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Au De Vie - Apricots

edited June 2013 in Recipes

Just picked up 25# of fresh ripe apricots, De pitted, put into the food processor and turned into a puree. divided between to 6G carboys and added 3G of water, potential alc showing about 1.5-2 %. added 5# of white sugar to each and added another G of water. OG now at 1.05. I'm wondering if that is enough fruit to carry over? Its about 4" in the bottom of a 6G carboy. I'm thinking I should have gone for 50-75# of fruit. Massive cap formed, and I've been stirring and punching down 2-3 times a day.

Anyone done successful Au De Vie? I'd like to do pears and apples and any other fresh fruit I can find.

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Comments

  • edited June 2013

    I've done peaches, apples and berries at different times. I'll sing out to Bob, he's the expert on this stuff, it's his main passion.

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • appreciated, cheers

  • Hi Guys.

    nvnovrts, you've just run into one of the common problems with making fruit spirits; it takes a mess of fruit to make a modest amount of eau de vie. Anymore, 25 pounds is just about the minimum for me to consider distilling. The flip side of that is that the range of flavors you can get from eaux de vie can be wonderful, and one of my favorites has been apricot, In fact, the liquor in the snifter on the cover of my book is an oaked apricot brandy, and it was very good (all gone now).

    From what I do, that 1.05 and all that water will make a lighter-flavored liquor, but I'll bet you'll like it, so go ahead and run it. And yes, apricot makes a goopy cap. It's even worse when you try to macerate apricots for a liqueur; it make sort of an orange snot.

    Every fruit and every batch of fruit is different, but next time I'd use less water (I know, it can be a mess).

    Good luck with your eau de vie.

    Zymurgy Bob, a simple potstiller

    my book, Making Fine Spirits

  • I forgot so say, if it's necessary, that small amounts of fruit usually limit me to single distillations. It's a happy day when I can score a few hundred pounds.

    Zymurgy Bob, a simple potstiller

    my book, Making Fine Spirits

  • Thank you Bob, I was reading on another forum about higher methanol levels from doing Eau de vie. Any reason to have concerns?
    Apricots are still mid season here I'll go hit up the a couple fruit stands. The last one was asking what I was planning to do with so many apricots.... preserves and such! Really looking forward to Pears.

  • @nvnovrts said: The last one was asking what I was planning to do with so many apricots....

    Look em dead in the eye and say only one word, "Church".

    You might even get a discount, but even if not they will bugger off.
    Worked for me when buying 10x 50 pound bags of sugar.

  • definitely spiritual..

  • nvnovrts, there's nothing you can do short of tipping the methanol can into your spirits that will give you toxicity concerns. Anyway, if some evil person tries to poison you with methanol, the cure is drinking (or carefully IVing) ethanol, the good stuff.

    Zymurgy Bob, a simple potstiller

    my book, Making Fine Spirits

  • edited June 2013

    Yes, we even had one ignorant commercial distiller in Australia say in a national radio interview that there was dangerous amounts of methanol in spirits and they can be removed by careful concentrating of foreshots.

    He continued to stick this bullshit line even after being confronted with overwhelming evidence of the contrary.

    There is a study published here that states plainly that methanol builds up in the tails and despite the widely varying boiling points that it's not readily seperated by standard distillation and bonds to ethanol and is carried over with it.

    Investigating the behaviour of methanol during the distillation it appears, that methanol is a companion of ethanol and therefore, by the possibilities of pot still distillation(2.3), rather hard to separate from ethanol. The investigation shows that there is in g/hl p.a. [pure alcohol] an increase of methanol contents during the distillation and especially in the last fractions (tailings). This is caused by the fact that methanol is, in spite of the lower boiling point (64,8°C) compared to ethanol (78,3°C), carried over in the distillate later than ethanol, an observation that is also confirmed by former investigations and in the literature.

    The molecule structures however, show another aspect: ethanol has got one more CH2-group which makes the molecule less polar. So, concerning polarity, methanol can be ranged between water and ethanol and has therefore in the water phase a distillation behaviour different from ethanol. This may explain the behaviour which is rather contrary to the boiling points. This is no single appearance, because for example ethylacetate with a boiling point of 77°C, or, as an extreme case, is oamylacetate with 142°C are even carried over much earlier than methanol. Therefore methanol can not be separated using pot stills or normal column stills. Only special columns can separate methanol from the distillate(4.3).

    image

    In short, you can't remove it, but there is not enough in there to do you damage in the first place.

    methanol_phase_diagram.png
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    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • edited July 2013

    Nice reference Punkin. I suspect lots of folks grasping and groping to explain what the constituents of the foreshot are sort of automatically defaulting to the "M" word? Seems "M" to distilling is the equivillant of the poor ole snake in the bible?? Pour ole snake ("M") gets blamed for everything..... In truth, I'd be curious to see what has more methanol. Any typical brandy or a one week old pitcher of unpasteurized orange juice? Yes, yes that healthy drink that is so good for you. Where does one place their bet?

