turning wine in to spirit

[wockman]

Hello all I am new to this and basically only have one question to ask and I hope someone here can give me a straightforward answer (please no guessing, assuming or I read somewhere) if you had a Brewcraft Turbo 500 Still can you put approx 20-25 bottles of 750ml wine about 2 years old (still drinkable) into the still and distill the Alcohol out of it. and if so what are the ramifications firstly to the still and secondly the product. I'm concerned it may end up with syrupy gunk in the tower. Want to know if the alcohol can be reused to make a spirit

[USACelt]

yes you can, I have never had a problem distilling My bad batches of wine.

[wockman]

would it be the same process as distilling a wash, ie: just decant all the bottles of wine into the still and catch the runoff, also would you still need to discard the first 50mls?

[Washashore]

Yes, same process. Definitely discard foreshots. If you think about how wine (and beer for that matter) is made, all of the alcohols are bottled (fores, heads, hearts, tails). Grapes are loaded with pectin which is responsible for higher amounts of lower alcohols in fermentation (methanol is the one we are most concerned with). Most of the non-fruit fermentations we do contain negligible amounts of methanol, but it is good practice to discard them anyways. Hope that helps.

[wockman]

thanks for the input will let ya know how I get on

[wockman]

After much thought this is going to happen this weekend but I have one question to ask..If I put 25 litres of wine into my still @14%alc what will be my output (in litres) and Alc% ?. My normal 25lt wash gives me 4.5 litres @ 90% alc. any correct answer would be most appreciated.

[Dnderhead]

approximately 3.69 l

http://homedistiller.org/distill/dtw/collect

[wockman]

approximately 3.69 l

http://homedistiller.org/distill/dtw/collect

you are to be applauded I've been floggin my noggin tryin to work it out. will be bookmarking that calculator. thanks

[wockman]

Currently distilling off this wine and my output has a heavy sulphur smell, will this go away or will i need to distill a second time.

[Dnderhead]

it could go away,,but do you have copper in your still?

[wockman]

No copper, the more I smell it the weaker it gets (or I'm getting hooked on it )

[Dnderhead]

copper in the still will help take it out..