Yield
How Much Brandy Does a Hundredweight of Fruit Yield?
There's no simple formula for how much brandy a hundredweight of fruit will yield. The yield depends mainly on the sugar content of the fruit, along with pits, fermentation, and the cut. In Germany, customs authorities therefore calculate yields for small-scale distilleries (Abfindungsbrennereien) using official yield rates rather than actual measurements.
What Determines Yield? The Sugar in the Fruit
A hundredweight (Zentner) is 50 kilograms, a measure dating back to when fruit arrived at the distillery in sacks and baskets. How much brandy results isn't decided in the still. The still can only collect the alcohol that the yeast has already produced. And the yeast can only produce as much alcohol as there is sugar in the mash.
During fermentation, roughly half of the fermented sugar becomes alcohol, while most of the rest escapes as carbon dioxide. In practice, the yield is somewhat lower, since the yeast itself grows and forms byproducts. Sweet, fully ripe fruit therefore yields noticeably more alcohol than sour or unripe fruit. A warm summer can noticeably change the yield from the very same trees.
This is why fruit varieties differ so much in yield. Sugar-rich fruits like ripe plums or pears give comparatively high yields. Many berries, such as raspberries or sloes, contain so little fermentable sugar that a classic brandy is hardly worthwhile. For these, there's the spirit (Geist) method, where unfermented fruit is macerated in neutral alcohol and then distilled. In that case, the alcohol doesn't come from the fruit itself.
Pits, Juice, and Ripeness: Why Equal Weights Yield Unequal Amounts
Weight is deceptive, too. With cherries, plums, or apricots, the pits add weight but contain no sugar. With small distilling cherries, the pits make up a larger share of the total weight than with large eating cherries. Water content, skin, and flesh vary from variety to variety and from year to year. Two hundredweights of cherries from different orchards can therefore yield very different amounts of brandy.
Then there's fermentation to consider. A clean mash that ferments fully releases more alcohol than one that stalls or becomes infected with bacteria. Acetic acid bacteria convert alcohol into acetic acid, which is then lost to the brandy. Good fermentation management therefore pays off twice over: in flavor and in quantity.
What's Lost During Distillation and Proofing Down
Not every drop of alcohol in the mash ends up in the bottle. A small portion remains in the spent mash (Schlempe), the exhausted residue left in the still. The heads are separated off, and while the tails are usually redistilled, even that doesn't recover everything. A narrow cut for an especially pure heart costs additional volume.
On the other hand, volume increases during proofing down. Distilleries calculate in liters of pure alcohol. One liter of pure alcohol, at 40% ABV, yields two and a half liters of brandy, or roughly three and a half 0.7-liter bottles. So anyone discussing yield should always specify whether they mean pure alcohol or finished brandy. For cask-strength spirits, there's an additional loss from evaporation in the wood.
Official Yield Rates: How Customs Calculate for Small-Scale Distilleries
In Germany, the question of yield also shows up in tax law. Small agricultural distilleries operate as Abfindungsbrennereien, without customs bond. No one measures the alcohol as it flows from the still. Instead, the main customs office calculates the amount as a flat rate: raw material quantity multiplied by the official yield rate. These rates are set out in Section 24 of the German Alcohol Tax Ordinance and specify how many liters of alcohol per hectoliter of a given raw material are assumed.
This is where the term Abfindung (settlement) comes from. The distiller is assessed a fixed quantity, which must be taxed, regardless of how much actually comes out. Anyone who works carefully and achieves a higher yield keeps that surplus tax-free. The system thus rewards good fruit and careful work. Every distilling run must be registered in advance, and no more than 300 liters of pure alcohol are permitted per calendar year.
This feature deliberately doesn't list specific yield rates for individual fruit types, since it isn't meant as a basis for calculations for home distilling. Distilling without a permit is illegal in Germany. Anyone who owns their own fruit can have it distilled at an Abfindungsbrennerei as the raw material owner, up to a maximum of 50 liters of pure alcohol per year and one person per household. Local master distillers know their fruit and can tell you roughly what a given vintage promises.