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Alcohol Yields of Apple - Cost Modeling


spiritofmaine

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Looking to get some yield data to build a cost model for apple distillates.

. Can anyone who has gone though the entire mash/ferment/distill cycle comment on the accuracy of this number?

2. Can anyone chime in on the yield of 1 gal of raw cider in terms of pure alcohol produced?

Is there any insight on a better/best way to analyse cost/yield using apple as the base looking to make calvados or an apple vodka.

I do not need to factor into the cost of paying all the other bills, just the cost of the raw materials without any processing or bottling.

Using the Brunner Tanner yield estimate, it seems pretty clear that I would have a hard time making ends meet if I had to buy apples near $1.00/kilo (would anyone even sell at that price)?

Please discuss.

I have got some numbers on a batch I recently did.

A local Ciderhouse juiced 4,400 Kg apples yielded

2200 litres of juice. Sometimes a little higher juice yield

The cidery did the fermentation and it came to me at approx 5.8%abv (I think it should have been higher, maybe that is why they gave it to me)

Pot still stripping run gave 126.1 litres of pure alcohol in the "low wines"

Spirit run with cuts

3 litres pure alc in the heads thrown out

24.6 litres of pure alc in the fore-shots that went into Fores and Feints to add to next run

72.3 litres pure alc in the Heart

22 litres in the Feints

121.9 litres pure alcohol recovered, ie still was 96.5% efficient at recovery.(about average)

In this first complete run I got 72.3 litres from 4,400 Kg apples

That is 1.7 litres per 100 Kg of fruit

In future runs the Fores and Feints will be added to the next spirit run and I would expect to get about 2.3 litres per 100 Kg of apples

"1. Brunner and Tanner claim that apples have a mean yield 5l pure ethanol / 100 kg raw fruit"

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Pete, thanks for the breakdown.

Is it possible for you to post (or did you track) average ABV's of your various breakdown positions ? It's a little hard to grasp the "pure alcohol" terminology on this side of the pond :)

Thanks

Roger

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  • 1 month later...

I am running apple and pear ciders all this week.

The deal I have is when the local cideries produce anything that is not quite to their specification then they drop it at my distillery, I distil it and give them 1/3 of the spirit back.

I think I recall Charles@AeppelTreow saying that most apple spirit is made from off spec cider

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Pete, thanks for the breakdown.

Is it possible for you to post (or did you track) average ABV's of your various breakdown positions ? It's a little hard to grasp the "pure alcohol" terminology on this side of the pond :)

Thanks

Roger

Sorry I have taken so long Roger. In the post you queried I was answering the original question put by spiritofmaine

After the second run in my pot still i got

Heads 70% abv 11.1 litres, thrown out

Fores 72.3% 12 litres kept to add to next run

Heart (good spirit) at 63.5% 126 litres

Feints 23.5% 112 litres kept to add to next run

( fores plus feints = 124 litres of 28.4%)

That adds up to about 95% recovery of alcohol, less the 11.1 litres thrown out

I assume you can convert litres to liters, :) but if you would like me to convert to proof gallons then let me know.

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Has anyone tried using apple cider? There is a farm near me that sells bulk apple cider ...........................

So is this apple JUICE or has it been fermented to a dry alcoholic beverage?

I think Charles is implying it is just juice and $3.80 is about the same as I could pay here in Australia

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Not implying. Explicitly stating :-) Unfermented = juice, and I don't care if I'm outnumbered. I'm trying to re-educate my fellow Americans.

$3.40 would still be a bit steep in the midwest, unless it's a small orchard (~10 acres), has a lot of heirloom apples (like russets), or some other feature that's worth paying more than $2.25/gal (best price I saw in 2013). But I have paid about that in a bad year (factoring in freight) and pay a _lot_ more than that for specialty cultivars. But I don't distill specialty cultivars - I drink them as cider, dry and tannic.

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We paid about $2.40/gallon in western north carolina for fresh pressed juice, bought multiple totes in one trip. They were able to get us unpasteurized juice specially. This was just standard variety apples, wasn't able to source 'cider' apples.

Charles, would you be able to share the varieties you find common or are willing to use for distilling stock?

Not implying. Explicitly stating :-) Unfermented = juice, and I don't care if I'm outnumbered. I'm trying to re-educate my fellow Americans.

$3.40 would still be a bit steep in the midwest, unless it's a small orchard (~10 acres), has a lot of heirloom apples (like russets), or some other feature that's worth paying more than $2.25/gal (best price I saw in 2013). But I have paid about that in a bad year (factoring in freight) and pay a _lot_ more than that for specialty cultivars. But I don't distill specialty cultivars - I drink them as cider, dry and tannic.

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There are precious few traditional cider apples available for sale in the US. And at 4X the cost of surplus eating apples (best case), it's even harder to justify distilling them. And mostly pointless - tannins don't go through a still. Some of them have a different aroma profile than 'red' or 'green' apples (generally called 'bittersweet' - yes, as an aroma) - but that rarity and expense puts me off distilling them. You get more bottles out of a bushel as [hard] cider, with less costs, and lower taxes. Sure, it may be less revenue per bottle - but just how much can you charge for that brandy?

For distilling, I mostly use a mix of eating apples that I can get cheap. Red Del, McIntosh, Cortland, Jonathan, Gold Del, Ida Red, and various older tart cooking and eating apples. Most cultivar aroma gets clobbered by the yeast. Some varieties have aroma that gets through a little; McIntosh, Jonathan for instance. I find that with some practice, you can assemble a more floral base cider, an earthy/mineral base, or a slightly spicy base, determined by cultivar selection, [finding the blends is left as an exercise to the reader] and it makes _some_ difference on the end brandy. I believe overall ripeness and fermentation are more critical. And that's before you get to distilling equipment, technique and barrel selection.

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Brix is going to depend on a bunch of things: cultivar blend, post harvest storage, local climate, press technology.

10.5 is low for a decent blend of apples. I've seen it with straight Red Del.

12-ish is pretty normal for eating apples.

16 is as high as I've seen with a select blend of heirlooms.

I've heard talk of 20+ from folks in dry climates (CO), who manage irrigation.

If you're under 12, I'd ask about what press they are using. Old belt presses use water jets to clean the belt, and some people have them set to run too often, watering down the juice.

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Well, these were storage apples in January, so that may have been part of it, and were from eating apples. And they did show me their belt press, what is the more sophisticated press to use?

Brix is going to depend on a bunch of things: cultivar blend, post harvest storage, local climate, press technology.

10.5 is low for a decent blend of apples. I've seen it with straight Red Del.

12-ish is pretty normal for eating apples.

16 is as high as I've seen with a select blend of heirlooms.

I've heard talk of 20+ from folks in dry climates (CO), who manage irrigation.

If you're under 12, I'd ask about what press they are using. Old belt presses use water jets to clean the belt, and some people have them set to run too often, watering down the juice.

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Hello. Do you cook the apple juice to increase the sugar volume?

Or do you add some natural sweet such as honey, agave, or sugar?

And if you don't add anything, how much sugar apple cider should have.

I test last year 10 gallons of apple cider not pasteurize and used the natural yeas to help it fermenting; but I only so 5% abv very low in my opinion.

Thanks

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Eek! Please, never cook sweet cider before fermenting. Cider is a kind of wine, not a kind of beer. 5%ABV is very typical of a cider from commonly available apples. Yes, you can get up to 8% - but it's cultivar and climate dependent. Not just any apple from any place. Most people looking to raise the ABV will freeze the juice and take the rich fraction as it thaws. Or add sugar/honey. Which a bonded winery may do in the US, within certain limits, but I don't know if a DSP may. The only reason I can see for cooking juice is to kill off pectin methylesterase activity to reduce methanol in the spirit. (Some cidermakers experiment with _adding_ PME (and CaCl2) in order to clarify the juice with a traditional process called 'keeving'.)

Apples have no complex carbohydrates, so any Saccharomyces strain will ferment it out. But different strains will impart subtle aroma notes. And work at different speeds. I know a few people are playing with using Brett. for the primary fermentation, but it won't behave in cider the way it does in beer.

Sorghumrunner, it's my understanding that it's not so much the design of a belt press, but the age of the belt. Modern (this century) belts work a lot better than the previous generation. But you also mentioned that they were running cold-stored apples. That's a potential patulin hazard for sweet cider, but not an issue for fermented cider - the yeast eats it. But those cold stored apples might be mushy and force more belt wash cycles as they plug up the belt, reducing the brix. Plausibility isn't proof - but it's a reasonable idea.

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Well, over all I am happy with the cider wine that was made with these apples. I fermented them out in January, and chaptalized with some domestic apple juice concentrate from Michigan. Reached 10.5-11% across the six fermentations I ran in totes. I made one tote of fortified apple desert wine at 18%, which is now in barrels. Used a neutral brandy for fortification that I make from scuppernong wine. I am stripping the other 5 totes in our neutral still while I wait for our Hoga to arrive for a second distillation. Will be aging that brandy in bourbon barrels, and plan to release some late this year for our first spirit release.

I plan to be able to get our juice earlier this fall as we weren't ready for production during harvest season last year.

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Neutral brandy for fortification is against my religion :)

We're you aiming for a pommeau style, or a drier royal cider? And did you know that using the scuppernong spirits will make it a formula wine? (As opposed to pommeau, which is simply a 'natural' apple dessert wine. Slightly different label requirements, too.)

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It's backsweetened, so perhaps more of a pommeau.

I'll be sure to follow up on the formula requirements...

Neutral brandy for fortification is against my religion :)

We're you aiming for a pommeau style, or a drier royal cider? And did you know that using the scuppernong spirits will make it a formula wine? (As opposed to pommeau, which is simply a 'natural' apple dessert wine. Slightly different label requirements, too.)

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  • 2 weeks later...

You have to agitate the sulfur in the wine a few times a day by pumping over and letting it naturally gas out. it gets trapped and is a by product of fermentation, when you smell it, and have to address it with copper for binding then its too late. it will however get worse, so agitating it at the faint sign of it is necessary and means it needs it more frequently. wine is suggested 3-4x a day.

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