I gotcha. I do think from a health perspective most people don’t need to concern themselves with methanol when making wine/beer/cider/applejack so I agree with and respect your words.
I think, though, it would be interesting to try to see if it made a significant difference in hangovers.
I think if heat was a concern as far as destroying flavor, you could probably use some sort of vacuum to get the liquid boiling at a lower temp.
But I don’t have cider apples so I’m merely talking theoretically.
The simple truth is hard apple cider has more methanol than wine by volume and apple jack even more. Neither are in the toxic range. You are simply more likely to get a headache drinking ciders.
Methanol production is based on two primary factors. The quantify of pectin in the mash and the brewing temperature. Apples are high pectin fruits period so they products have more methanol. Brewing temperature is the only other thing that can be controlled so brewing lager style at lower temperatures instead of ale style
I get what you are saying and thank you for putting it like that so it is easy to understand.
It sounds like you’re trying to refute me though, but I think both of what we say could be true, couldn’t it? Fermented apple products naturally produce more methanol due to the high pectin content…so why not try to distill it out of the finished product?
There is a name for that. It’s apple brandy. But freeze distillation that is used to produce apple jack wont do that. The Vacuum still idea could work but I have never heard of anyone doing that at scale outside of industrial alcohol productions.
Very well, and long since consumed… looking forward to revisiting the source trees and also excited that some of my grafted trees originating from these wild seedlings are bearing fruit this season…here’s one I found in a ravine in Searsport, ME. Spur growth habit, precocious bearing, medium bittersweet flavor low acidity. Calling it ‘Searsport Bittersweet’ I gave scions to another professional cidermaker, David Buchanan who operates Porterfield Cidery, and he thinks it’s a winner.
