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Probably every garden has at least one apple tree. These fruits are familiar to residents of the middle zone, and, usually, they do not feel a shortage of apples. Sometimes the fruit harvest is so abundant that the owner does not know how to use all the apples from his own garden. If the jams have already been made, the juices have been squeezed out, and the storehouses are full of fresh fruits, you can prepare 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 a traditional recipe for making apple moonshine, as well as a method making chacha from pulp or other waste remaining after apple processing.
What is apple chacha made from?
Classic recipes usually suggest making moonshine from beautiful, neatly chopped apples. Of course, it looks great, but the taste of a drink made from peels, cores or apple pulp will be the same, and the aroma may be even richer and brighter.
You can use absolutely any apples to prepare apple chacha: sour, sweet, early or late, whole or spoiled, fruits remaining after initial processing.
How to chop apples is also not particularly important. Often the fruits are simply cut into cubes or slices of approximately the same size. If juice was prepared, take the cake left after processing. From the preparation of jams, the peels and cores with seeds are usually left. By the way, it is better to remove the seeds themselves, as they give the chacha bitterness.
Opinions on whether apples should be washed before cooking chacha, diverge. Still It is better not to wash the bulk of the fruit, cleaning only the dirtiest specimens with water. The fact is that there is wild yeast on the peel of apples, which is easily washed off with water - the mash will not ferment after this.
How to prepare apple mash
An important step in the production of any moonshine is the process of preparing mash. Apple pulp will make an excellent mash for high-quality chacha. This moonshine is appreciated by lovers of strong drinks for its particularly pronounced aroma and light taste of fruit.
In order to end up with high-quality mash, and not sour dregs, you need to adhere to 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 sugar;
- 100 g dry yeast.
The mash for apple chacha is prepared in several stages:
- The apples are sorted and rotten specimens are removed. Heavily contaminated fruits are washed with water. Then the cores with seeds are removed from the fruit and cut into small pieces. Now you need to grind the apples 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 container for fermentation. Add 18 liters of water there.
- All the sugar is dissolved in two liters of water and the syrup is poured into the rest of the products.
- Heat a small amount of boiled water to no more than 30 degrees. Dissolve the 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, remove the lid and stir the mash, lowering the apple pulp to the bottom. By this time, foam should form 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, and fermentation stops. This liquid is drained from the sediment and used for distillation into moonshine or drunk as is.
There is practically no juice in the pomace, so if you prepare chacha from apple pomace, the yield of the finished product will be less, with the same amount of initial ingredients. That is, you need to take 1.5-2 times more pulp than fresh apples, the proportion of which is indicated in the recipe.
How to turn mash into aromatic chacha
Inexperienced moonshiners often complain about the lack of a characteristic fruity aroma and sweet aftertaste in apple chacha. To make chacha 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 chacha that is correctly divided into fractions will be good. In the distillate that comes out of the moonshine still there are three fractions: “heads”, “body” and “tails”. The highest quality chacha is the “body” of moonshine.
If the apple mash was prepared according to the above recipe, the proportion of fractions will be approximately as follows:
- at the very beginning you need to drain 250 ml (a glass) of “heads”. This liquid should not 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 distillate degree drops below 40.
- “tails” with a strength of less than 40 degrees do not need to be thrown away; good owners process this part of the apple moonshine again.
To make good homemade moonshine, all you need to do is follow all the steps listed above. But to get 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
A drink made from apples, prepared by distillation and infused in oak barrels, is called Calvados by the French. It is valued 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. Infuse the drink for 3-5 days and distill again. To do this, the chacha is filtered and combined with three liters of water. The resulting chacha is again divided into fractions, the “heads” are poured out, and 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%. Chacha should not be diluted with water immediately, but after a few days, when the drink is saturated with fruity aroma. Dilute apple chacha with clean water until its strength is 40 degrees.
- You can not dilute 60% moonshine, but turn it into Calvados. To do this, chacha is poured into oak barrels or infused on oak pegs.
- Chacha can be made from fresh or canned apple juice. This moonshine will be even more aromatic and tasty than the previous one.
Whatever recipe you use to prepare homemade chacha, it should turn out aromatic and light. For everything to work out, you just need to adhere to the technology and choose high-quality raw materials. Then at home you will be able to prepare excellent alcohol, which will be in no way inferior to elite store-bought drinks.
