Fragrant moonshine from apple juice: {instructions} for making

In the era of selling alcohol with fake excise taxes, the art of moonshine is gaining momentum. Braga is used completely on all products - whoever has enough imagination for what. One of the most exciting and affordable options is moonshine made from apple juice. In a harvest year, any housewife makes preserves, jams and compotes, so why not create homemade alcohol that tastes like Calvados.

Making Tips

It is not difficult to obtain a high-quality alcoholic drink at home; you just need to follow the following tips:

The water must be artesian or spring. You should not boil the water; it is better to let it sit for three to four days.

For juice, use only ripe or overripe sweet apples. The sweeter the fruit, the better.

Before placing the mash, install a water seal on the fermentation tank. Instead, you can use a rubber glove with a hole or a pharmaceutical dropper.

Strictly follow all proportions in the recipe to avoid unexpected results.

Only the introduction of homemade juices is allowed. Packaged raw materials will not work.

Give preference to alcoholic yeast and avoid baker's yeast.

Fundamentally. You can make mash without yeast. Instead, add unwashed raisins - 30 grams per 1 liter of juice. In this case, the fermentation period will increase to 45 days.

Apple juice

You will have to create the juice from apples yourself, because... the introduction of store-bought ones is not permissible.

To obtain a tasty alcoholic drink, you should take the production of raw materials seriously:

Carefully wash the apples and remove all areas with mold or rottenness. If you plan to make wort without adding yeast, then you should not wash the apples; just wipe them with a gauze cloth.
Cut the fruit and discard the seeds.
Pass the apples through a press or juicer.

Half of the remaining cake can also be added to the mash to enhance the taste and smell. Then it is worth considering that you will have to stir it from time to time so that the hat does not sour.

After the juice is ready, you can put in the mash.

Before you start distilling moonshine, you need to prepare homemade apple juice.

Apple juice mash

The recipe for apple juice wort is quite simple.

The introduction of the following ingredients will allow you to obtain high-quality raw materials for homemade moonshine:

5 l. freshly squeezed juice
1 kg sugar.
Water - 300 ml per 1 liter of juice and 3 liters per 1 kg of sugar.
30 grams of unwashed raisins or 10 grams of dry yeast.

Advice. If the apples are sweet and juicy, the amount of sugar can be reduced.

Having prepared all the products, we begin to put in the mash:

Pour the juice into a fermentation container and thoroughly dissolve all the sugar in it.
Dilute the yeast according to instructions and add to the syrup. If you don't plan to use yeast, add raisins.
Pour in purified water and stir thoroughly.

Place a water seal on the container and place it in a black space with a temperature of 18 to 27 degrees Celsius. The ripening time depends on the use of yeast cultures: mash with dry yeast is ready in 5-12 days, mash with raisins - no earlier than after 45 days.

To make mash, you take apple juice, sugar, yeast and raisins.

You can check whether the mash is ready using a hydrometer.

If you don’t have a device, pay attention to the general signs that the wort is ready:

Color: the mash is evenly lightened.
Sediment: yeast and cake settle one hundred percent on the bottom.
Signs of fermentation: the release of carbon dioxide stops, no hissing is heard, no bubbles.
Taste: the mash becomes bitter. If you feel sweetness, then it has not brewed yet.

The final step in preparing the mash for distillation is filtration. The liquid should be passed through cheesecloth a couple of times.

Distillation of apple moonshine

Before distillation, check the filtration properties. There should not be any remains of apples in the finished mash, because... in the process they can burn and completely spoil the taste of moonshine.

Distillation steps:

Pour the alcohol base into the distillation cube and do the primary distillation without dividing into fractions.
Wait until the jet strength reaches 30 degrees. At this step, the moonshine becomes cloudy due to the presence of fusel oils, which repeated distillation will help remove.
We do the secondary distillation fractionally: we take 50-70 ml of heads from each liter of water and drive until the strength of the stream reaches 40 degrees. Then we take the “tails”.
We dilute the moonshine with water to a suitable strength.

Distillation of moonshine is carried out in several steps.

Fundamentally. To get moonshine that tastes like the generous drink Calvados, the finished alcohol must be aged on oak chips or in oak barrels for 1-3 months.

The resulting moonshine can be tasted immediately, but it is better to let it brew for three to four days to stabilize the taste. Pour alcohol into black glass bottles and store in a cool area away from sunlight.

