Hi there

[Alv]

Hi,

I have been lurking for a few weeks and decided to join up to the forum on the weekend.

I am very new new to distilling and don't have any equipment at all apart from a few empty kegs which I use for making wine. I am on my second vintage of wine making and have about 120L from last year under the house, 60 L of which is OK and I will probably drink and the rest is "drinkable" but not great at all and I am starting to think that it could be put to other uses!

At the moment I am thinking about just distilling pure spirit to be used in possible port making for my wine - where you add spirit mid fermentation to up the alcohol %, which kills the yeast and keeps the remaining sugar, or otherwise rum and gin and i see there are some good recipes here already for those two concoctions.

I am interested in buying a still as I don't have the ability or the facilities to make something like that so I started searching ebay and thankfully I found this forum before i pulled the trigger on anything there as there are some good warnings on this site about some sellers on ebay.

Anyway, this is a great forum. I think I might have to PM some people about the possibility of having a still made - probably pot still to start with - although please feel free to contact me if you have one you want to sell or otherwise with any recommendations.

Cheers
Al

[Kimbo]

Hi Alv,
great to have you here mate. You've landed on your feet when you found this place ;-)

[Brendan]

G'Day Alv,

Good to see you found the advice here befoe jumping in and possibly wasting good money.

There are plenty of guys here who can sort you out with a beaut pot still.

Welcome to AD.

[Frank]

Hi Alv
welcome and ask heaps, often.

Re a potstill, IMO its a good idea to consider what quantity/quality of product you want and the patience levels you are considering employing to achieve this
....and then you will be in a good position to talk about purchasing one/having one made etc with these fine forum folk :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[crow]

G'day Alv yes lucky break there's some not so great stills out there . I agreed to buy mine before coming here , luckily its a good still but I over paid a bit for what it is anyway welcome and if ya get a pot still ya can buy a flagon of port and turn that wine in to a lovely brandy :D

[bt1]

Welcome bloke,

now gins..there's a brew i know a bit about...but i pinched the base receipe from Old Dog...btw never see him on lately?

avoid the HBS hype and you'll end making some good gear

cheers
bt1

[Brendan]

...but i pinched the base receipe from Old Dog...btw never see him on lately?

Not since a week ago... :text-lol:

This can't be a serious question, and yes I did own one many years ago before I knew any better

And he logged in today... :-D

[Alv]

Thanks guys looking forward to the journey.
Al

[R-sole]

G'day Alv

Was it just me or did anyone else here Alvin's chipmunk voice when the read the thread title?

[audistiller]

Hi Alv, welcome to the mental asylum mate, there is plenty of info here for you to browse through, and quite a few PDF files you can download for reference and save to your computer. Curious question, is Alv short for Alvin..?

If you haven't already, can I suggest you have a look through this thread - viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1386

Here you will find some information you can download - viewtopic.php?f=30&t=645

And here is a search page one of our members organised to search this site
http://www.google.com/cse/home?cx=00961 ... drsk&hl=en

[maheel]

At the moment I am thinking about just distilling pure spirit to be used in possible port making for my wine - where you add spirit mid fermentation to up the alcohol %, which kills the yeast and keeps the remaining sugar,

now this is something i woudl like to know more about

i really do like a glass of suitcase

Welcome Alv

your halfway there is your already making wine etc it's natural progression to distilling i reckon :)

[Alv]

At the moment I am thinking about just distilling pure spirit to be used in possible port making for my wine - where you add spirit mid fermentation to up the alcohol %, which kills the yeast and keeps the remaining sugar,

now this is something i woudl like to know more about

i really do like a glass of suitcase

Welcome Alv

your halfway there is your already making wine etc it's natural progression to distilling i reckon :)

I like fermenting grapes - problem is that it is a once a year affair and while that is a hectic time you basically just have to wait for a year after that with some racking and adjustments from time to time. So that leaves a bit of time in between with fermenters and storage vessels lying around doing not much - reckon they can be put to better use!

Port is apparently straight forward. I have some recipes and a matrix somewhere in a winemaking magazine - which provides the volumes of alcohol to add etc. Basically you add neutral spirit or brandy part way through a fermentation to obtain about 20% or so ABV. That alcohol level kills the yeast (usual toxicity for wine yeast is about 16% at most) which then leaves the unfermented sugar in the must which gives port its sweet taste. And otherwise treat it like a normal wine - press the must, rack off the lees, adjust SO2 from time to time - not sure if you perform malolactic fermentation as not sure that bacteria survives in high alcohol although no reason why not - and otherwise wait and rack from time to time.

Biggest issue with wine making is the grapes - age old saying that wine is made in the vineyard. Crap goes in crap comes out no matter how good you may be at making wine. Not surprisingly the best grapes are not really going to go to home winemakers. But if you look hard enough you can do ok.

EDIT - deleted some bad typing

[crow]

yeah I,m not sure where you are but they grow a lot of grape back home and almost all are machine harvested , anyway because of the strainer posts and due to setting up the harvester on the row the first 2 or 3ft isn't harvested fully of at all and the same to a lesser where the machine exits . Most growers here will let you have the grapes for free if you want to go and pick them as they are no use to them and can cause disease if let to rot , so It might pay to ask around and end up with quality grapes of you choosing

[Alv]

Croweater, I am in Sydney - I found a guy in the outer suburbs of Sydney who grows a few hundred vines of chambourcin - I picked those with him in late Feb this year. I hear you that you can follow a harvester to pick up the remnants but for me closest vineyards are hunter or Canberra. I was sorted with a grower in the hunter last vintage but it fucking rained and rained and then rained some more which fucked red in the hunter. I had no plan B save for the chambourcin which is a hybrid vine but I am hopeful

[crow]

Yes ok I have no idea about viticulture over that way I use to make wine in the Riverland SA and we were spoiled for choice there . I'd love to make brandy but the are few vineyards here most are small and service botque wineries :sad: