Jump to content

natbouman

Members
  • Posts

    70
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by natbouman

  1. Yes, the thread you proposed would be amazingly useful. I'd post info right now if I had any.
  2. I also doubt that Brett or any other factor is solely responsible, but I thought someone might hag experimented with cultured Brett.
  3. I also doubt that Brett or any other factor is solely responsible, but I thought someone might hag experimented with cultured Brett.
  4. The limited distillery license in Pennsylvania now lets me ship directly to customers. They can buy online from me and I can ship the product out. Great! But USPS, UPS, FedEx won't ship liquor. What can I do?
  5. I have the same question, though I'd imagine that 310g of imperial IPA is much more expensive to produce than 310g of distiller's wash. Hops and boiling have to add a lot to the price.
  6. I am fairly aware of the french techniques for making cider and Calvados. When I make a cider I use wild yeast and it often ages on its lees for six months or more--and it ferments at about 60 degrees (and I do a few more things that puts it more in line with french cidre production). However, I haven't ever hand the horse blanket/farmyard thing. Of course, I'm a world away from Normandy and I'd never be able to produce a Calvados but I was thinking of experimenting with adding cultured Brett. I've never tried newmake Calvados and your description of it makes me all the more curious about trying a cultured Brett.
  7. I just started a topic on this a couple of weeks ago and there is some very useful information in the thread. I've been talking to our local brewery since then and they seem pretty interested--doing the same basic thing as you. To run of Michaelangelo's comment, the buys way more grain than we would but they'd like to buy even more to get better prices on the grain. I haven't yet gotten a quote from them. When I do, I'll post it.
  8. Mostly just curious. However, ciders of Normandy frequently have a "horse blanket" aroma/flavor and a couple other characteristics often associated with Brett. Probably the ciders used to make Calvados don't have much Brett activity, but maybe a little and I thought there might be a chance that some of this transfers over in some form.
  9. Anyone have any experience with deliberately using Brettanomyces when creating a cider/wine for distilling?
  10. Interesting. Thanks for your insight. They definitely do a fair bunch of high grav beers. What does distilling a hopped beer do? Not sure if I've ever tasted that.
  11. I'm really interested in this topic as I've found that condenser water temp can make a difference when making brandy in a simple pot still, I just haven't figured out the pattern. Unfortunately, my french is terrible. Anyone know a book in English that covers this well?
  12. This is an interesting question. I'm basically posting here to keep the thread live, however, I believe that France allows Calvados produces to add small amounts of glycerin to improve mouthfeel. I've never tried it.
  13. Do you mean that 80% of the distillate you collect is hearts on the first run?
  14. Thank you for your considered responses. I really appreciate it. The second part of my original query is more about handling the quantity of fruit. Our planned orchard would be very modest in scale--but fairly conservative estimates put us at about 50,000 Liters pomace or 29,000 Liters cider when the trees start bearing their first decent crops. At the small distilleries I've visited, the fermenting capacity is far below this. I expect that of a distillery that makes grain based products, but brandy producers? What is the best thing to do with all those apples (aside from selling them to someone else so they can make cider)? In Normandy I think they often just make huge piles of them and leave them outside for extended periods--as the climate kind of allows for this. I can't figure out what to do in the Northeast. Invest in that much fermenting capacity? Rent cold storage space from other producers? Build own cold storage? Budget is a huge concern. I'm not a retired i-banker.
  15. I appreciate the art of distilling and that there is no substitute for experience, but I've got to believe that not every philosophy is valid if you have a specific goal. The goal in this case, is to know what process maximizes apple flavor and aroma. The French and Scots do produce intensely flavored products, but a lot of the flavor does not come from the original raw material. I'm not even sure if I'd want to use a process which maximizes apple flavor and aroma, but I'd like to have a very basic, scientific understanding of why one process tends to work better than another for this specific goal.
  16. Wish I had the still to be able to do these kinds of tests. Approaching vendors or other distilleries is a good idea, but I thought I'd see if anyone here could weigh in.
  17. Good point. I'm talking a wash of 8% or lower. More specifically, I'm interested in an apple mash not a wash (so it's not cider, but an apple slurry so to speak) with an expected abv 5-8%. The first priority is as much preservation of original fruit characters as possible. Zipping through stripping runs in order to make a low wine which won't spoil makes a lot of practical sense, but I'm concerned about losing aroma and flavor through this process. I know that Calvados producers (or at least, smaller ones) often use a double distillation method (distilling from cider though) as do Cognac makers.
  18. I've been weighing the pros and cons of both techniques and I can't figure out which way to go. With seasonal fruit, it seems like one needs a huge amount of fermenting capacity in order to make enough product. However, then I'd be concerned that the mash would spoil before I got to distill it all--even with acidification. So, doing quick stripping runs to turn the mash into low wines, then distill at leisure. However, I'm concerned about getting as much fruit flavor and aroma into the final product as possible and I'm under the impression (perhaps erroneous) that distilling once with a short column may preserve the original fruit characteristics better. Any thoughts on the pros and cons here?
  19. Bourbon barrels are usually made with kiln dried oak.
  20. I would guess that oak chips come from kiln dried oak, not oak that has been left outside to season/dry over time. French coopers generally let their oak weather outside before constructing the barrel--as some off flavors leach out this way. I don't know if American coopers do the say thing, but I would guess they do.
  21. I believe that when wineries do this they generally age in containers that prevent exposure to oxygen (or minimize it). Spirits often benefit from slow exposure to air through aging--which barrel aging provides. Chips will leach tannin and other wood flavors but will not provide the other benefits of aging. Others please correct me if I am wrong.
  22. Also, the article states that high humidity usually results in strength gain over time. I thought the opposite was true. If there is a lot of water in the surrounding atmosphere (high humidity) then water inside the barrel would be less likely to leave and alcohol would leave. Vice versa for low humidity. The author also claims that low humidity is associated with better flavor. I wish there was more explanation there. Some of the best spirit in the world is aged in highly humid conditions (Islay malts and most Calvados). Certainly great spirits are made in low humidity aging conditions too. I'd love to read something that really laid out the differences in impact on flavor profile between high and low humidity aging conditions.
  23. I cannot speak from experience here, but there may be something to storing low wines in barrels before the spirit run--but only if you then age the distillate from the finishing run in those same barrels that you used to age the low wines. The low wines will probably leave something behind in the wood which will then re-enter your finished spirit as it ages (might not be anything you'd want to re-enter your spirit though). Of course, if the barrels started out new then they won't be so when you refill them--which has its pros and cons. Of course, you will lose some of your low wine volume through the wood.
  24. I've tried to find the answer to this by searching the forum and going to the gov't websites but I must have missed it somehow, so I'm just going to ask this even though I sound like an idiot. When are proof gallons calculated for determining the amount you have to pay for excise tax? More specifically, is this calculated before or after aging? It would seem awfully unfair if excise tax were paid on spirit before aging (but then again, the whole excise tax thing is awful anyway).
×
×
  • Create New...