Apple jack

[william_shakes_beer]

I fermented a 5 gallon batch of cider using the usual recipe and Yesterday I turned the ferm chamber down to freezing temps. I went down today to begin scooping out the ice. I was expecting chunks of ice on the top that were crystal clear. What I got was a brown slush that capped the top and was lining the sides of the vessel. I dipped in with a slotted spoon and let the "ice" drip, then plopped it into a separate bucket so I could measure the removed portion and estimate final alcohol content.

Am I doing this correctly, or should I instead let the entire bucket freeze and pour out the liquid? I don't want to risk bursting the bucket, but the removed "slush" is quite brown which to me suggests it contains flavor want in the bucket.

Should I have held off on back sweetening until after freeze concentrating?

 

[bernardsmith]

Adding sugar will mean that the freezing point will be below 32 F (0 C). So it will be harder to freeze than if you were to freeze water but even 7% ABV is harder to freeze than water - . To make apple jack you want to collect not the ice but the liquid, so you want as much of the liquid to freeze hard as your systems allows. That may take more than a day and not just a few hours. And the liquid may not be on top but towards the center. I don't recall how I used to do this but I always created a kind of straw or tube that allowed me access to the center even if the outsides were frozen.

Any liquid will have all the flavor and all the sugar and all the alcohol. Pure alcohol freezes at minus 174.6 F, and again, the sugars and flavors are going to freeze long after the water has frozen

 

[william_shakes_beer]

I read a post on another forum where someone did something quite similar. He froze a batch ( a gallon I think), poured out the non frozen liquid, and continued repeating the process until it would no longer freeze. Unfortunately I did a 5 gallon batch in a 7 gallon brew bucket and there is no way I could ever pick that up and carefully pour the liquid into another container without making a mess. Here is my process:

1. Put bucket in freezer and turn it down
2. Wait 24 hours for it to begin freezing
3. loosen the icy slush from the sides of the bucket and scoop it out into a steel strainer
4. let the liquid portion of the strainer contents drip back into the bucket 4 hours
5. empty the ice, repeat steps 3 and 4.

I'm not sure how long i plan to continue this process. I'm thinking until i have reduced the volume 50% which would turn a 10% ABV cider into 20% apple jack

I tasted the icy water removed, and while it does have color it tastes mostly like water.

Just for fun I put a meat thermometer in the freezer. The thermometer only reads down to 0f, and its probably calibrated to be most accurate in the hot end. It reads all the way down to the bottom of the scale, 0F. I seriously doubt its really getting that cold ( it's a residential grade chest freezer capable of holding 2 brew buckets) but i do believe its well below 32F.

 

[bernardsmith]

I read a post on another forum where someone did something quite similar. He froze a batch ( a gallon I think), poured out the non frozen liquid, and continued repeating the process until it would no longer freeze. Unfortunately I did a 5 gallon batch in a 7 gallon brew bucket and there is no way I could ever pick that up and carefully pour the liquid into another container without making a mess. Here is my process:

1. Put bucket in freezer and turn it down
2. Wait 24 hours for it to begin freezing
3. loosen the icy slush from the sides of the bucket and scoop it out into a steel strainer
4. let the liquid portion of the strainer contents drip back into the bucket 4 hours
5. empty the ice, repeat steps 3 and 4.

I'm not sure how long i plan to continue this process. I'm thinking until i have reduced the volume 50% which would turn a 10% ABV cider into 20% apple jack

I tasted the icy water removed, and while it does have color it tastes mostly like water.

Just for fun I put a meat thermometer in the freezer. The thermometer only reads down to 0f, and its probably calibrated to be most accurate in the hot end. It reads all the way down to the bottom of the scale, 0F. I seriously doubt its really getting that cold ( it's a residential grade chest freezer capable of holding 2 brew buckets) but i do believe its well below 32F.

Alternatively, you could freeze the cider/wine, a gallon at a time (not in glass) to make the freezing more practical...

