How to make moonshine from apple juice at home

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

An excellent way of apple processing - especially for those who have an orchard in their country house, plot or in a private house - is home-brewing. Moonshine from apple juice is quite common, and one might even say democratic drink. After all, fruits of different varieties are found everywhere, and when distilled, they make an excellent fruit drink, or “homemade Calvados.”

By the way, some moonshine from apple juice or apples is combined under this name, which is not entirely correct, since real Calvados involves special aging technology in oak barrels, which saturate it with an original and unique aroma and apple flavor with shades of wood.

General provisions

Recipes for preparing this drink are not particularly difficult, and most importantly, they practically do not require additionalcurtsies: ennobling, removing the smell. And all this is due to the pleasant and spicy aroma of fruits that moonshine from apple juice or apples has. And to get the mash, you can recommend apples, and cake from processing, and unclarified juice.

Yes, by the way, it is best if the fruits are from different varieties, in this case, the final product will have a special mixed bouquet and aroma from each of the varieties.

Moonshine from apple juice. Cooking recipe

Making mash at home from ready-made juice is much easier than directly from whole fruits. This is probably why those who have an annual abundance in the garden of apples prefer to put these methods into action. Any juices can be used: both natural, freshly squeezed, and those that have undergone thermal preservation and cooking. It has been observed that from natural juices (especially the so-called blend) the final product obtained will be the most aromatic and full-bodied. The choice of juice as a raw material is relevant if you have a good juicer, and the volume of the crop itself allows you to do a juicer.

What can be made at home

From this raw material you just need to try to make home-made Calvados. And by the way, you can also prepare the volume of a natural product using juice for future use as a raw material, in order to later make tinctures from it, experimenting with the flavor range.

The basic method is quite simple: juice with pulp is dilutedsugar, yeast is introduced, then the mash is aged, followed by distillation. A folk recipe for moonshine from apple juice is also possible, reminiscent of the way Georgian chacha ripens, but in this case, the apples should be the sweetest, ripest, juiciest. The fruits also need to be cleaned of seeds and take the softest, but not rotten.

Those who want to make homemade Calvados in the kitchen should buy an oak barrel, where the subsequent aging of the drink will take place. A normal and effective replacement for a keg will be the use of oak chips, which are crushed and loaded into a prepared container with alcohol expelled from the juice. The insisting process itself should be more than six months (or better - a year). Of course, not every moonshiner will stand the time, and you will definitely want to try. But for these purposes, there is a way to make a faster, but less flavored drink, which will only remind Calvados. For these purposes, spices are taken plus vanilla in a certain amount.

Braga from apple juice for moonshine. Recipe

Braga, of course, is the main and indispensable ingredient for making a good drink. The simplest and most popular set of ingredients among the people: for every five liters of juice we take a kilo of sugar and 20 grams of pressed yeast. Then your wort will ferment quite quickly and everything will be as it should. But in this case, the taste of the mash will be a little “yeasty”. If you are not used to rushing anywhere, if you do not like the taste of store-bought yeast, then advice: instead of themwe use slightly fermented raisins of ordinary grapes. They live cultures of natural wine yeast, which are used to make wine. Only before the "sourdough" you need to try not to wash the raisins, in particular - do not pour boiling water over them, as some housewives like to do, so that, they say, harmful microbes are destroyed. From this procedure, all yeast can die, it will not ferment into mash at all.

Another recommendation

Granulated sugar is best dissolved in a small amount of heated juice, and then mixed with the main amount of wort in a fermentation vessel. The processes of making mash in this (yeast-free) case will take longer than in the yeast recipe, and can even reach up to a month in duration. But then the taste will become much thinner.

General provisions

Braga from apple juice for moonshine is, of course, a product of fermentation. So, if there is at least a slight gas separation, the use of water seals is required. This is a sine qua non to make moonshine from apple juice. During the fermentation process, the mass does not require constant mixing, and the final alcoholic drink will not need filtration, clarification, or additional efforts to improve the taste. It will be enough to simply separate the fermented juice from the precipitated yeast. And the distillation of homemade Calvados is carried out according to the traditional scheme: separation of heads, tails. It is also possible to overtake a second time, for additional purification of the product, but then some taste qualities mayget lost.

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So, first of all, to make the right moonshine from apple juice at home, you need to put a water seal on the container. It is done according to the traditional scheme.

It is necessary to stop the access of oxygen from the surrounding space, as this leads to the fact that the raw material does not ferment, but sour. The water seal is designed to release carbon dioxide, which is formed during fermentation, and prevents contact of the mash with open air. Of course, the necessary device can be bought in a store or ordered online. But it is not a fact that it will fit in size to the container chosen for home brewing. Therefore, many people prefer to make their own water seal.

The most popular among the people can be called with confidence a device converted from a dropper bought at a pharmacy. In order to make such a device, you need to cut off the plastic tube from the dropper, and seal the container with the future mash poured into it. In the center of the lid, make a hole corresponding to the diameter of the tube and, inserting one tip there, tightly insulate. And bring the other end of the tube, for example, into a glass of water (to restrict air access). During fermentation, the system will emit characteristic "gurgles", indicating that the process is proceeding on schedule. As soon as these signals stop, it tells us that the brew is ready, and it's time to kick out the moonshine!

From homemade apple wine

Making moonshine from apple juice is not too laborious. But you can simplify it even more by using a ready-made “mash” - young wine from apples. The drink is converted into moonshine, usually in those cases when it “didn’t work out”, that is, it doesn’t satisfy certain taste qualities, but it’s still a pity to pour out such goodness. Usually such a wine, due to the improper use of technology, is already in the first stage of acetic transformation or has various fungal ailments that make its taste not very pleasant, to put it mildly (well, if this is a completely frank swill, still the best option would be to pour it out and not use for distillation). Fruit wine in this case should be considered as a well-cleaned and clarified brew. In addition, you should not make any special requirements for this natural product, since it is of rather high quality.

In this case, pour the wine into the hardware container for further actions, and you can no longer add anything there. These actions, as already mentioned, can greatly simplify production. Further, distillation into moonshine takes place by the traditional method of heating and subsequent distillation. It should be noted that when a moonshine still has a steamer or a distillation column, then one distillation will be enough, separating the heads and tails. This is followed by cleaning with a charcoal filter. Otherwise, in order to distill a high-quality final product, we need a double distillation. Some also useadditional infusion on dried fruit or chopped fresh apples to enhance the apple flavor.

Homemade oaky Calvados

How to make moonshine from apple juice so that it resembles this world-famous drink, which gained popularity in certain years thanks to the works of Remarque? The whole secret is that apple moonshine (recipes for making mash from juice, see above) must be infused in oak barrels for quite a long time (at least six months), like, for example, cognac. Apple brandy then acquires a characteristic flavor that many connoisseurs liked so much. Of course, for these purposes it would be best to purchase a small oak barrel made by a master. But if you don't have it on hand, don't worry. It is quite possible to replace a specific container with oak chips. It must be taken from 20 to 60 grams for each liter intended for infusion. Here the dosage is made empirically, according to personal tastes and preferences, but still try not to overdo it, otherwise tannins can clog the main tone - apple!