Post apple-jacking questions

[siletzspey]

I'm jacking some cider, first time, and have taken 3.75ga down to 1.25ga so far. Now a bunch of questions are occurring to me:

- I started with cider that had ~40 ppm of S02 (k-meta). Will jacking drive the S02 off, or concentrate it?

- Once jacked to 30% ABV or more, is some S02 still advised to improve storage life? Is there some ABV point beyond which nasties can't live?

- Does jacking change the ratio of good alcohol (ethanol) to bad alcohol (methanol)? Ethanol has a freezing point of -173F, methanol -144F, and my freezer can go to ~ -20F.

- Do the benefits of aging, like MLF, stop after jacking?

Thanks,

--SiletzSpey

 

[wooda2008]

I'm jacking some cider, first time, and have taken 3.75ga down to 1.25ga so far. Now a bunch of questions are occurring to me:

- I started with cider that had ~40 ppm of S02 (k-meta). Will jacking drive the S02 off, or concentrate it?

No idea.

- Once jacked to 30% ABV or more, is some S02 still advised to improve storage life? Is there some ABV point beyond which nasties can't live?

No. Your biggest concern is oxidation.

- Does jacking change the ratio of good alcohol (ethanol) to bad alcohol (methanol)? Ethanol has a freezing point of -173F, methanol -144F, and my freezer can go to ~ -20F.

The ratio stays the same. The risk of methanol is grossly overblown. The bigger problem is the acetone which also concentrated.

- Do the benefits of aging, like MLF, stop after jacking?

Thanks,

--SiletzSpey

MLF will not happen because the bugs won't survive that high of an ABV. You will still get some "maturing" as the jack mellows and ages. It will get smoother.

 

[MindenMan]

The above post concerns me; we say, "Don't worry about methanol" and now we mention acetone. It is not acetone exactly... it just smells like it. If you have nail polish remover smelling cider you let it get too hot for too long while it was fermenting. I speak from experience; my first batch was acetone-like due to the fact at that time I did not know how important temperature control was.
As far as long term storage goes, I would like to make this suggestion bottle your jacked cider when cold, literally. The minuscule amount of pressure created is a good head space guardian. Keep it dark, cool, and at least six months before "tasting". Something else I need to mention if you leave your cider slightly sweet before it goes into the freezer, after concentrating the sugar will really mellow away the alcohol "burn". The early cider makers that didn't have freezers would take a one pint bottle, add 4 tablespoons of sugar and 1 tablespoon of activated of charcoal, and put it down for 2 years.

 

[wooda2008]

Sorry, it's acetaldehyde that yeast produce, not acetone. Still a powerful solvent and much more of a problem than methanol.

Where acetaldehyde is immediately toxic, Methanol in and of itself is not, until our body metabolizes it into formaldehyde, which is toxic. However; so long as there is ethanol to metabolize, the methanol will be left alone.

In fact, the medical treatment for methanol poisoning is an ethanol drip until the methanol is flushed out.

So I'll say it again: Don't worry about the methanol. You will be dead from ethanol poisoning long before your body bothers to metabolize methanol into formaldehyde.

Do worry about acetaldehyde. This will be concentrated in your Jack. It is the bringer of headaches

The above post concerns me; we say, "Don't worry about methanol" and now we mention acetone. It is not acetone exactly... it just smells like it. If you have nail polish remover smelling cider you let it get too hot for too long while it was fermenting. I speak from experience; my first batch was acetone-like due to the fact at that time I did not know how important temperature control was.
As far as long term storage goes, I would like to make this suggestion bottle your jacked cider when cold, literally. The minuscule amount of pressure created is a good head space guardian. Keep it dark, cool, and at least six months before "tasting". Something else I need to mention if you leave your cider slightly sweet before it goes into the freezer, after concentrating the sugar will really mellow away the alcohol "burn". The early cider makers that didn't have freezers would take a one pint bottle, add 4 tablespoons of sugar and 1 tablespoon of activated of charcoal, and put it down for 2 years.