 

[eliastheodosis]

Alternatively, you could freeze the cider/wine, a gallon at a time (not in glass) to make the freezing more practical...

This is what I do. Scavenge some plastic bottles. Freeze them, turn them upside down, and let them thaw until it's just ice left in the bottle. Super simple. I wouldn't even bother with being too careful getting it into bottles. You're freezing it and concentrating it. Just don't do anything terrible to it from fermentor to freezer and you'll be A okay. What you're doing does work too. It just sounds like a royal PITA. You can get it done with way less hands on time.

The brown slush is normal. It's what you might expect but I've never gotten totally clear ice. It's not a 100% neat process and it's not nearly as controllable as distilling on the other end of the temp spectrum. That's to be expected. You're probably not getting perfect separation either so consider that when thinking of final strength. Unless you're completely sure that you're getting no alcohol when scooping out that ice then you're probably slightly below whatever you volume calcs would lead you to believe.

PS - If you go the plastic bottle route then freeze the bottles at a slight angle. Otherwise, it usually freezes into a plug in the neck of the bottle and makes a literal bottleneck that much worse.

 

[AzOr]

Wait. Did you rack off the trub first? If not, you should. I suppose back in the day this was accomplished in some dedicated barrel, where it was fermented and freeze concentrated.
I’ve always waited til my cider was in secondary and dropped clear before I racked off into various plastic jugs to freeze (those simply orange juice bootlegs are my fav).
I’m sure taste-wise it doesn’t matter, but I really enjoy crystal clear jack.

 

[Tancred the Brewer]

I have made apple jack many times. I agree with many of the comments above. First, rack to the secondary and allow to clear, or at least rack it off the dregs before beginning the process. The brown in the ice is actually proteins that have very little actual flavor. If the ice tastes like water then that is mostly what you are getting. You will lose some alcohol in the process, there is no way around it. Alcohol can get trapped between the water crystals. I always rack my batches into 5- 1gallon jugs and freeze those. My residential upright freezer can get down to nearly -15 degrees F. I probably go through 8-10 cycles of freeze, thaw, re-freeze before I get down to a concentrated alcohol. I usually continue the process until what I have left no longer freezes at my freezer temperature. Then you can calculate (roughly) the ABV. Since alcohol and water both freeze at known temps you can calculate the ABV based on the point it freezes. I often get to right at 40 % ABV at -15 degrees. A step to speed up the ice separation process is to use a salad spinner. I spin out the ice in small batches getting out most of the alcohol in a quicker timeline. This is especially helpful once the ice gets to the slush stage of freezing due to concentration. It can speed things up if you have the time, otherwise you have to just let it sit for many hours.

Once you have apple jack at the concentration you want I would encourage you to test out aging some on wood, doing some back sweetening experiments or even adding a vanilla bean to a jar. I split mine into pint and quart canning jars to experiment different flavor combinations and then make larger batches of the ones I have liked.

Enjoy!

 

[cmac62]

The one time I did apple jack I used 2ltr soda bottles to freeze and then just turned them upside down in mason jars and waited a couple of hours for the liquid to drain out. I got it to the point where it wasn't really freezing in my freezer (not sure what the temp was). My guess is I got to about 30-35% abv. Not too bad and it tasted pretty good.

 

[teddyearp]

I fermented a 5 gallon batch of cider using the usual recipe and Yesterday I turned the ferm chamber down to freezing temps. <snip>

[/QUOTE]
I applaud you on trying it the 'old fashioned' way. We all know that Johhny Appleseed wasn't spreadin' eatin' apples, right?

But I'll agree with all the above tips and tricks. I reuse the almost 20oz plastic soda bottles, but for what you have found to be an obvious reason, I only do one gallon at a time.

Anyways, let it freeze for a couple of days in between 'jacking' it. The ice will be colored. I never back-sweeten my jack. And blah blah blah. What was I saying. Where's my glass of cider?