If you follow the recipe and tips, you can get a high-quality strong drink at home. Apple moonshine has a pleasant aroma and a mild aftertaste. It is impossible to find anything similar in any store.

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True moonshine from apples - mash recipes and distillation

Making moonshine from apples is a good method for processing fallen fruits. If the supplies of jam and canned juice exceed all reasonable limits, it’s time to understand the technology given to us. The result is worth the effort - the end result is a fragrant, soft, fruity distillate, which is much better than its purely sweet counterpart. We will look at two proven recipes for apple mash: based on fruit and fresh juice.

Ripe or even overripe fruits of any variety (summer, autumn, winter) will be useful; the sweeter the better. Beforehand, it is necessary to remove rotten, spoiled and moldy parts from the apples so that they do not spoil the smell.

Theory

The average sugar content of apples is 8-15%, which means that from 1 kg of raw materials approximately 85-170 ml of moonshine with a strength of 40% comes out. Adding 1 kg of beet sugar to the mash increases the amount of distillate by 1.1-1.2 liters (40%), but slightly neutralizes the fruity smell. In the case of sweet apples, it is possible to do without sugar, but it is better to sweeten sour varieties artificially. When drawing up the proportions of the mash, remember that for one part of the added sugar, 3 parts of water are required, the wort from only apples should be diluted with water by a third (pour in 30% of the original size), from juice - by 20%.

Apple mash with alcoholic, compressed or dry yeast will mature in 5-10 days, but a slight yeasty aroma may appear. Therefore, I recommend using wine or wild yeast (found on the surface of apples); these strains have only one drawback - long fermentation (15-45 days). If time is not pressing, it is advisable to wait.

Braga from whole apples

Ingredients:

apples – 30 kg;
water – 20 l.;
sugar – 4 kg (optional);
yeast - 100 g compressed or 20 dry (optional).

Development

1. Peel the collected apples from rottenness, seeds and cores, then cut into small slices. Due to the seeds and rottenness in moonshine there is a nasty bitter taste, so use only the pulp and skin.

If the mash contains wild yeast, it is not allowed to wash even dirty fruits; you will have to wipe it with a dry cloth, otherwise you can accidentally wash off the wild yeast and the wort will not ferment.

2. Grind the apple slices until smooth. This can be created with a grater, but the whole process will take a very long time. It’s easier to use a drill with a special attachment (see photo) or a thresher.

Mixer with attachment for chopping apples

3. Place the purchased puree, along with the juice that has been released, into a fermentation container.

4. Dissolve sugar (if used) in water, pour the resulting syrup into apple puree (or just add water).

5. To accelerate fermentation, dissolve dry or pressed yeast according to the instructions on the label in warm water (not higher than 30°C), add to the container, stir. For feral yeast, skip this step.

6. Install a water seal on the neck of the container. Transfer the mash to a black space with a temperature of 18-28°C.

Water seal designs for wine, mash and beer

7. Depending on the selected yeast, the apple mash will be ready in 5-45 days: it will taste bitter, lighten, finish boiling, and the pulp will fall to the bottom. When these signs occur, you can begin distillation.

Apple juice mash

This recipe is much simpler than the previous one, but the smell of moonshine will not be as noticeable due to the lack of pulp and skin.

Ingredients:

apple juice – 5 l.;
sugar – 1 kg (optional);
water - 200 ml per 1 liter of juice and 3 liters per 1 kg of sugar;
dry yeast - 10 g (optional), can be replaced with unwashed raisins - 30 g per liter of juice.

On the surface of the raisins there are feral wine yeasts, which do not give off an unpleasant aroma during and after fermentation.

Manufacturing

1. Add sugar (optional) to the apple juice, yeast of your choice: dry, wine or raisin.

2. Pour the wort into a fermentation container, put on a honey glove on top, making a hole in one of the fingers (see photo). Another option is to install a water seal.

3. Place the bottle in a dark room with a temperature of 18-28°C for fermentation for 5-45 days (depending on the type of yeast).

4. After the glove is deflated, the mash becomes bitter and unsweetened, becomes lighter, and a sediment forms at the bottom, you can begin distillation.

Making moonshine from apples (distillation)

1. Drain the mash made according to the first or second recipe from the sediment into a distillation cube, having previously filtered through cheesecloth to get rid of hard particles that can burn during the distillation process and give off bitterness.

