[TheForge] Re: The hard cider is good... OT:

[Mike Spencer]

> Wonder if the freeze distillation method fails to separate out the 
> fusil oils and other nasty fractions, thus leading to ax murders?

Fusel. Yes, it does fail in that particular way.  q.g. [1]

There was a yarn told around the Sawmill River Valley, back in the 60s
when I lived there and got my 50 gallon whiskey barrel filled at a
water powered cider mill down in the Connecticut Valley flats.

Four guys used to meet Saturday nights in a farm house not far from
the cider mill to play poker through the night and drink apple
jack. One night they got a batch that was way heavier to fusel oil
that usual.  The next day, all four were found dead around the kitchen
table.

The trick with the whiskey barrel is to use a new one, fresh from the
distillery, each time.  There's about a gallon of whiskey in the wood
that equilibrates with the cider and makes it tasty, even before it
goes hard, especially if you only put 20 or 30 gallons in the barrel.

These days, we manage to drink most of what we press -- 25 gallons or
more in a good year, maybe 15 this year when most of the trees slacked
off -- before it goes hard.  And/or we freeze it sweet in quart pop
bottles for winter and spring.  

We have an August apple tree so I got 5 gallons of cider in August
this year.  Nice to have it in hot weather.  Has a beer-sparing
effect. :-) It was one of only two trees that produced well.

If you want something obsess about, you can worry about patulin (q.g),
a mycotoxin found in cider made from "moldy" apples.  I toss any
apples that have visible mold or large decayed spots but don't worry
about bruises, scab, bird pecks or the like.

Just yarnin,
- Mike


[1] q.g.: quod google.  Like q.v, quod vide. More polite that GIFY.

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^