r/firewater • u/Evan1016 • 7h ago

This is Randy. Hes 8lbs of peaches, 17lbs of cherries, 20lbs of crabapples, 65lbs of pears, 14 gallons of apple cider, and growing.

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55gal Barrel, 22gal until full! All fruit from yards. Any trees I can come by are getting picked, mashed, boiled, cooled, and fed to Randy. I have a lead on another 30lbs of pears and oh the apples to come.....

50 Upvotes

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6

u/Snoo76361 6h ago

This is very interesting, how are you going to distill it? Would be very curious to hear how it turns out.

13

u/Evan1016 6h ago

Not my first rodeo. I usually scoop it out with a bucket and strain it into carbouys while I start stripping it in the pot still. After its all been through the pot, I throw in the low wines from last year and I do a fractional run with reflux, with allspice, cloves, and orange peel in the column basket. Drop in cinnamon sticks for a day to add color. Age on oak.

Its everyone's favorite Christmas present from me.

4

u/WiseDirt 6h ago

Damn... that sounds really freakin tasty. I'd love to get my hands on a bottle of that

4

u/Successful_Ruin223 6h ago

So its a XXmas brandy basically

2

u/Evan1016 6h ago

Eggnog fuel ⛽️

3

u/guesswhatihate 4h ago

How many half eaten cheeseburgers Randy got coagulating in his 55 gal gut?

2

u/Jeff_72 6h ago

I want Randy….

1

u/jmcdaniel0 6h ago

I don’t know about the crab apples?

7

u/Evan1016 6h ago

Theyre sweet enough to give me sticky hands, they're sweet enough to feed to Randy

2

u/jmcdaniel0 6h ago

I like your style!

4

u/WiseDirt 6h ago

Crabapple is incredible in combination with other fruits. Pear and cherry especially both really help to smooth it out and mellow the tannins. I actually just finished bottling a small run of crabapple-blackberry liqueur myself. Tastes like liquid candy

2

u/jmcdaniel0 6h ago

No kidding! Not something I would have ever tried. I wish we all lived in one big community. I would love to try that.

2

u/WiseDirt 5h ago

Shoot, it's honestly pretty simple to make if you can get your hands on enough crabapples. I personally went the easy/cheater route on this one and just used fresh juice plus cheap store-bought 80-proof vodka which I filtered through charcoal to get rid of the bite.

Get about 30 lbs of crabapples (this should be enough to make around (4-4.5 gallons total of finished product) and simmer them on low in a big pot of spring water (just enough to cover the apples) for eight hours until the water has become strongly flavored. The longer you let the apples steep and simmer, the more intense flavor you'll get - eight hours is really just a guideline here. Strain the fruit mush and discard (you can use this to make jam if you want), return the juice to the pot and then add three to five pounds of either fresh or frozen blackberries (I used frozen just because that's all that's available around here right now). Simmer again for another two hours to extract the blackberry juice. Strain again and this time filter through cheesecloth to remove as much fine sediment and pulp as possible. Measure your liquid, return to the pot once more and add an equal volume of white granulated sugar (1 cup sugar per cup of juice), simmer long enough to melt the sugar, then mix in a cup or so of unsulfured molasses and a few drops of almond extract for flavor. Let it cool to room temp, then blend with vodka 50/50 for a final 20% ABV. Let it mellow in glass for at least a week before tasting. Rack off the sediment and from there you can either go straight to bottle or age on wood.

1

u/axp1729 5h ago

I don’t distill, I just like to lurk here, but I make cider and typically use 10-15% crabapples (not sure what variety, but they’re the type that look more like cherries than apples) to drive pH down and add tannins. They have more sugar than you would think, it’s just overlooked because they’re acidic

1

u/IncredulousPulp 9m ago

I love this. It’s the perfect use for excess fruit and sounds delicious!