I Distilled A Brandy With A Twist

This apple brandy has a few additions. I have high hopes for this spirit but its going to take some time to age in the badmotivator barrel.
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[@christopherconrad1129]

This project was a lot of fun to work on, and the video turned out great. I've found that new fruit brandies typically need 5 to 6 weeks to fully develop. The fruit flavors take time to mature and will ultimately be worth the wait. Thanks for being so awesome!

[@ToastedSynapseGaming]

Is there are reason you don't suggest using pectic enzyme? I find it not only great for getting more flavor out, but also useful when I'm straining the fruit, because they release the juices much much easier.

[@BillMcGirr]

@@ToastedSynapseGaming I agree. I always use pectic enzymes. But often I see channels that don’t.🤷‍♂️ It certainly can’t hurt.👍🥃

[@Teddysad]

I am always keen on pectin enzyme if doing fruit

[@turtlemancometh1652]

​@ToastedSynapseGaming it's been said that pectic enzymes will cause methanol

[@ericdellamater7583]

​@turtlemancometh1652 yes, but again it comes out in foreshore and discarded. You do get other benefits as well

[@benkirkland5354]

I love the combo of interview and craft. Tying them together in this way was a great way to introduce the info while breaking up the process bit by bit. Nice.

[@Miata822]

Agree. It would be great to maybe do some kind of colab with Bearded and Bored in Texas. He is still getting back on his feet after a hurricane knocked out power and internet for an expended (and unreasonable) amount of time.

[@jamespierce-tg7we]

For stronger apple flavor instead of the molasses consider using apple concentrate. I have used it to bump mine and works well. Also consider using sake yeast number 19. It tends to throw apple esters

[@emmetleahy]

Pretty sure concentrate is only available in the states. I know it is not a thing in Canada.

[@jamespierce-tg7we]

@@emmetleahy at least here it's sold in the freezer section. Have also found sources for it in bulk. 55 gallon drum thou would be a bit much lol

[@scoret12345]

I brew cider here in NZ and unfortunately apple concentrate just isn't a thing here. I've been looking for it for ages but you just can't buy it anywhere in New Zealand 😢

[@jamespierce-tg7we]

@@scoret12345 wow that is surprising. I know we end up with new Zealand apples here and would have thought there would be a juice industry there for number 2 apples

[@Daow9915]

Oh yes and what about the wonderful world of amaros! 😉 Thanks for all the great content!

[@TheInfinityzeN]

If you can get 100% juice, frozen apple juice concentrate is a great way to bump up your starting gravity. In the 100% versions, everything is from apples so you don't have to worry about getting non-apple flavors.

[@Miata822]

Good project. Helpful info. A keeper. I would be hesitant to use molasses with a subtle fruit like apple. There can be no doubt that the apple brought some wild yeast in with it. In rum the yeast, especially wild yeast, loves to run wild throwing all kinds of magical tropical fruit flavors. That is ideal in a high ester rum but less than desirable with apple. Nevertheless I'm sure that will be a yummy spirit in a year or two. Will be interesting to see how it turns out. One day, when I'm made of money, I'm going to try making an all maple syrup rum. A little maple, but just a little, might actually go quite well with apple. Super glad to see a long format full project back on the channel.

[@ajturner6607]

Idk about outside the US, but juice concentrates from the freezer section are pretty good way to boost ABV without adding too much water.

[@matthewlebrun6003]

If you're freezing the apples, try pressing them whole immediately after defrosting - no maceration needed. Freezing bursts the cell walls, and you get all the juice out. The apple pucks you're left with afterwards are basically weightless. It's much less prep and cleanup.

[@DonaldBlair-e5x]

Finally more brandy content 😆

[@mckwilly]

Wrap oak in foil bake at 420f for 3 hr then torch 3/4 of the stave .... absolutely Awesome flavors 🏁

[@OddBallPerformance]

Applejack with some other fruits mixed in. I'd love to try that.

[@Miata822]

I do recommend against the freeze distillation applejack unless you will re-distil with cuts. Syrupy sweet but with a hangover the old-timers appropriately call pop-skull. Applejack was my first venture into the craft 51 years ago, living near an upstate NY orchard and having apple trees in my own yard.

[@OddBallPerformance]

@@Miata822 Great advice, thank you for the tips. My first attempt at Applejack was an adventure and I ended up having to triple distill it because I screwed my cuts up on the second one. I had a lot of loss, but it did turn out nicely.

[@Miata822]

@@OddBallPerformance Ah! Good for you. It is always a challenge to get a fruit spirit to turn out well. Applejack, as I was taught all those years ago by the old guys at the cider house (those "old guys" likely younger than I am today!) starts with fermenting cider in barrels in the early fall, adding a little brown sugar and a handful of raisins for the only yeast. Later, setting that fermented barrel outside where it would catch only the morning sun through the winter. The barrel would freeze through the frigid Upstate winter, thaw just a little bit on sunny mornings, then freeze again. Gradually the water ice would separate from the 'good stuff'. When Springtime approached and the maple trees were ready for tapping they would also tap those barrels to extract the applejack. As a teen I was in charge of making cider for our family for the holidays, but always squirreled away a couple gallons for my applejack experiments. Strong stuff and flavorful, but the headaches were epic!

[@manatoa1]

I've missed the old cuts tasting videos. It was a fun look into the process and it's nice to see it back even if it's a one-off.

[@glleon80517]

Thanks, Jessie, always good to see Christopher, he is doing great things. Chasers, please don’t use a spirit refractometer, they are not accurate or linear. If you insist on using one, calibrate it frequently during a run against and Proof and Trailes hydrometer and apply the temperature correction on the hydrometer which is accurate only at 60 F.

[@MrElvis1971]

Would love to see you make plum brandy.

[@domg.1011]

My friend from Aus just visited me & told me about power outlets in that part of the world. Wow. That one second clip was important to me.

[@jonathannorthup5705]

Nice 👍🏼 you should split the leftovers and do a forced age on one part of it just to see and leave the other part on the stave for 6 months of something!

[@michaelbackhaus7879]

Jesse, I would say split the remainder and treat the oak two different ways. It might surprise you in what you get in the end. Thanks for the great content of your videos.

[@danthemann]

Remember the nutritional label! You can easily determine the sugar equivalence pretty easily from it. It goes for convertible starch (carbs/energy) as well.

[@xander1052]

I think you should do a super heavy char with a light toasting (towards the vanilla end of toasting). That sounds like it would be good fun to try

[@lewisgiles8855]

Perfect idea! Those results ought to be great!

[@AlbeeSoaring]

I need to order some wood scraps from badmotivator. Ive been playing with oaking my Hard apple ciders and have found that Im loving that added flavor and complexity. Great video Jesse

[@randomviewer3494]

It makes sense the juice is cheaper than the product itself. Generally the apples are squeezed very close to the field and then concentrated before being shipped. Add a bit of local water and bottle it. The whole process is mostly shelf stable, doesn't need cooling or anything. Apples themselves tho have to be kept at specific temperatures and are kept under a protected atmosphere, cause the gas they release ripens them. That all adds a lot of cost between the field and the store.

[@andersjjensen]

I really dig this type of content from the nerdy side of things. My problem just is that I get an absolutely SPLITTING headache from anything that has been aged on oak :-(

[@kevinhorstmann1435]

Well, AS A TECHICHIAN, i would like you to age it with ultra sonic aging. But this episode was amazing as i am getting back to distilling

[@whiskeywookie2758]

Side by side with different oak treatment sounds fun! Heavy toast, light char vs light toast medium char. Or try different wood types... oak vs maple?

[@prodbypachotti]

More fruit brandy videos please! Greetings from Croatia✌️

[@lazyplumber1616]

So...maybe in two years time I can come visit NZ and try that brandy! Great vid Jessie! Always wish you the best. Lazy Plumber.

[@lewisgiles8855]

I vote toasted because of the plan to age for a while. My charred barrel produces near whisky flavored brandy very quickly. Also I'm kinda partial to that mellow light golden flavor! Thanks for all the awsome vids!

[@josephcook2314]

Thanks for breaking out the fruits! -DirtySouthDistiller

[@jayhope7110]

a light to med toast more to the light toast and a med char toast on the other . dont want to overpower the fruit notes , cheers for the new video

[@clinodev]

In the US we have large productive orchards full of soft, sweet "eating" apples that were popular a decade ago that have fallen out of fashion, and so they're picked and immediately juiced for concentrate. We have to carefully watch labels because "Grape Juice" "100% Juice" might well be nearly half apple juice.

[@jigilub]

get an electric/hydraulic car jack, a steel fruit press that can take 5 tons or more, and your life will be so much easier. Get the biggest, most advanced, easiest to clean press you can buy and your life will change for the better - seriously it made that big of a difference for my brewing.

[@emmetleahy]

Great stuff. Curious to see what you come up with -- I'm voting for a heavy char vs a light toasting

[@thorjohnson5237]

So... I'd like you to toast, then do a couple weird fast-ages and see what you get: 1 - Chips and liquor in nitrous oxide shake, age 24 hours or so... 2 - Chips and liquor in an instant pot, cook for 75 minutes, then let cool for 4 hours (see also instant pot vanilla extract). I did #2 with golden grain and charred wouldchips and ended up with "oak barrel extract." -- was way too intense, but... you end up adding 1/4 cup of that to a 5 liter keg of beer and... presto - barrel aged beer in no time... But my tastes aren't as refined as yours so... ymmv...

[@jameshartwell1429]

Would love to see him do a rum again as it has been years since he last did one.

[@willbbwluvr]

I'd love to see you do a quince palinka(brandy) aged on the fruit, as it's something my grandfather used to do alot, and I think you'd really enjoy it

[@vk2jma]

Fantastic video Jesse.

[@brynnjohnson471]

If you jave a hand crank sausage stuffer they work great as a fruit press with the brew bags to contain the chunky stuff. Haha i know most people dont have one but for those of us that do theu work great

[@MicaAvali]

I’d definitely like to see the oak treatment in two different methods and compared.

[@austinhaacke67]

I’ve been learning a great deal from you. Thanks so much for providing good info. Wishing I lived somewhere where I was free to distill. America is a bit behind on this front…

[@peterthomas939]

Great video, would love to see another Rum video. Be interested how you went with the muck pit and if you ended up using it.

[@applegal3058]

Here in Newfoundland, a pound of golden kiwis cost $9.99 Canadian. I bought a 3 pound bag of apples that cost the same amount. Doing this recipe would be highly cost prohibitive. If ever I see fresh produce on sale, i buy it up to can up, or dehyrate or freeze...

[@tsimmons4730]

You peaked my interest with the Apricot flavor

[@TPCider]

Should buy a wood chipper and use that to mash up the fruit - save sooo much time 👌🏻

[@pgprentice]

Try a small batch with a little bit of clear apple juice added, then let it sit on wood. Cheers.

[@Avishadur]

I’d love to see a side by side comparison for maturation where one stick you do everything perfectly calculated and measured for every variable and the other you go pfffft and hit it with an amateur half-ass toast and pray to see if the chaotic people are missing out or if the wood’s got our back

[@davesimpson85]

Dump the oak straight in. Keep it light and sweet. Plain white oak

[@andrewhill1539]

well chawed staves

[@the_whiskeyshaman]

I think you should take one maturation stick and do it new heavy toast char 1. And the other do a used bourbon or malt stick.

[@edmccarthy5803]

If you have any amburana oak, it is amazing with the apple brandies

[@blh3741]

My first thought was "do the skins/seeds of the kiwi/guavas degrade the wanted flavor? You put so much effort and money into making this batch that I would really want a comparison of with/without seeds/skins, specially if you're wanting to age this for year(s)

[@michael8503]

Love your content, have you ever done a ginger fermentation, i make ginger wine and have always wanted to know how it would turn out in a still. I can give you my recipe if wanted.

[@TheMilkman710]

I use frozen cans of apple juice concentrate to bump up the gravity of my apple brandy must. Last time i used 6 gallons of apple juice and 12 cans of concentrate

[@Workmills23]

You must try LOLLY GOBBLE BLISS BOMBS, in the air still😮 Yeah boy!!! MEME SPIRITS.😊

[@Teddysad]

An alternative to molasses would be golden syrup to bring in a caramel flavour. It is also around 80% fermentable sugar so less is required.

[@velvia7880]

There's a kveik variant that produces apple-y esters, kveik Stalljen. Made by "Norsk Kveik" yeastery.

[@stusyme1846]

love this video. ive done quite a few brandys with pressed juice and just one brandy on apple pulp as you did in this video. they both turned out well but i’ve never measured the returns with each method. do you know whether you get more flavour and alcohol volume from extracting sugar through pressing first or letting the yeast go at the full fruit and extracting the alcohol at the end through pressing? i’m all about quality over volume but would be interested to know if one method favours volume and another favours complexity and carry over flavour. keep up the good work Jessie. have been following Still It for 3 years and all the better distiller because of it.

[@chriscmoor]

I'd love to see you distill a mango brandy.

[@FFDfirechef]

Excellent video

[@ds9902]

Instead of using molasses can you use brown sugar?

[@kb2vca]

There is one other very different way to increase the sugar content of a must (fermenting) or a wash (distilling) and that is to freeze the wash hard and then collect the thawing wash as it gently liquifies. If you aim to collect about 1/3 - 1/2 of the total liquid you froze, you will have collected all the sugars and flavor molecules but less than 1/2 of the liquid (the sugars liquify sooner) - thus doubling your SG to about 1.090 without adding another drop of sugar - although obviously reducing the total volume you will be fermenting and so distilling. As to the sharp jagged taste after distillation, I wonder if the malic acid that is dominant in apples has carried over into the brandy. As a home wine maker, I would typically work to convert malic acids in red and fruit wines into less "spiky" lactic acids. This you can do with a bacterial fermentation known as MLF (malo-lactic fermentation) or you can use a wine yeast like 71B that loves malic acid and will itself metabolize about half the malic in the wine (wash) but it takes months to do so (about 12 months). The bacterial applications can be added with the yeast but they also tend to take a couple of months to chew through 100 percent of all the malic acids.

[@lougriffiths]

The beard looks so much better

[@richarddcvd8868]

Loved the vid, again! did you use the juice from concentrate? The fresh stuff is expensive here....

[@jscancella]

I think I am going to try and get my local distillery to distill my homemade fig wine into some special brandy for me. Think they will go for it?

[@stuartpowell449]

Jesse i see your using some Dr Gradus equipment. Have you heard anything from Andrey Orlov or anyone from Dr Gradus ? They made great stuff i hope they're ok.

[@Michael_Kerstein]

Enjoyed the video ...Ive been thinking about getting an Air still but the only ones I find in good price range are for water ...I am not looking to do large amounts just want to fortify some elderberry wine

[@kjdevault]

The water distillers are actually a better deal with higher wattage usually

[@ArthurEKing8472]

I just came up with an idea... And I'd LOVE to see you try it!!! (And it wouldn't even be that hard for you!) In a few of your recent videos you've had a couple beer brewing & distilling (-hops) episodes recently... And you mentioned in THIS video that you had to water the Brandy down to a % that you wanted to age on oak. Well... Why don't we take those two ideas and combine them!!! So you would ferment/brew two batches of a beer, one with hops and one without, and distill the one without, and get yourself some pretty awesome flavoured vodka... And age it like you would any other whiskey kind of thing. BUT!!! In order to 'water' it down to what % you'd like to age it at??? Use the hopped beer to water it down. Thus you'd be able to get some serious flavour AND seriously mellow aged goodness! I'd love to see those experiments!!!

[@clivemilner]

Well presented video. Apple 🍎 can be difficult. Caldos is king.😅

[@juliancannizzaro2906]

Could you try and make a lemon brandy? An adult lemonade?

[@stephenclifford3971]

Heavy toast is the treatment you should do.

[@jasonacosta3860]

Treat it different. Do 1 stick toasted and charred. The other only toasted

[@rusnikfromtranscarpathia]

The labels ARE made from a food-grade (and foid-based) ink and paper n glue...so TECHNICALLY you can leave them on as Past Jesse did. Lol

[@BryceAndEveeNZ]

I'd Love to see one with no treatment on the Stave, one with slight treatment (Burning) and one with a dark treatment (burning)

[@99hilux6]

Side by side stave test please

[@nellynelson965]

So the molasses question. Ive never had a molasses where the yeast can eat it all, it has a but load of unformentable sugars. Or is this some super molasses with all fermentable sugars. If so, in the UK that stuffs crazy expencive.

[@andriymelnyk10]

Thank you for great video! Do you think getting freshly pressed apple juice from local farm instead of fermenting with solid apples would change the aroma/taste to less intense? Apple season is on the corner and I want to do some calvados:)) Thank you

[@theresachairmissing3666]

Jessie, Where do you get the large bucket of molasses from in NZ? Could you start selling it? I have used animal feed molasses but those are second grade and extracted from the cane using sulphur.

[@hke77]

Did you have any thought of using Apple Juice Concentrate?

[@joshuaj.weaveresq.5719]

Apple juice is about as neutral flavor as you get. In fact, just look at the labels, most "fruit juice" sold is basically apple juice. If you want character, you need a "cider" product (at least in the US) that has not been completely filtered. To keep it simple, they sell straight fructose (aka "fruit sugar"), which is chemically different than cane sugar (sucrose). In the US, the main juice sweeter would be dextrose monohydrate (aka corn syrup or high-fructose corn syrup); using corn syrup might be a reasonable option. A interesting pick might be a variety of monofloral honey: Buckwheat honey- dark and can almost remind one of molasses or dark beer. However, I cannot but think that the most amazing result could be potentially found with real 100% maple syrup.....!

[@tervaaku]

Call it Brum. Schnum even

[@vindrmasuta]

What's the benefit of doing staves vs barrel vs something like wood chips or shavings?

[@benkirkland5354]

Ooooh, make a jackfruit brandy… or Durian (for more devious reasons! 😈)

[@finspin4984]

Kick ass day 🙏🙏

[@theoptimisticmetalhead7787]

Would it be useful to develop a calculator to figure out how much liquor you're gonna end up with depending on how much wash at xABV you start out with? Or is the process of making cuts gonna be too personal for every distiller to have a useful calculator for that?

[@russelllane5170]

I would like to see you distill sweadish fish candy

[@PyrateGFXProductions]

Fun fact, liquid drains faster out of a jug if you swirl it.

[@Michael_Kerstein]

Toast it the char one side of the oak

[@jscancella]

@12:39 aren't you worried about oxidation and it causing a change in flavor?

[@chancewarena5805]

Bro can you do a vid of you running the actual still? A t500 or Digiboil? Dialling in temp how you use the wattage thingi ma bob if you use 1 and catching fores and heads just basically the start process? For a spirit run I'm running a 35l Digiboil 2 element switches with alcoengine pot still i get reasonable results just wondering if I could be doing anything better ...the Fahrenheit to Celsius thing just confuses all my research so if possible can you do a run in Celsius please 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼 your videos are the god damn bomb by the way

[@FelixBogwater]

Soak one stave in wine for some time? Thats my suggestion.

[@ds9902]

One lightly toasted two sides the other one lightly toasted two sides dark toast one side

[@ronford1086]

Can I just smash up the apples with a 2x4 in a drum and hit it with boiling water and then when cooked and cooled used pectic enzyme?

[@appcarpenter1]

I didn't catch what yeast you used.

[@colwk]

Use the leftovers for a gin base

[@olsim1730]

*cherry guavas 😊

[@racerothery2716]

Iv never had a good result trying to oak something that’s supposed to being a sweet fruity flavor with it. The blackberry brandy I made from a perfectly made blackberry wine was only good when it was not oaked at all and instead actually sweetened a bit and then it was DANGEROUS. So freaking good. I literally still have 3 gallons of the wine I made because the wine was so good I kept it and my Grandma comes over once a month to get her wine bottle refilled because she loves it so much. I think it’s like 13% so it’s not over powering with alcohol and it’s somehow still carbonated 😂

[@vDRACv]

I've been thinking about turning my wine 🍷 & 🍷 Mead into Brandy And adult snow cone syrup snow ❄️ cone Distilling wine 🍷🍷 & mead into a syrup

[@garytong3395]

Great documentary 😊. My last years 'Calvados' was the same, super fruity, but not actually apple. After you have aged it, do you then 'cut' it? Down to around 40/45%? Again, many thanks.

[@clivemilner]

It depends, 37abv drink with ice. 32abv sipping. The more diluted the more flavors...😊

[@monto313]

I commend you sir. You could have easily used the Genio still to do the stripping run but did it in a way most hobbyists would relate to.

[@KyleRawlins1]

I say split the batch and do the comparison.

[@jeffreyfreeborn6879]

what is "momberburg" molasses? Couldn't find a way to spell or google it

[@bradmcmahon3156]

Bundaberg.