copper is king

[res]

Greetings fellows, I'm sure you get this a lot but I'm new to the distilling arts and have a couple of questions. My aim is to produce some fine whisky, no e in that spelling, I'm talking scotch. But being a practical kind of guy I'm starting with what's at hand wile I prepare my mashing and fermenting equipment. I manage a small bar and we often don't get all the way to the bottom of our bottles of wine before they start to turn, so it occurred to me I could have a crack at some brandy? At the very least get some practise with my still, making cuts etc. Anyway my first attempt worked really well, created something very similar to sljivovica. It's a clear plum brandy popular with the eastern block crew. In either case I'd like to import a barrel or two, I'm in Melbourne, Australia has anyone out there imported barrels into Oz? I'm running a little 3.5lt pot still by the way and in addition to the barrel question any thoughts on my brandy notion would be welcome. Cheers.

[Braz]

Welcome. I don't know anything about importing a barrel into Aus. but I'd observe that with the size of your still it's going to take a very long time to fill a barrel. In the meantime you might be interested in nuclear aging http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... =4&t=38991
Assuming, of course, that your interest in a barrel is for aging purposes.

[res]

Thanks for the tip I'll give it a proper read tomorrow. I had my sights set on a more modest size barrel than the standard used in the biz, maybe in the 20 litre range. It's still going to take many moons to get there but should be fun. It's true there are some very ingeniously crafted ways to side step the barrel but I'm in no rush and come on, your own barrel of whisky one day, who could say no to that?

[goose eye]

don't no nothing bout where you from but yall got vineyards over there close by. id call them see if they got a used one or where they come by theres.


so im tole

[res]

Right you are, plenty of big Barrels around these parts and if I can turn my dream hobby into my dream job I'll be looking them up. Until then I'm wondering if any of the lads from the Australian chapter of our international brotherhood had sneaked some small ones past customs. I'm fairly sure I can get one in now, found a guy on eBay says his barrels come with all the paper work. Also not a massive rush, going to take a while to collect and distill the wine.

[res]

Also anyone with experience turning average wine into delicious brandy.

[goose eye]

res im sayin goin thru a vineyard to order you one if yall gota have permits to have barrels. sure they could get one thru with there other orders an can be easy
to explain.

as far as wine. just cause it a good commercial wine don't mean it gona translate to good brandy.
first thang ole boys would do is look up an see how that wine is made. was it sorbated what chemicals mite of been added.
then theyd do practice charges alone then mixin with other vintages.
the same wine grape produces diferent results year to year so what you doin is tryin to get a baseline.
what you charge em theyd keep em separate til you sure if you lookin on blendin

just dump it in a kettle an fire it up an go from there


so im tole

[res]

Interesting idea the winery option, could be some savings to be made there. It's fine having barrels down here no laws governing them, the import issue is with the wood. Lots of little bugs out there our isolation has kept out, and customs are keen to maintain this. As to the separation of the different wines and in-depth research of each, that's a bit tricky. The owner of my bar has good eye for saving a buck or two, and buys what's on sale. This means for the most part different wines every one or two weeks. That added to the fact I in good conscience can only take small amounts of wine we don't sell in time means any charge worth doing needs to be mixed.
When I first thought of this it didn't matter at all because all I wanted was some practice, but the joy and seeming success of turning 3.5 litres of useless old wine into 850ml of 40% fruity smelling fire water has bucked me up some.
Still not sure if it's really any good (haven't drunk more than a tiny sip) but I figure I'll do another couple of runs and see if they go as well and if they do I'll have enough to do a spirit run.
I split the runs output firstly collecting 20ml samples 5 of them, then 100ml cuts until the end. I wanted to learn the different smells etc as the run went along and also split off as much as I could of the methanol. I could only discern small changes as I went along, but found all the cuts smelled better after sitting for a hour or so after coming off the still. Today I combined all the run except the first 100ml, the 5 20ml samples; I noticed something I wanted to ask about, as poured the last jar into the bottle which was the first off the still (after the ones not included that is) it shimmered some what, like tiny ice crystals as it mixed into the rest and disappeared. Is that normal? Can't say for sure if it happened with the rest, I was paying more attention to the pouring. Would love to here any thoughts.
Cheers.