Calvados is the original name for an alcoholic apple drink made in Normandy.
All other options are apple brandy.
Homemade Calvados according to the classic recipe is quite difficult to cook.
If you use a simplified recipe for calvados from apples at home, then the drink is prepared very quickly.
In any case, a bottle of homemade alcohol will be cheaper than a bottle from an alcohol market.
And the drink itself will turn out tastier.
Calvados apple recipe at home - general principles of preparation
Original Calvados cooking technology is as follows:
• get cider (fermented apple juice, low alcohol drink);
• overtake the distillate (that is, get moonshine from apple juice);
• withstand moonshine (insist in an oak barrel);
• filter the calvados.
The only ingredient for real Calvados is apples. The higher their quality, the more delicious and high-quality home-made alcohol will be. It is better to select September apples - juicy, sweet, fully ripened, without any signs of spoilage.
The first recipe for calvados from apples at home, given below, allows you to get an almost original drink (if you have a real oak barrel and the ability to accurately measure the alcohol content in the semi-finished product and the finished product). This is a classic version, which is quite difficult to reproduce.
However, there are simpler recipes for calvados from apples at home. It turns out the way and not quite original, but quite tasty and varied drinks, which can be put on the festive table without embarrassment. Experimental drinks-simulations can be made from a combination of apples and sweet and sour pears.
The classic recipe for calvados from apples at home
A traditional drink has a delicious aroma and a pleasant rich taste. Thanks to this recipe for calvados from apples at home, you can get a product that is almost identical to the original. Ingredients (traditional or perfect composition) choose at your discretion.
Ingredients:
The first composition (traditional):
• seven parts of sweet and bittersweet apples;
• two parts of sour apples;
• one part of bitter apples.
The second composition (perfect):
• four parts of sweet apples;
• four parts of bitter apples;
• two parts of sour apples.
Cooking method:
Squeeze juice from apples, trying to completely get rid of the pulp.
Juice should settle at room temperature during the day.
Carefully remove the resulting foam and pour into a fermentation tank.
Make a water lock or just put a rubber glove on your neck (do not forget to pierce one “finger” with a needle).
For fermentation, rearrange the container in a dark pantry until cider is obtained. The optimum temperature is from 18 to 27 degrees.
The cider is ready when the herd’s liquid is lighter, there is sediment at the bottom, and the glove is completely blown away (or the release of bubbles from the water seal stopped).
Drain the young cider, be sure to filter it so that there is no trace of sediment in the liquid (it will ruin the taste).
Pour cider into a distillation cube.
Using a moonshine still, drive the distillate out of the cider, measure the strength of the moonshine with an alcohol meter.
Dilute the first batch of moonshine with clean water. The resulting liquid should have a strength of 18 to 20 degrees.
Distill moonshine again, selecting purified moonshine with a strength of 40 degrees. Pour the first dose (approximately 12 percent). This product is unsuitable for consumption, harmful to health, the only use of which is for technical purposes).
After distillation, pure moonshine with a strength of 70 to 80 degrees should remain.
If there is no oak barrel for further infusion, pour the distillate into a glass container. Pre-lower the treated oak pegs inside.
Dilute apple alcohol with cold water so that the drink has a strength of 40 degrees.
Cans are hermetically sealed with iron lids or closed with very tight lids.
Put Calvados in a cool pantry for final ripening. The term of insisting is from six months to one year.
Filter, bottle, tightly seal and send for storage.
Calvados apple recipe for vodka
An easy way to get a Calvados-like drink is to simply insist apples on vodka. The main thing is to choose high-quality vodka that will not spoil the taste and accentuate the bright apple flavor. The drink will have a strength of approximately 32-35 degrees.
Ingredients:
• two kilograms of apples;
• liter of quality vodka;
• two hundred grams of sugar;
• ten grams of vanilla sugar;
• 150 ml of water.
Cooking method:
Washed apples completely clear of partitions and seeds, cut into small cubes.
Fold in a glass jar, add vanilla sugar and mix.
Pour vodka into apples.
Close the lid tightly and send to insist in a dark place at room temperature for two weeks.
Strain the contents of the can, squeeze the apples through a gauze filter.
Combine the rate of sugar and water and boil for five minutes (remove foam).
Cool the resulting sugar syrup and pour it into the tincture of apples on vodka. Mix.
Bottle Calvados, cork and cool.
