Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

The wine grape harvest is well underway around here so it's time to experiment a bit.
Luckily I have some contacts so was able to collect 4 x 25 litre containers of white wine (Chardonay) to ferment. Juice straight out the back of the truck. How easy it was!
Back to the shed and measured the SG at 1.090, pH at 3.7 and temp 24deg C.
Made up 4 x premix of 10g of EC-1118 in approx 100ml each of the juice and water. Pitched the starter after about 10 minutes.
Started off steadily for the first 12 hours then literally took off. Luckily I had just enough air space to prevent overflowing.
The SG dropped to 1.055 after 2 days and it was still very actively fermenting. A day later and fermentation had slowed and the SG was 1.000 and no sweetness when tasted.
Will leave it to settle and clear a bit before running through the pot still. The plan is to do the four stripping runs and then a second run but will depend on how it comes out. I certainly want to retain the flavour.
If this comes out ok the next batch will be with red wine juice. Also have access to sugar plums which will be a bit more tricky handling the whole fruit.
I'll try and post some updates on how it goes.

I suspect that if you reflux it to vodka you will lose pretty all flavour and the benefit of your hard work and your fine ingredients.

After stripping the 4 batches I would do a slower run again through the pot head and produce a brandy.

If you want to retain flavour, run it twice through the pot... age on French oak, voila; brandy.

I don't think you want to retain the sweetness of grapes in a vodka? If you want a vodka with mouthfeel you're better off starting with a grain base.

isnt a grape based wash run thru a pot ...basically a standard Grappa?
Is that flavour what u r chasing...grape brand/colour usually has little to do with end product when pot stilled.

isnt a grape based wash run thru a pot ...basically a standard Grappa?

Nah you need to distill on the skins for that. If you remove them you get brandy, the difference is substantial.
Take only the best part of the hearts first up then use 4 plates and packed section on the heads/tails and everything else,
Then recombine and you'll get a much better brandy. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

620... so you just 'squash' the grapes,removing skins n pips, and just ferment the grape 'juice'?
If yes.. is the reply, could you , clean up/alter other fruit based washes by skinning, eg. stone fruit...? I like where this may be going as i am trying to veer from the traditional plum/slivovitz (skins and all), peeled..different animal?

I think traditional grappa is just sugar thrown on top of the left over skins and lees after the wine has been racked off :think:
Just grape juice fermented and run through a pot or bubbler will be fine brandy :handgestures-thumbupleft:

620... so you just 'squash' the grapes,removing skins n pips, and just ferment the grape 'juice'?

No ferment on the skins then filter.

I think traditional grappa is just sugar thrown on top of the left over skins and lees after the wine has been racked off :think:

Its a bit like corn whisky, there are different ways to do things. But grappa drinkers don't like sugar, the traditional way is to harvest fresh grapes, crush them within a couple of hours and ferment using the yeast that is naturally present on grape skins. Buyers pay a premium for grappa made this way.

Wine makers make grappa using must and sugar and to be honest it is better without sugar but much lower output. My mob get around this using large fermenters/ boilers.