Freezing Temperature Of Alcohol

[Tony]

I have been reading about freeze distillation the past couple of weeks since I plan I giving applejack a go h34r: Go with SpillsMostOfIt recommendation and freeze it slowly at about -2C, work out how much water you want to remove and then use some type of strainer to remove that amount of ice.

This is what im thinking of doing. I have a 300 liter freezer waiting for me to get time to build the bar. I am thinking of sticking it in and with a temp probe in the brew bring it down to -2 or 3 and keep stiring it to make a slurry. I love the idea of scooping out the ice. I could scoop it out with a kitchen strainer and put it in a bucket to measure how much i remove and its gravity.

working out how much to remove compared to what you want in the finished product is simple maths.

something also to keep in mind, if you are going to bottle carbonate the beer, is that freezing it isnt very good for the yeast, so you may have problems naturally carbonating it. may pay to repitch another yeast before bottling.

good thinking...... will have to re-pitch a bit of fresh yeast from the primary.

cheers

 

[w_brüz]

There’s an Applejack video on YouTube
I’ve got about 25L of Cider on the go right now and looking at making some Applejack myself. Didn’t quite hit the OG I wanted with the Cider as I’m a Newb but interested to see how it turns out

 

[MHB]

Had a play with this years ago (probably back when this thread was new).
What I found works best is to cool very slowly, the slower you cool the bigger and purer the water ice crystals are, cool too fast and you get something like a frozen coke from mackers - just slush - very hard to separate the ice from the liquid.

Got the best results by putting cider in a food grade plastic bag and heat sealing it, putting the bag in a broccoli box (a good esky should work) putting the esky in the freezer, setting the thermostat for as warm as it will go, then dropping the temperature a touch every couple of days.
After about 2 weeks hang the bag up in a fridge (sans the shelfs) and set as cold as it would go, clip a corner off the bag and let it drain.
Happened to have a Fridge/Freezer that was big enough to take a broccoli box in the freezer (just) and by the time it had worked its way down to coldest, the fridge was about -3oC so the ice in the bas wasn't melting.

Got Apple Jack up to about 35%ABV - it was a bit rough at first but matured well over a couple of months. Took a couple of beer experiments a bit too far, found it stripped the bitterness and left the beer tasting like alcoholic soy sauce (probably went way too far), got best results by roughly doubling the alcohol content of the beer.

Just on the notion of bottle conditioning, not many yeasts will go over 20%, most brewing yeast conks out this side of 12%, Champaign (EC1118) to 18% (slowly) maybe a touch more. This type of thing might be a good excuse to get a couple of carbonation caps.
Mark

 

[w_brüz]

Just on the notion of bottle conditioning, not many yeasts will go over 20%, most brewing yeast conks out this side of 12%, Champaign (EC1118) to 18% (slowly) maybe a touch more. This type of thing might be a good excuse to get a couple of carbonation caps.
Mark

I’m definitely gonna give Champagne yeast a go on the next Cider run. I used Gervin GV5 I’m nearing the end of the brew(as far as I can tell) and definitely should’ve added more sugar as I’m only sitting round 5% abv right now. Tasted some from the tube when I took a reading yesterday and it’s actually tasting similar to Magners/Bulmers. Probably gonna let this one stay Cider this time round.

Also I’ve got some 750ml Amber bottles coming in the mail but any suggestions for storing the finished product til they arrive? Can I just leave it in the fermenter or will that have a negative effect on the brew?