2. Distill the mash for the first time using a device of any design. Select the product until the strength in the stream falls below 30%. Due to the ingress of fusel oils, apple moonshine may turn out cloudy, this is normal and will be eliminated further.

3. Measure the total strength of the purchased distillate. Find the amount of pure alcohol. For example, if there are 2 liters of moonshine 60%, then the drink contains 1200 ml of pure alcohol.

4. Dilute the moonshine with water to 20%, do not clean it, so that a slight apple smell remains.

5. Distill again. Select the first 8-12% of the amount of pure alcohol (the more, the higher the property) into a separate container. This fraction (called “heads”) usually has a nasty smell, contains many harmful impurities and can only be used for technical purposes; drinking it is unsafe for health.

6. Select the main product to a stream strength of 40%.

7. Dilute all purchased apple moonshine with water to the desired strength (40-45%). To stabilize the taste, pour the distillate into a glass container, seal it tightly, and place it in a cool black space for 3-4 days. After the mixing reaction is completed, the taste will stabilize and become better.

Another option for making apple distillate is shown in the video.

Moonshine from apple juice

A huge number of alcoholic drinks are made from apples - from low-alcohol cider to forty-proof Calvados. Apple juice is tasty and healthy in itself; it is often fermented to make apple wine, which we usually call cider in the French style.

Apple juice is fermented to make apple wine

During the season, garden owners do everything they can to process tons of harvest. Making apple moonshine is a good idea to use a lot of apples at once. Fruits of various types will go here: sour, sweet, bitter, summer and autumn; even carrion will not spoil the final product. For example, to produce Calvados in France, a number of types of sweet, bitter and sour apples are always mixed together, and pear juice is added to some brands.

For home brew, you can use crushed apples for moonshine, but more often you use apple juice, then you don’t have to suffer from straining it from hard particles that can burn in the moonshine still, giving the finished drink an unpleasant bitterness. But this convenience also has a flip side to the coin - moonshine made from pure juice comes out less fragrant than from crushed fruits, which is why some distillers specially add cake to the juice and remove the cap from it after 3-4 days of fermentation.

Raw materials

The general requirement for raw materials is that the fruits must be ripe, unsullied, without any traces of rottenness or mold. If the cake left over from making juice will also be used for mash, you need to cut out the core with seeds and petioles from the apples. It is recommended not to wash apples in order to eliminate the wild yeast living on their surface, but if you plan to add cultivated yeast, then the fruits can be washed.

It is recommended not to wash apples in order to eliminate the feral yeast living on their surface.

When making moonshine from homemade apple juice, it is necessary to take into account the acidity and sugar content of the initial raw materials; the sweeter the apples, the less sugar must be added to the mash. Some distillers prefer to do without adding sugar altogether, but most still play it safe.

The choice of yeast describes both the taste of the mash and the fermentation time. You can use any yeast, but wine yeast and feral yeast (on apple skins, in raisins) give long fermentation of up to one and a half months, but do not have an obvious yeasty taste.

Apple mash

Everyone has their own version of the recipe for making moonshine from apple juice - the result and quantity of the final drink purchased at home is impossible to predict, because almost everything depends on the characteristics of the apples, the yeast, the amount of sugar and the distillation methods.

Distillation in the apparatus

The next step in making homemade moonshine with apple juice is distillation. Here, moonshine lovers also do not have one idea - some believe that it is necessary to distill apple mash once, selecting the heads and tails, while others adhere to the rule of double distillation.

To get the most pure product, it is better to distill the moonshine twice.

The first time, choose raw until the strength drops below 30 degrees. Do not remove the heads and tails.
Measure the strength of all raw alcohol purchased in order to calculate the amount of pure alcohol in the product. This determines what size heads will need to be taken from the 2nd distillation - as a percentage, this is 8-15% of the absolute alcohol (AS) in the raw material.

For example, in 4 liters of pervacha with a strength of 60% - 2.4 liters of absolute alcohol (according to the formula, the size is multiplied by the percentage of alcohol, i.e. 4000 x 0.60 = 2400 ml of AC). If you take 10% of the heads, it will be 240 ml of moonshine. Naturally, the numbers are calculated for any specific option.

Dilute the purchased pervach with water at room temperature to a strength of 20%. To add flavor, some distillers advise diluting moonshine with apple juice.
Distill 20-degree moonshine through a moonshine still a second time, first selecting the heads with the highest content of harmful substances and fusel oils. To check the correctness of the calculated size of the heads, you can carry out a smell test - rub a drop of moonshine on your hand and smell it; if it smells, it means that fusel is still present, unsuitable for drinking.
The body of the moonshine is taken before the strength drops to 40%, then the tails begin to appear, which are also not allowed to be consumed internally.
After measuring the strength, all drinking moonshine purchased after the 2nd distillation is diluted with water to the usual 40-45%. Close the lid and let it rest for a few days.

Apple moonshine has a narrow, pleasant smell of apples. You can drink it in its pure form, or you can make a tincture using apple chips, or even oak chips, to get some semblance of Calvados.

Apple moonshine according to the “snow-white” scheme with claims to Calvados

Perhaps the best solution to process the highest harvest of apples is to create a delicious moonshine from them. And since taking on this unusual and very labor-intensive task, everything must be done correctly and with knowledge of the matter. In other words, if you dare to prepare apple brandy at home, then do it like the Normans, who captivated the whole world with their brandy.

Unlike cider and Calvados from apple concentrate, which we learned to prepare in one of the previous materials, here we will deal specifically with apples. On the one hand, this should have a positive effect on the taste and aroma qualities of the drink, on the other hand, a lot of technical aspects and questions arise related to the specificity of the raw materials. In this material, we tried to carefully outline the technology for making apple brandy, taking these aspects into account, and also minimize possible questions.

Recipe for moonshine from apples according to the “snow-white” scheme

The so-called “snow-white” scheme for making apple mash involves fermenting only apple juice, without pulp. According to countless reviews, including reliable laboratory tests, apple mash fermented with pulp produces a distillate of even worse properties than without it. Norman distillers have the same idea.

Ingredients:

20-25 l apple juice 1
sugar (dextrose or fructose) – up to 15 °Bx 2
1 packet of yeast 3
oak chips for aging

Equipment:

1 – to obtain a fragrant and balanced wine material for its next distillation into decent brandy, it is important to choose the right variety of apples or their blend. Preference is always given to late varieties that contain a sufficient amount of acids, tannins and simply give off juice. The best wine material comes from a blend of sweet, sour and tart apples in various proportions, for example: 3 parts sweet/3 parts tart/2 parts sour or 2/2/2, 1/1/2, etc. The best organoleptic properties are provided by a blend of apples that ripen at approximately the same time.

2 – the general worldview of the most experienced moonshiners is this: if you want to get cider, and from it high-quality brandy with a claim to Calvados, you don’t need to use sugar. But you should be aware that the sugar content of most apples of Russian types occasionally exceeds 10 °Bx, which is not enough to obtain strong wine material (the average alcohol content of cider from Russian types of apples is no more than 7% vol.). This is also fraught with very low product yields with significant labor costs. The golden mean: bring the wort density to 15 °Bx, but not higher. If you add more, the organoleptic properties of the distillate become noticeably worse. Dextrose or pure fructose give an even better result than sucrose.

3 – To make a very flavorful apple brandy, it is recommended to use cider yeasts such as Mangrove Jack's Cider Yeast M02, Fermentis Safcider and Gervin GV13 Cider. Yeast is also suitable for white wines and champagne. Due to the very high rates of fermentation, we do not recommend using alcoholic yeast. We strongly advise against using regular baker's yeast!

Preparation of raw materials and extraction of juice

After picking, leave autumn and winter apples to mature in a cold place for 2 to 4 weeks. During this period of time, they will ripen one hundred percent, become the most fragrant, and gain maximum sugar and enzymes. Make sure that the fruits do not overstay: softening the pulp worsens the release of juice. Before storing apples, washing them is prohibited.
Sterilize all equipment that will come into contact with the juice using one of the antiseptics! This is a very important point, because we will not add sulfites to the wort due to its next distillation.
Wash the ripened fruits in cool water and start extracting the juice. To do this, you can use Neptune-type juicers or threshers in conjunction with a wine press. You can read about the intricacies of juice harvesting and choosing equipment for this in this material. A thresher with a press is preferable, because before pressing, applesauce can be left for several hours in a cold place to enrich the pulp, where there are not many aromatic and flavoring substances, with these substances from the skin (maceration). The juice comes out the most fragrant.
Before putting the juice for fermentation, you can clarify it: let it stand in the cold for a couple of days, then drain the clear juice and filter the cloudy precipitate. This is of concern to owners of juicers, since the juice is usually cloudy, which can lead to difficulties with fermentation.

