than that, and more importantly, what does that have to do with the final ABV? I have looked at a handful of resources about freeze distillation and have not heard anything like that.

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Sure water freezes at 32 but that doesn't mean that the water in cider will all magically freeze and then all the liquid left is alcohol, you need to get much colder to get something strong.


Adding ethanol to water will therefore depress the freezing point by 1.86 C per molar conc present. Doing the translation between molar and regular % by volume gives ...
5% abv 1.6 mol% 3 C lower
10% abv 3.3 mol% 6 C lower
20% abv 7.2 mol% 13 C lower
30% abv 11.7 mol% 22 C lower
40% abv 17.1 mol% 32 C lower
50% abv 23.6 mol% 44 C lower

This explains why beer (at 5% abv) will freeze for ya in the freezer, wine will need it to be a bit colder, but frozen schnapps or vodka won't normally be possible.
Data from http://homedistiller.org/notstill.htm

Oh, okay, I understand now guys. I would love to see a graph that show various temperatures and what % of water would freeze at that temp and how much of the alcohol would freeze, given an original abv. It would be interesting to see it visually, and then pick an optimal area in which you maximize frozen water while minimizing alcohol loss.

Also, I found it interesting how god-awful most of the answers on yahoo answers are... Most say, straight up, "alcohol doesn't freeze" and they claim that if you freeze it, the alcohol will never freeze. Ever. So they are like, "just freeze it and all the water will come out and you will be left with only alcohol"

mhmm... lol

ThunderPanda said:

Oh, okay, I understand now guys. I would love to see a graph that show various temperatures and what % of water would freeze at that temp and how much of the alcohol would freeze, given an original abv. It would be interesting to see it visually, and then pick an optimal area in which you maximize frozen water while minimizing alcohol loss.

Also, I found it interesting how god-awful most of the answers on yahoo answers are... Most say, straight up, "alcohol doesn't freeze" and they claim that if you freeze it, the alcohol will never freeze. Ever. So they are like, "just freeze it and all the water will come out and you will be left with only alcohol"

mhmm... lol

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There is a ton of misinformation out there on this, and risks associated with concentrating any substance. I would do some homework before you go forth willy nilly. Sounds like you are, just be sure you understand the process you decide to take up before you start.

ThunderPanda said:

Thanks for that! I will probably have to do about exactly what you did. Only I brew in 1 gallon glass jugs at the moment.. Might have to do things a bit differently. And I wonder if the degassing will be necessary with just a gallon?? Might have to experiment a bit... And I will probably have to determine whether it is safe to freeze-concentrate it pending drinking of the original.

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Your welcome, but how are you going to agitate, aerate, degas and mix several times a day in a carboy as needed to provide an optimum environment for the special yeast?

Regular degassing methods both during and after fermentation fail to dissipate the enormous amount of gas build up and therefore require very long ageing times prior to consumption.

Your welcome to switch it around and make your own recipe because I have made many of switches along the way from standard wine makeing myself and may have even invented a few new ones.

CampFireWine said:

Your welcome, but how are you going to agitate, aerate, degas and mix several times a day in a carboy as needed to provide an optimum environment for the special yeast?

Regular degassing methods both during and after fermentation fail to dissipate the enormous amount of gas build up and therefore require very long ageing times prior to consumption.

Your welcome to switch it around and make your own recipe because I have made many of switches along the way from standard wine makeing myself and may have even invented a few new ones.

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Well I think to start out I may just end up using a more standard yeast. As mazdamatt pointed out, I am better off making a better cider than a stronger one. So rather than go to great lengths to make a 22+% abv brew, maybe I will just target the 16-18% range. It will probably be a lot easier, plus odds are I will produce less of the bad alcohols that will make it taste bad and are very bad for you, which will matter a lot more if I go through with the freeze concentration. Plus, everything I brew right now is in one gallon jugs so it is a lighter operation for sure. I will just start simple for now, and if needed, go bigger later on.

If you want to make the best cider you can, I would definitely degass and SNA.

ThunderPanda said:

....plus odds are I will produce less of the bad alcohols that will make it taste bad and are very bad for you....

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Bad alcohols are produced from the destruction of the pectin chain. This production can be limited by not using pectic enzymes, wood barrels or capping it in a carboy during active fermentation. I haven't noticed a direct correlation between ABV and bad alcohols.

CampFireWine said:

Bad alcohols are produced from the destruction of the pectin chain. This production can be limited by not using pectic enzymes, wood barrels or capping it in a carboy during active fermentation. I haven't noticed a direct correlation between ABV and bad alcohols.

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Well i didn't mean specifically the high ABV would cause the bad alcohols (although I did hear that due to the stress from high gravities and such that the yeast get stressed and produce more bad alcohols, which can be minimized but not eliminated with degassing and SNA), what I meant was that distillers yeast like "super yeast" is a strain that is made specifically to produce an alcohol to be distilled. The standard distillation process effectively eliminates the majority of the bad alcohols. As a result, these distillers yeasts have been cultured ONLY for their high alcohol tolerance, with no regard for how much of the other stuff they produce. And I have heard this confirmed in other places that you can taste the bad alcohols when using these types of yeast.

So instead of using distillers yeast, I will probably use a wine yeast of some kind, which should not produce as much bad crap, but will not get quite as high in ABV

ThunderPanda said:

Well i didn't mean specifically the high ABV would cause the bad alcohols (although I did hear that due to the stress from high gravities and such that the yeast get stressed and produce more bad alcohols, which can be minimized but not eliminated with degassing and SNA), what I meant was that distillers yeast like "super yeast" is a strain that is made specifically to produce an alcohol to be distilled. The standard distillation process effectively eliminates the majority of the bad alcohols. As a result, these distillers yeasts have been cultured ONLY for their high alcohol tolerance, with no regard for how much of the other stuff they produce. And I have heard this confirmed in other places that you can taste the bad alcohols when using these types of yeast.

So instead of using distillers yeast, I will probably use a wine yeast of some kind, which should not produce as much bad crap, but will not get quite as high in ABV

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Now this is what I had been waiting on thunderpanda to conclude.

i.e. use distiller's yeast if you plan to distill, not to make flavorful cider.

The one person that posted about campfire's distiller yeast wrought hooch declared it wasn't that good (see his thread, comment was... I won't be making this again anytime soon). They said it could be used as a mixer, i.e. pretty harsh stuff.

Yeast selection and temperature have to be like the top 2-3 most important choices you make when you brew.

I can provide some anecdotal advice on ABV with cider. I have made excellent ciders at 13.6-14% abv from my fresh pressed ciders. One of the main reasons I haven't gone up from there is... you have a pint of that stuff and the alc is quite high enough for my liking. Wish they would change the distillation law though, apple jack would be great fun to try, just not worth the risks given the felony status of it all, IMO.

I can't imagine possibly being caught freeze-distilling. Wait till that week in January where we see -20C to -25C (Welcome to Canada), walk out to the garage with a bucket, go out two days later at 7am, break the ice, toss it out and carry the bucket back inside.

The only way to get caught is to kill your family on a drinking night due to bad alcohols.

Good luck!

MazdaMatt said:

I can't imagine possibly being caught freeze-distilling. Wait till that week in January where we see -20C to -25C (Welcome to Canada), walk out to the garage with a bucket, go out two days later at 7am, break the ice, toss it out and carry the bucket back inside.

The only way to get caught is to kill your family on a drinking night due to bad alcohols.

Good luck!

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I meant the real deal heat distillation - that is the only route I would go (if it were legal).