^^this is good advice^^

 

[AlphaX]

MindenMan has the anser if you want to remove most of the fusels...

I come from more of a distilling background and Activated charcoal should remove most of the fusels. But unfortunately not methanol, not that its a hazard worry, just more of a foul taste and hangover worry... Just remember that using this method will strip most of the Apple flavor but will leave you with a much cleaner drink, so your Apple Jack wont be much of a Apple Jack anymore.

So if your worried more about the fusels than the apple flavor then Activated charcoal is the way to go.

Here's more on using Activated charcoal for purification from Wikipedia...

...alcoholic beverage purification
"Activated carbon filters (AC filters) can be used to filter vodka and whiskey of organic impurities which can affect color, taste, and odor. Passing an organically impure vodka through an activated carbon filter at the proper flow rate will result in vodka with an identical alcohol content and significantly increased organic purity, as judged by odor and taste."
- Wikipedia​

And from homedistiller . org:

"The carbon works by being a type of "molecular seive", trapping the molecules which are larger than ethanol. They become trapped in the pores inside the carbon, and also by surface energies on the carbon. So it won't remove methanol, but only larger molecules (eg the fusels). Likewise, the trapped molecules are sometimes held fairly loosely to it, so if you try to filter too fast, they can be washed off the carbon and back into your spirits.

Make sure that you always pass your polished spirit through a paper filter. Many of the impurities are held by very fine carbon dust - and will still affect the flavor. If you pass even crystal clear polished spirit through a paper filter, you will notice that it becomes grey or black. You'll notice the cleaner flavor too. It doesn't take much - just a little bit of tissue paper or cotton wool in the bottom of a filter, and you'll trap that loaded dust.

Soaking neutral alcohol with activated carbon for a week (or even months) will help remove some of the off-flavors - this is known as "polishing" the spirit.

The spirit should be diluted to 30-50% before polishing."
homedistiller . org​

But most importantly...

Don't polish spirits that you want to keep the flavor of (eg whisky or schnapps).
homedistiller . org​

So that said, if you leave it in activated carbon for more than a few days, it will strip most of the Apple flavor, but you will end up with a cleaner drink. Soak it for a few months and you will have something that tastes much more like a vodka and have a much cleaner drink...

 

[MindenMan]

If you use a non-aggressive yeast and ferment your cider in a cool place, there will be little to zero off flavors/fusels. I step fortify my hard ciders up to 18% ABV and never have anything "off" happen. Granted I ferment cool, under pressure and my ciders typically take months to finish but for me it is worth the wait. By keeping under pressure I don't have to worry about making a jug of vinegar unless that was plan up front.

 

[MindenMan]

Current update on apple jack, I have taken on Yooper's method of a loose cover on the hard cider until it reaches 1.030; this includes stirring the CO2 out (degassing) on a daily basis. My ciders no longer take months to finish, they average 3 weeks. Granted I am using a non-aggressive yeast, and I am fermenting on the bottom edge of my yeasts' range: 55F using 4184 Sweet Mead Yeast. I have currently had this particular yeast still fermenting at 34F instead of cold crashing.
At temperatures below 60F this yeast is making yummy peach-cantaloupe flavors in my ice cider, and I could not be happier at this point. I can hardly wait to see what the ice cider tastes like in a year from now, or even two years.
As much as I don't want to admit it, one night I somehow manged to drink a 12 oz. bottle of applejack by myself, and I did not wake up hungover or with a serious case of trench mouth.
I truly believe fermentation temperature is the key to making either iffy applejack, or applejack good enough to brag about. YMMV.

Edit: our ancestors using activated carbon in their applejack did not use a commercial yeast and they did not have any control on their fermentation temperatures. You are likely right there wasn't much flavor left behind in the applejack, but I'll bet what it did taste like wasn't nasty to the 10th power either.