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Cider to Brandy calculating yield


natbouman

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I tried to come up with a predictive excel sheet for giving me an approximate yield of apple brandy from X kgs of apples using an alembic and double distillation. I started with Charles@AEppelTreow's experience based (gleaned from this forum) expectation of PG of hearts/PG in cider of 80%. Could someone tell me where if I'm substantially wrong here? [This post was edited after a correction from JustAndy]

14,705 kg apples

My press efficiency 68%

10,000L cider. ABV of cider = 6.5%

STRIPPING RUNS:

there is 650L pure OH (alc) or 343.2 PG (proof gallons) in the cider

Still has 1000L capacity

Recovery of pure OH from each stripping run = 96.5% (3.5% left behind in stillage each run). ((650/10)*96.5%) * 10 = 627.25L OH recovered

 target abv of low wines = 27%

total volume of low wines =2323L

SPIRIT RUNS:

Assuming the still leaves 3.5% of pure OH behind with each full spirit run I can recover about 605.3 pure OH from my 627.25L pure OH.

Assuming I recycle heads and tails in subsequent runs and end up discarding 14% (is this very low?) of the 605.3L as foreshots and heads/tails that don't get recycled.

I'm left with 520.5L of OH captured as hearts or 275 PG of hearts. This gives me a PG Hearts/PG cider yield of about 80%.

 

Edited by natbouman
JustAndy pointed out a stupid mistake
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  • 3 weeks later...

I'd guess that you're pretty close. 

I just looked at a bunch of records for my local cideries- I just get the cider and give it back.  Anyway, they say that I'm getting 6.5% juice from them (so that's the same) and I'm giving them back on (eyeball) average closer to 300 or 310L/10000L cider. Recyling heads/tails and using a couple plates on the side column.  Hope that's useful.

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Using a 4 plate kothe, from unflawed, no-SO2 cider or wine we recover about 85-90% of the total alcohol as usable hearts at ~77.5% abv. That is with redistillation of feints, from a single distillation we'd recover about 50% of the alcohol as hearts from 5-7% cider and about 70% from 11+% abv wine. If you are double distilling on a pot still the estimate of 80% is pretty good guess, depending on how well the volume of cider you have fits the size of your still.  

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21 hours ago, natbouman said:

Thanks, Admiralty. Actually sounds like I'm pretty far off of your results. I've got 520L of pure alcohol aka ~275 proof gallons. If you're getting 300L of OH to then it sounds like I'm overestimating yield.

Sorry, I should have made that more clear, or at least correct:unsure:

I meant that 300-310 number as proportion of PG.  They bring a 275 gal tote @ 6.5%=35.75PG and I give them somewhere around 31 PG back is 87% recovery. In line with JustAndy and very similar results without feints.

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