Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

One for the Guru's. I have access to 20L of sweet red wine( blend of Shiraz, Grenache and something else) was thinking of getting some for brandy type experiment. What's people's thoughts?

Worth a shot mate, worst case scenario you turn it into neutral?

Go for it mate, it will be a success.

Yes mate that will work through a pot still twice or strip in a pot then two plates if you like a light style.
Cheers
Doc

A mate and I were lucky enough to get a container load of unlabelled 2004 Pinot Gris that was too old to sell and was going to be dumped at the tip.
We learnt very quickly how to empty a bottle super fast, give it a wiggle to get a vortex happening inside the bottle. The replacing air has a pathway up the centre of the vortex, the bottle is empty in a few seconds. :handgestures-thumbupleft:
But I digress. We used our pot stills, doing fast stripping runs down to 20%. We then diluted the stripped wine back to 40% and put it through my reflux still using a 500mm packed section and 2 bubbleplates. We made sure that there were no foreshots or nasties coming through before commencing each product run. It was done a little faster than normal to get some flavour to come through.
The result was excellent, providing a clean brandy base. We experimented with American and French oak dominoes and found the American was just too much "in your face" with over strong vanilla tones. It makes a great cooking brandy though.
The French oak is a clear winner for brandy. In 2 litre flagons we used 3-4 dominoes. After 2 weeks at 65% we had a beautifully oaked brandy that would put nearly any cognac to shame.
We haven't finished processing yet, but a couple of 200 litre French oak barrels that held merlot will be the repository for the remainder.
As long as the wine is reasonably good, you can make a great brandy. :)

Cheers guys, will be getting 100L then. Run it twice through the pot :handgestures-thumbupleft:

100L of red wine :scared-eek:

You have a very good friend :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Some very generous hobbits. :))

CaptainRedBeard wrote:100L of red wine :scared-eek:

You have a very good friend :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I have to pay for it, $18 per 20L drum. And give my mate a gift.

Wow, had a phone call from a mate, he's been doing some work at a vineyard and has found 4 pallets of bottled wine too old that was destined for the tip. That's nearly 2 tonnes of wine in bottles! :o
It's a mix of corked and old wine of various types. But who cares? :laughing-rolling: All I have to do is hire a truck to get it home.
I'll have to get a few more French oak barrels to store the brandy from it in. :-D

RefluxEd wrote:Wow, had a phone call from a mate, he's been doing some work at a vineyard and has found 4 pallets of bottled wine too old that was destined for the tip. That's nearly 2 tonnes of wine in bottles! :o
It's a mix of corked and old wine of various types. But who cares? :laughing-rolling: All I have to do is hire a truck to get it home.
I'll have to get a few more French oak barrels to store the brandy from it in. :-D

Wow... This makes me think I need better friends :think:

What a score Ed

RefluxEd wrote:Wow, had a phone call from a mate, he's been doing some work at a vineyard and has found 4 pallets of bottled wine too old that was destined for the tip. That's nearly 2 tonnes of wine in bottles! :o
It's a mix of corked and old wine of various types. But who cares? :laughing-rolling: All I have to do is hire a truck to get it home.
I'll have to get a few more French oak barrels to store the brandy from it in. :-D

Hit him up to get you some old port barrels while he's at it. And send one to me. :laughing-rolling:

Interesting thread. Have been cleaning out my wines and found a few cases of red I bought cheap many years ago I was hoping would get better. But alas they haven't. So reading this I thought I might throw it through the pot still as stripping run. If I then run through pot still as spirit run and put on oak dominos at 65% I have something that could resemble a brandy!!
If I ran it through the T500 after a stripping run it would probably still come out neutral??

You could strip it and then dilute back to 40% with more wine. I think this might get you in the ballpark. I'm not sure how much flavour a T500 retains though

I've just made some brandy out of a batch of Shiraz that a mate made that turned bad... It's... Alright... But after some months on oak I reckon it'll be pretty tasty!

I just came across a couple of boxes of wine my mate doesn't want anymore so thought i might aswell try a brandy.

Is there any reason i can't just put it through the bubbler like it is or do i need to pot strip and run through 2 plates like suggested earlier. What is the reason for the 2 runs?

Thanks guys

Run it straight through a 4 plate bubbler mate :handgestures-thumbupleft:

In my opinion this will make a better drop ;-)

Thanks sam, I'll give it a crack.

Sounds like french is the go.
What are others opinions on the french oak for brandy? Have others found it to better aswell?

Cheers

woodduck wrote:Thanks sam, I'll give it a crack.

Sounds like french is the go.
What are others opinions on the french oak for brandy? Have others found it to better aswell?

Cheers

1 pass through 4 plates for mine, aged on french oak :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Thanks mac :handgestures-thumbupleft: