StillSmart

Hi Guys
Any of you guys have a decent recipe for brandy. Any offers very much appreciated.
RM

I know myles does brandy, maybe PM him.

Make wine. Distill it. Age on toasted oak. That is really all there really is to it. I made some grappa last year (pomace after grape juice was pressed out fermented with extra sugar) and aged it on oak, it made a nice brandy-ish drink. White wine is the traditional base. You can make it with any fruit, I like both plum and apple brandy. I have 50L of plum wine ready to strip next week.

Chuck

Hi Chuck,

Can this be put through a t500 and still retain some of the plum flavour?

Cheers

I have never used a T500 and know little about it. I think it does enough reflux that you would not get much flavour. Maybe you can "de-tune" it to do what you want. Check the T500 forum.

thanks matey. will do

I'd quite like to try a brandy. Would one of the home brew wine kits be good enough for the job? White wine then stripped with the T500 with alembic dome and condenser. Maybe then use the airstill for the spirit runs since the strip from one batch may not be enough for the T500 boiler?

In August/Sept I will have a bit of pomace. If anyone wants some - shout up.

I mostly do fruit brandies as opposed to grape brandies. Mostly a mixture of fruits of which a large proportion is plum. Usually these are drunk white and not oaked.

If you are thinking of using a home wine kit I would be tempted to use it as a base for a fermentation but top it up with additional fruit.

One reason is propper "brandy" contains fermented grape juice and components from previous distillation runs. You won't get a good result from a single fermentation.

By blending fruits you get a wider flavour profile in the product. More likely to get someting reasonable from a single batch.

My normal process is simple. Calculate the recipe. Mix up the fruit with 1/2 the water and NO extra sugar. Ferment the thick fruit pulp for 3 or 4 days, then add the sugar and top up to final volume and complete the fermentation.

Split the wash into 2 halves. Strip one half through a pot still. Take those low wines and add them to the other half of the wash. Then do a spirit run on the fortified wash in a pot still.

Seagull for a double run on a T500 remember to dilute the first strip run low wines to 27% max before doing the second run.

Usually it is 4 strip runs to get a full charge for the spirit run when using the same boiler. On a T500 you may get away with a 1/2 boiler charge as it has a concealed element.

Can you manage a double volume fermentation?

I used a cheap white wine kit that I distilled into "Brandy". Then I aged it. Then I carbon filtered it for neutral. Listen to Myles.

Thanks for the advice there guys