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • @punkin said: Only special columns can separate methanol from the distillate(4.3).

    Do we know what separates these special columns from our pot/normal column stills? Would it be a multi plate column with take-offs at strategic points?

    I'm thinking regarding the "M" word, that it's the ratio of Methanol to Ethanol that decides the toxicity? If Ethanol is the antidote for Methanol, and you are drinking them in a combined liquid, does this reduce the affects of Methanol?

  • I go by taste. fores are nasty. it loses that chemical paint thinner thing and goes to good. same on tails this is where the talent comes to play.

    It is all about the cuts.

    when you taste that special blend bourbon. or the 2 plate pear aue de vie.. it all makes sense. this is what we are all lookig to recreate and re invent.

  • I haven't googled it Philter, just quoted the report.

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • what a slimy mess Apricots make. But it is absolutely amazing the flavors that come through. I'm looking to double the fruit bill and do another run.

  • edited July 2013

    I'm fermenting 50 Kgs of fresh local Chinese cherries. I bought a mix of sour and strongly flavoured ones, pitted them, minced them in a meat grinder, added pectolase enzyme and a fruit schnapps yeast. I didn't add any water since the mash was quite juicy. Had to stir them everyday for a week or so to keep the cap from going mouldy. One Kg of cherries seems to make 1 L of mash. I have the cherry pits in the mash as well but they didn't go through the meat grinder. I plan on distilling the whole lot, pits and all then blending the product with GNS. The mash has a really intense aroma. so long as I don't strip out the aroma when I run it, I'm thinking I might have a winner.

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  • Yum.

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • Awesome. I thought about doing the whole lot in the boiler as well but thought that it might scorch so strained and ran the cleaner wash.

    Please post on how the cherries come out. Kirsch?

  • __what is the yeast you are using?

  • I used "pot distiller's yeast." I think it's a Prestige product. I started with 20Kgs of cherries and 1 package of yeast. Since this was the first time I've tried this I started out small. We processed about 5 Kgs per hour. It's kinda tedious work but we're motivated. I processed another 30 Kgs of cherries 5 days later and added them to the first batch. The fermentation was going well so I didn't bother to add any more yeast. The recipe calls for a 1 month fermentation. The aroma is incredible.

  • Really looking forward to the results of this @Capt_Crunch.
    How do you stone out the cherries?

  • edited July 2013

    I bought a cherry pitter from a US sausage making website (Leifheit Cherrymat Cherry Stoner). If this schnapps works out and I were to do it again, I would buy a second cherry pitter. That would cut the processing time by about 40%. The pitter works really well. So well that theres a tendency to ramp up the production speed. If you go too fast then the odd pit makes it through into the meat grinder and then the mash. All good fun....mashing and eating fresh cherries!

  • edited July 2013

    Nice find @Capt_Crunch, a very low cost solution to cherry stoning.
    @RedDoorDistillery published his guide to wheat vodka here if you'd like to try your hand at a clean vodka for your GNS.
    I see the link that you posted was for sausage making supplies and equipment - a subject close to the hearts of some of the members here.

  • Thanks for the link Lloyd. Theres some very useful info there indeed.

  • Capt_Crunch,

    Fruit's kinda quirky, and it can be a lot of work, but frequently you get spirits that are amazing (and always surprising (for a first run of a new fruit). Check that flavor out really well before you dilute it with GNS; you may not want to thin out a wonderful spirit, or bury it in oak. You just never know, but be prepared for something good.

    Zymurgy Bob, a simple potstiller

    my book, Making Fine Spirits

  • Thanks Zymurgybob. I definitely have something with potential bubbling away in the ole fruit pot. Don't worry, it'll be scrutinized before and if any dilution happens. The recipe calls for GNS and dilution obviously increases my yield but your point is well taken. No more fresh cherries this year doh! Peaches maybe...

  • located 2 5 gallon buckets full of peaches/plums and apricots. depitted and crusshed 1/3 crushed the remaining 2/3s but not all that well. adjusted pH added DAP and 8# of dextrose along with 5G of H20, pitched yeast. D47 and EC1118. Nice ferm going this AM. Stirred and wondering if I should hit it with another couple G of DAP. Does anyone know if the fruit that was not completely crushed will get fermented? I was thinking whole berry ferm for grapes and they seem to have issues with going through.

  • I use a mortar mixer with sharpened blades in a drill. Just stick all the fruit in a big bucket and have at it. Sieve through a fine chicken mesh screen to take the stones and most of the skins out.

    image

    fermenters1.jpg
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    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • I do something similar to punkin except my mixer has spiral blades. I just ferment the whole lot stones and all and sort it out after fermentation when it is a bit thinner.

  • will the fruit break down during ferment? Do I need to help it along? some of the chunks are fairly hefty.

  • Maybe a little. Pectinase enzyme may help.

    Where's Z Bob when you need him?

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

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