Making apple mash

Take measurements of the density and acidity of the wort. Add dextrose/fructose as needed, and also adjust the acidity (pH=4 is considered good). To adjust the pH, it is recommended to use apple acid. Keep a journal where you record all the characteristics during fermentation. Such records will help you avoid unexpected situations in the future and respond promptly to the latest stages of fermentation.
Pour the juice into the primary fermenter, filling it to a maximum of ¾ full, and pitch the yeast. Cover the fermenter with a clean cloth (A collection of different and interacting tissues form organs) and put it in a dark, cold space for 3-5 days - during yeast replication, they need oxygen. After this, you can install a water seal on the fermenter and provide the wort with good conditions.
It is recommended to ferment apple wine material at low temperatures (+12..+15 o C), very slowly. Typically, vigorous fermentation should last about 1 month. Slow fermentation promotes the formation of more flavoring substances. After 1-2 weeks of fermentation, it is recommended to remove the mash from the sediment, removing the “brown cap” that has accumulated on top, which appears from the pectin enzyme and calcium pushed to the surface by CO2. The taste of the distillate will be even purer.
After the end of vigorous fermentation, using a siphon, drain the mash from the sediment into a sterile secondary fermenter, filling it to the very neck. Install the water seal and leave the wort to ferment until dry until the hydrometer shows less than zero (SG995-1.000). The longest stage of quiet fermentation and clarification will significantly improve the organoleptic properties of the future distillate. In Normandy, the process of cider production before distillation lasts from 6 months or more. During post-fermentation, the apple mash must be removed from the sediment every 3-4 weeks until it is completely clarified.

Distillation of mash from apples

The process of distilling apple wine material is carefully described in our material on cider and Calvados, mentioned at the beginning of this article.

Main points:

only double distillation in traditional distillers without strengthening modules;
devices with copper components in the steam zone significantly improve the organoleptic properties of the distillate;
The first distillation must be done very quickly to 10% vol. in a stream (98-99 o C in the steam zone);
during the first distillation, it is recommended to select a small number of “heads”, almost up to a measured stream at the outlet;
predictable strength of raw alcohol (hereinafter SS) - from 27 to 30% vol.;
distillation of SS should be carried out slowly, carefully dividing the distillate into fractions: “heads” - 5% of absolute alcohol in SS or 1.5% of the size of SS in the distillation cube, “heart” or drinking fraction - up to 55-60% vol. in the stream (90-91 o C in the steam zone), “tails” - up to 10% o. in the stream;
It is recommended to add the “heads” and “tails” of the 2nd distillation to the 1st distillation of the 2nd batch - they will increase the yield of CC, and also, by analogy with rum from molasses, will improve the organoleptic properties of the distillate as a whole;
The fractional separation of the distillate, which is then planned to be refined by aging in an oak barrel, is recommended to be carried out in a gentle mode - to throw in more head and tail fractions.

Upgrading of apple distillate

The only correct solution to process the purchased apple distillate is to age it in an oak barrel or on oak chips, thus obtaining an analogue of Normandy apple brandy.

Main points:

To fill the barrel, there is no need to dilute the distillate - 65-70% vol. are considered good;
For apple brandy, medium and high firing barrels are suitable, in which port wine, sherry, bourbon or Scotch whiskey were previously aged;
infusion time in a 5 liter barrel: from 4 to 6 months;
to refine apple moonshine with oak chips, it is recommended to use medium or powerfully roasted wood chips at the rate of 4 g of prepared wood chips per 1 liter of drink;
before infusing moonshine on wood chips, it is recommended to dilute it to 45-55%;
infusion time on wood chips: from 2 to 3 months;
After aging, the distillate should be filtered through a cotton or coffee filter to remove wood dust, diluted to drinking strength (38-40% vol.) and allowed to rest for 2-3 weeks before tasting;
If after aging you are not satisfied with the color of the drink, you can tint it with a sweet tint - French standards and GOSTs allow this.

To drink moonshine in its original form, without further refinement with oak, it should be diluted to drinking strength, kept for a couple of weeks in a dark, cold place to stabilize the taste and begin tasting.