1) Start with great hard cider.
If you don’t like the cider/beer/wine you are distilling unless you are doing multiple passes to get pure alcohol, the quality of the mash (that’s the beer or cider or wine you are distilling) makes a huge difference in the quality of the whiskey (or bourbon or brandy) you are making. It’s all moonshine if you aren’t paying them damn revenuers for the privilege of crafting prime spirits.
Best Repeatable Recipe I’ve had for hard cider has been, even if you stop with this, you have great drinkable hard cider:
5 Gallons Publix Pure Premium Apple Juice (not from concentrate, pasturized with no preservatives) 4 lbs dark brown sugar Safale US-05 ale yeast (red package)
A good copper alembic still has proven over the past few hundred years to produce superior brandies. There are a lot of good reasons commercial distilleries use reflux stills, but for quality craft brandy, small batch copper pot stills work best. There are ton’s of articles about copper pot stills to confirm this opinion.
3) Don’t use a thumper.
Thumpers concentrate the alcohol but lose many apple flavors. They can be used to add flavors, but not the same as keeping the flavors from the mash. Thumpers are good for making whiskey and getting higher proof, but that’s not the goal with apple brandy, and you lose too many flavors and fruity notes using a thumper.
Thumpers concentrate the alcohol but lose many apple flavors. They can be used to add flavors, but not the same as keeping the flavors from the mash. Thumpers are good for making whiskey and getting higher proof, but that’s not the goal with apple brandy, and you lose too many flavors and fruity notes using a thumper.
4) Be patient
Run your still slowly by controlling the temperature so that you get a bare trickle. It takes me almost 3 hours once I get the still up to temperature to distill 5 gallons of mash in my 5 gallon copper pot still. Quality takes time.
5) Don’t split your distillate. Keep all of your distillate together so you get the heads, hearts, and tails together. In my 5 gallon still I throw out the first 5oz ( The foreshots made ofmethanol and other poisonous volatile organics), and track the proof of each pint out and stop when the average is between 90 and 100 proof, usually happens when I’m getting about 40 proof out of the still. If I start with 10% abv cider I usually get about a gallon of brandy. This blend produces a very nice flavor.
6) Cleanliness is next to Godliness
5) Don’t split your distillate. Keep all of your distillate together so you get the heads, hearts, and tails together. In my 5 gallon still I throw out the first 5oz ( The foreshots made ofmethanol and other poisonous volatile organics), and track the proof of each pint out and stop when the average is between 90 and 100 proof, usually happens when I’m getting about 40 proof out of the still. If I start with 10% abv cider I usually get about a gallon of brandy. This blend produces a very nice flavor.
6) Cleanliness is next to Godliness
Be super anal retentive about sanitizing everything at every step. Taking shortcuts in making sure your still is clean and your made your mash as clean as possible, and you didn’t contaminate anything, is not only a huge key to great brandy (or cider, or beer, or wine) but it’s a safety thing too. If you think you’re being extra clean because of covid, you’re being clean enough. Use a good brewing sanitizer and/or chlorine. Then sanitize again to make sure.
7) Short Cut to Aging
I used to use a small wooden cask to age, found that aging with wood chips produces as good a result in a lot less time. I usually add 2oz by volume of Dark Roast French Oak, and 3oz of American White Oak. See entry the on Apple Cherry Brandy for details.
