This thread made me want to make some applejack so bad that I decided to take just about the rest of my cider and turn that into applejack (about 12 bottles worth = 4L) Now I don't have any barrels or anything so I decided to use four icecream containers, and I've been leaving the cider in the freezer and every 2 hours or so removing any ice with a strainer. I've reached a point where I'm down to two containers and they aren't really freezing very well - its like a slushy, and when I put it through the strainer, some of the liquid goes through, but there still appears to be some "stuck" in the ice crystals, making the ice a bit brown. What's odd though, is that although I've at the very least, decreased the volume to a third of the original, the applejack doesn't taste like its 21% (since the cider was 7%), this has me worried that I haven't done it properly. Or is it just that I don't taste the alcohol as much, because it's cold and because it's been made well and doesn't have too many fusel alchols that could give it that fiery taste. Or am I just expecting too much from my little old cider?
I wonder if my technique could be improved too... it's way too time consuming, cos at first I tried to just let it freeze overnight, in 2 ice cream containers, but I was just left with 2 blocks of ice and the tiniest amount of liquid left (like not even 100ml) - and it was just dripping out.