Got the still today couldn't wait to get going so here's a quick description of day one.
Had 23 litres of wine ready for drinking at about 11% ABV so nicked 4 litres of that and stuck it in. An hour later and the first 20ml came out and smelled awful so I chucked it in the white spirit bottle. Collected the next 500ml spirit hydrometer said it was 58% so I chucked it in a old spirit bottle and topped it up with some of the wine (now about 38% and smells and tastes like cheap brandy). Took another 300ml of and it was 26% stuff after that was less than the original wine so I stopped. By my calculation I've extracted about 85% of the alcohol - is that reasonable?
Quite pleased all in all. If I wanted to 'waste' all the wine I would distil most but keep enough back to cut and distil again then cut back to 40% with the wine and it would probably be quite a decent brandy but I think I'll drink the rest of the wine as it is as it's quite a nice red.
My tomato paste run is currently at 10.7% (tastes like cheap white cider but still a bit sweet) and should be ready in week or so will be about 12% at a guess. I plan to strip the whole lot to 6 litres dilute to 8 litres with water then do two runs discarding some foreshots (not sure how much?. How much should I take out of the second run?Statistics: Posted by crapula2010 — Tue Jan 17, 2012 6:30 pm
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