#Applejack brandy recipes full#

The last time I made apple jack and made the initial fermentation go up to about 18 and a half percent alcohol. I tend to, to go for around 14 or 15% alcohol. The amount of sugar that we’re adding is going to bring it up to about 14%. The juice itself has, um, an alcohol potential of around 6 – 6/5 percent. And some yeast nutrient to keep the fermentation healthy, throw the airlock on and put it away until it finishes fermenting. So you’re just going to go get some dark brown sugar, and we’re going to put about three cups of it into a bowl, pour some of our juice into that bowl so that we can stir together and easily pour that into the jug.Īnd then top it back up with juice, add our yeast, some pectic enzyme to help clear it. You’re going to dump out about two quarts or your apple juice so that you have room for all the sugar we’re going to add. Since I’m not a rich people, this is what I’m going to make and it’s delicious and it’s, uh, it’s totally worth it. And I just, I just enjoy them like a Brandy or a cognac or whatever rich people do. And trust me, I’ve never had a hangover on it because I only have maybe two shots of it. And then magnify that by two or three times, because the worst hangover you’ve ever had didn’t have that much, didn’t have that much sugar didn’t have that much methanol, all the things that can really add to a really bad time.Īpple Jack is not a guzzler. Just think of the worst hanger over the you’ve ever had. The colonials dubbed a term specific for the hangover that you get when you drink too much applejack. So all the bad stuff that can give you a hangover is still in it. It’s ridiculously smooth and super delicious, but that’s a problem because it’s so concentrated and it’s not heat distilled. And so when the colonial guys figured this out, they would, you know, dip something right out of the center and start drinking it.

So you pop open the top of your barrel and there’s this big ring of ice around the inside.Īnd then this pool of really dark cider, it smells great, really strong, really sweet, and very rich. So you’d end up with hard cider, but then winter comes rolling around. The yeast that was naturally on the apples would ferment the juice. Where did apple Jack come from?īack in colonial times when, uh, apple farmers would, uh, have a lot of apple cider pressed and ready to go, it would be in barrels. Not advisable, but it’s not going to kill you. Well, no, it’s not any more dangerous than drinking an entire gallon of hard apple cider. The same goes for apple Jack, because it’s concentrated now all of the methanol and the fusel oils and things that are normally discarded during normal heat distillation, they’re still in there.Īnd you may be asking yourself, is that toxic? Is it dangerous?

If you drank this whole gallon of hard apple cider at, let’s say 6%, six and a half percent alcohol, you would probably have the worst hangover of your life. Let’s say you turn this into hard apple cider, and then you freeze it and you turn it into applejack. And what ends up happening is you get a much higher alcohol content, but you also get really strong flavors and, um, a really tasty little drink.

#Applejack brandy recipes full#

So, Applejack, what is it? And why do we do it?Īpple Jack is basically where you make hard apple cider and then you freeze concentrate it by letting it freeze, draining off the liquid that doesn’t freeze because it’s full of alcohol and then discarding the water and ice.Īnd you do that two or three times.