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Probably at least one apple tree grows in every garden. These fruits are familiar to the inhabitants of the middle lane, and, usually, they do not feel a lack of apples. Sometimes the harvest is so plentiful that the owner does not know how to use all the apples from his own garden. If the jams are already boiled, the juices are squeezed out, and the storehouses are full of fresh fruits, you can make excellent moonshine from the remaining apples, which is often called chacha or calvados.
This article will be about the recipe for apple chacha, prepared at home. Here we will consider the traditional recipe for making apple moonshine, as well as the way making chacha from cake or other waste left after processing apples.
What apple chacha is made of
In classic recipes, they usually suggest making moonshine from beautiful, neatly chopped apples. Of course, it looks great, but the taste of a drink brewed from the peel, cores or apple pomace will be the same, and the aroma may even be richer and brighter.
Absolutely any apples can be used for making apple chacha: sour, sweet, early or late, whole or spoiled, the fruits remaining after the initial processing.
How to grind apples, too, does not really matter. Often, the fruits are simply cut into cubes or slices of approximately the same size. If the juice was being prepared, take the cake left over after processing. From the preparation of the jams, the rind and cores with bones are usually left. By the way, it is better to take out the seeds themselves, as they give bitterness to the chacha.
Opinions on whether to wash apples before making chacha, diverge. All the same it is better not to wash the main part of the fruit, cleaning only the dirtiest specimens with water. The fact is that there are wild yeast on the peel of apples, which are easily washed off with water - after that, the mash will not ferment.
How apple mash is prepared
An important stage in the manufacture of any moonshine is the process of making mash. Apple cake will make an excellent mash for high-quality chacha. Such moonshine is appreciated by lovers of spirits for its particularly pronounced aroma and light taste of fruit.
In order to end up with a high-quality mash, and not sour dregs, you need to adhere to the technology and observe the proportions of all products. For apple chacha, you need to take:
- 30 kg of ripe apples;
- 20 liters of water;
- 4 kg of sugar;
- 100 g dry yeast.
Mash is prepared for apple chacha in several stages:
- Apples are sorted out, rotten specimens are removed. Heavily contaminated fruits are washed with water. Then remove the cores with seeds from the fruit and cut into small pieces. Now the apples need to be chopped with a blender or meat grinder so that they turn into a homogeneous puree.
- The resulting fruit puree is transferred to a can or other fermentation container. Add 18 liters of water there.
- All the sugar is dissolved in two liters of water and the syrup is poured to the rest of the products.
- Heat a small amount of boiled water to no more than 30 degrees. Dissolve yeast in warm water, pour it into a can and mix thoroughly.
- The container with the mash is closed and left for 10 days in a warm place (the temperature should be more than 20 degrees). After a day, the lid is removed and the mash is stirred, lowering the apple pulp to the bottom. By this time, foam should have formed on the surface and the smell of fermentation should be felt. The future chacha is stirred daily.
- After 10 days, all the pulp should sink to the bottom of the can, the mash itself becomes lighter, fermentation stops. Such a liquid is drained from the sediment and used for distillation into moonshine or drunk in this form.
There is practically no juice in the pomace, therefore, in the case of making chacha from apple cake, the yield of the finished product will be less, with the same amount of initial ingredients. That is, cake should be taken 1.5-2 times more than fresh apples, the proportion of which is indicated in the recipe.
How to turn mash into fragrant chacha
Inexperienced moonshiners often complain about the lack of characteristic fruity aroma and sweet aftertaste in apple chacha. In order for the chacha to smell good, the mash is not filtered, but simply drained from the sediment. In this case, you will have to make sure that the chacha does not burn, you need to boil it over very low heat.
Only the chacha that has been correctly divided into factions will be good. The distillate that comes out of the moonshine still has three fractions: "heads", "body" and "tails". The highest quality chacha is the "body" of moonshine.
If the apple mash was prepared according to the recipe above, the proportion of fractions will be approximately as follows:
- at the very beginning it is necessary to drain 250 ml (glass) of "heads". This liquid cannot be drunk, it can cause poisoning of the body or a severe hangover, so the "heads" are mercilessly poured out.
- After the "heads" comes the "body" of chacha - the highest quality part of the moonshine. This fraction is carefully collected in a separate container until the degree of distillate drops below 40.
- "Tails" with a strength of less than 40 degrees can not be thrown away, this part of the moonshine from apples is processed by good owners again.
To make a good home-made moonshine, all you need to do is follow these steps. But to get a real apple chacha with an excellent aroma and mild taste, you will have to work a little more.
How to improve apple chacha at home
The distilled apple drink infused in oak barrels is called Calvados by the French. It is appreciated for its special softness and good strength, as well as for its light apple aroma.
At home, apple chacha can be improved in the following ways:
- Pour a handful of dried apples and some finely chopped fresh fruits into the moonshine. Insist the drink for 3-5 days and distill again. For this, the chacha is filtered and combined with three liters of water. The obtained chacha is again divided into fractions, the "heads" are poured out, only the "body" of the moonshine is collected. You should get about three liters of excellent chacha, the strength of which will be 60-65%. It is not necessary to dilute chacha with water immediately, but after a few days, when the drink is saturated with a fruity aroma. Apple chacha is diluted with clean water until its strength is 40 degrees.
- You don't have to dilute the 60 percent moonshine, but turn it into calvados. For this, chacha is poured into oak barrels or insisted on oak pegs.
- Chacha can be made with fresh or canned apple juice. Such moonshine will be even more aromatic and tasty than the previous one.
Whatever recipe is used to prepare homemade chacha, it should turn out fragrant and light. For everything to work out, you just need to adhere to the technology and choose high-quality raw materials. Then at home it will be possible to prepare excellent alcohol, which will in no way be inferior to elite purchased drinks.