Tincture is stored for three years.
Calvados recipe from apples and pears on moonshine
An unusual recipe for calvados from apples at home involves the use of pears. The drink is very good for making alcoholic cocktails.
Ingredients:
• seven hundred grams of apples of sweet and bitter variety;
• three hundred grams of sour apples;
• four hundred grams of pears;
• one liter of good moonshine;
• glass of water;
• half a glass of granulated sugar;
• half a glass of vanilla sugar.
Cooking method:
Clean dried and peeled apples and pears into cubes.
Fold apple, then pear slices into a three-liter.
Add vanilla sugar and moonshine.
Cover the neck with a piece of gauze and place for fermentation in a dark pantry for three weeks.
Stir the contents of the jar daily or shake it.
Strain the drink through a gauze filter.
Pour apple and pear moonshine into the pan and send to the stove, turning on a slow fire.
Pour water into sugar, mix, warm until dissolved.
Add warm syrup to the contents of the pan and simmer on the stove for half an hour.
Bottle cooled calvados.
Calvados Apple and Yeast Recipe
The housewives often try to complement and improve the classic Calvados apple recipe at home. The indicated amount of ingredients can be varied.
Ingredients:
• fifteen kilograms of apples;
• ten liters of filtered water;
• two kilograms of sugar;
• fifty grams of yeast.
Cooking method:
Peel and scroll through the meat grinder.
Pour a liter of water into sugar and dissolve.
Pour the syrup into applesauce.
Add yeast, previously diluting them in a small amount of water.
Pour everything into a glass container for fermentation, put on the bottle’s throat a medical glove with a punctured finger and put it in a dark place for ten days.
Stir the mass every day.
When they are going to get down, overtake moonshine from the wort.
Bottle with oak chips, cork.
Calvados Raisin Recipe
The drink obtained from apple cider on raisins is distinguished by its pleasant taste. This recipe for calvados from apples at home is slightly reminiscent of the previous ones and allows you to get an excellent version of the drink. The cider obtained at the first stage of fermentation can be drunk as an independent low-alcohol drink.
Ingredients:
• three kilograms of sweet and sour apples;
• six hundred milliliters of water;
• six hundred grams of sugar;
• fifty grams of raisins.
Cooking method:
Grate the prepared apples on a grater.
In portions, put the pulp in a glass container, sprinkling with granulated sugar and raisins.
Pour in warm water at room temperature.
Close the neck with a glove and remove for ten days for fermentation in a dark pantry.
To filter. If the cider will be used as a standalone drink, bottled and refrigerated.
For further preparation of calvados, overtake cider through a moonshine, insist on oak chips.
Store in a cool place.
Homemade Cider Apples Calvados Recipe
There is an excellent recipe for calvados from apples at home, which allows you to process previously prepared cider. If there is a lot of sparkling drink resembling champagne, and there is a moonshine still at home, it is worth preparing a festive version of homemade alcohol.
Ingredients:
• ten liters of home cider (6 percent strength);
• ten kilograms of fermented apple cake;
• filtered water;
• oak chips;
• a tablespoon of honey (or sugar).
Cooking method:
Squeeze apple cake, strain and pour into bottles.
Leave to ferment for five days in a warm place.
Pour cider and fermented cake into the moonshine.
Drain the first portion of alcohol (approximately 200 ml). It has a lot of fusel oils.
The resulting moonshine with a strength of about 40 degrees is again driven through the apparatus. Get moonshine twice as strong.
Pour oak shavings into glass jars.
Pour shavings moonshine.
Shake and leave warm for a day (in the room or in the kitchen).
Strain Calvados.
Measure the alcohol content and dilute with filtered water to 40 degrees.
Add sugar or honey (no need to add).
Pour into bottles, cork and put in the freezer for several hours.
Take out and send to a cabinet or refrigerator for storage.
Calvados apple recipe at home - tricks and tips
Oak pegs for the classic recipe should be cut from the middle of the trunk with a diameter of 25 to 35 centimeters. The wood must be sawn into bars 5 * 10 cm, pour cool boiling water for about ten minutes. Drain, pour pegs with cold water for twenty minutes. Then drain the water, dry the tree.
Sawdust, shavings, bark are not suitable: there are few tannins in them that give Calvados a characteristic bitterness.
Whetstones can be cut into slivers. To give the drink a more pronounced aroma, warm the chips in a dry frying pan.
