On Nov 20, 11:55*am, "David WE Roberts" wrote:
"Terry Fields" wrote in message
polygonum wrote:
On Sun, 20 Nov 2011 10:00:58 -0000, robgraham wrote:

I processed quite a lot of apples this year into juice storing it in 4
pint plastic milk containers in the deep freeze.

I've noticed that about the top centimetre doesn't freeze and remains
as a thick syrupy fluid. *Anyone any idea what this is ?

I'd suspect it is soluble substances (sugars, malic acid) which are in
sufficient concentration to depress freezing point below the temperature
of your freezer.

Of course, if you were a bit slow in collecting, pressing and freezing, it
could contain some ethanol...

Isn't that known as apple-jack - alcohol concentrated by the freezing
process?

Of course wild fermentation can produce other alchohols as well.
Methanol is not good for you.
This is why people distill to get the pure fraction.
And why bathtub gin can be lethal if not carefully distilled.

But whatever it is it is unlikely to be harmful. It will brew out if
you are just making cider. You could have turned the applwes into
mulch in a fridge if you had cooled thme sufficiently, put them in the
freezer to freeze and then let the liquor drain off or filter out.

I suspect it is liquid that started brewing and will contain almost no
fusel oil.

Distilling it with heat, the booze maker returns the first run to the
brew and only uses the secondary condensate for making hooch.

Whiskyjack is named from the voyageurs who made it from well brewed
cider and other base products. That could have enough fusel to hurt.