I’m making a cider now, and heard if you freeze the end product you create “applejack”, and is delicious. Anyone have experience with this? What it is or how to use it?
I haven’t made it myself, but here’s the basic procedure:
Holy gawd, this is now top of the to-do list.
I’ve had the stuff from Laird’s but never the raw stuff. Isn’t freeze distillation supposed to create some health risks? If not I’d love to give it a go as well.
No health risks I am aware of besides higher alcohol level, but distillation is technically illegal without a license :o
I haven’t done it lately, but if done right, it can be good. Worth a try sometime.
I have eisbocked meads and cysers. It’s actually quite easy to do and very nice to drink…
This is a way of distilling technically. When you brew beer/cider/wine/etc… correctly you will create mostly “good” alcohol but regardless you also have poisonous alcohol and aldehydes that is produced.(that’s why barrel aging is important for a lot of liquor and wine so that the low boilers will evaporate or give the yeast a chance to convert them) The “worse” your fermentation(low pitching rates and out of temperature range for the yeast) is the more apt you are to produce poisonous alcohol and aldehydes. As far as I know about aldehydes, aldehydes are not necessarily poisonous but really don’t do your body any favors. In concentrating your brew you concentrate the bad stuff. This is why when you see whiskey distilled they always throw out the first part of what they take off (else they could really kill someone). Youre not going to really harm yourself from making apple jack unless you have horrible fermentation conditions combined aldehyde sensitivity or plan on drinking a very large quantity all day long.
There must be some regional differences in what the term means. Around here I went to parties in my younger years where ‘applejack’ consisted of unfermented juice/cider, apple pie spices, and either 151 or everclear. I like the procedure posted here a little better. Though the stuff I had would definitely get you ripped if nothing else. 
The United States of America is completely and entirely broken when it comes to all things cider. It will take another two or three decades to catch up with the rest of the world.
Fortunately, that remains true no matter what. Cheers!
If you eisbock a 33 cl bottle of cyser the result will be maybe 10-15 cl of 20 ABV. So it’s going to be more concentrated, but I don’t see why it would be dangerous if you don’t exaggerate with the amounts you drink.
+1 I try to make the best of our New England winters.
Just as an aside, I love these guys. Before I found this forum I watched all of their videos and it really helped me out as a beginner, especially their “stepping into all-grain” series. Highly recommended for beginners.
The concern is that things like fusels and methanol are also concentrated by freeze-distillation, unlike using a still where you can dispose of the heads and the tails. This can lead to roaring hangovers, sometimes referred to as “apple palsy”.
I promise I will come and visit you in prison, where you will be withering away in a maximum security wing, convicted for illegal moonshining, blinded by methanol poisoning and suffering from quasi-permanent migraine attacks.
That got a laugh out of me this morning!
I jacked some cider about a year ago, I have one bottle left.
The cider was just ok, but the jacked stuff is really good.
Just drank an eisbocked pear/pippali mead. More peppery and in general much better than original version!
IANAL but I beleive there have been several rulings now by the TTB that freeze concentration is NOT distilling and is legal. This is because you are removing water from the alcohol instead of removing alcohol from the water.