But even though we call it “distilling” in this post, freeze distillation is basically just a concentration of alcohol. federal law deems any form of distillation illegal. and most other western countries is somewhat disputed. The legal status of freeze distillation in the U.S. These can be apple cider, wine or beer since they contain low levels of methanol and other harmful substances. Therefore, you should only use the freeze distillation process, chemically known as fractional freezing, with commercially produced alcoholic bases. It is caused by the high concentration of methanol and fusel alcohols. An apple palsy is an especially strong hangover with severe headaches caused by the consumption of applejack. The apple palsy hangoverīut since it is much easier to drink a little too much of a stronger liquor, the infamous hangover of freeze-distilled applejack has got its own name and is called “apple palsy”. So as long as you drink a normal amount of freeze-distilled applejack, there isn’t a higher risk than drinking a glass of hard cider. To be clear: the absolute amount of these substances is the same in the cider as in the applejack but the concentration is higher. Since there is no evaporation in the freeze distillation process, these potentially harmful by-products remain in the final product. In the distillation process, these are discarded and they are not part of the final product anymore. These byproducts are called the “foreshots” and “heads”. In a normal distillation process with a still, the methanol evaporates first, at a lower temperature than ethanol. Health risks of freeze distillationĪ fermented solution, such as hard cider, usually contains a mixture of ethanol (drinking alcohol), methanol (toxic alcohol – that stuff that makes you go blind, if you consume enough of it), fusel alcohols (the headache stuff), and volatile oils (not toxic but they add a bad taste to the liquor). Since the “jacking” process, as opposed to the normal distillation process, does not remove any potentially harmful substances from the mash, the normal distillation process is mostly used today to produce applejack. The colonialists named the process of distillation through the ice “jacking”. Once the ice block started to defrost during the daytime, they soon discovered that the liquid inside their barrels was much stronger than the normal hard cider. Colonialists in the Northern United States would store their hard cider outside during the cold winter nights. In the defrostation process, ethanol and other flavor components defrost earlier and are drained out of the frozen liquid.Įven though this simple process of making liquor has probably been around for thousands of years, the first accounts of freeze distillation go back to the second part of the 18th century. So in freeze distilling, the liquid that contains alcohol is completely frozen and then left to slowly defrost. The differences in the freezing points of the different liquids are most apparent in the defrostation process. Since the ethanol, oils, and water in an alcoholic drink form a dilute solution, it’s not possible to just bring it to a temperature of less than 32☏ (0☌) to freeze the water and remove it from the mixture. While water freezes at a temperature of 32☏ (0☌), ethanol has a much lower freezing temperature at -173.4☏ (-114.1☌). The underlying principle of the ice distillation process is the different freezing points of ethanol and water. This process has become more popular thanks to the Discovery TV show Moonshiners. Thanks to the differing freezing points of water and alcohol, the latter can be drained from the ice in the defrostation process. Freeze distilling is the process of making liquor without a still by freezing an alcoholic drink or a fermented mash. Even though it is technically a condensation and not a distillation process, the term freeze distillation has caught on with hobby distillers around the world.
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