My first attempt at making Brandy

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papstoker
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My first attempt at making Brandy

Post by papstoker »

Hi there

I'm pretty new to this hobby - been stilling for a bit over a year and have been having fun. My rums have been good, whiskeys goodish and I have a very sippable Plum brandy on oak and a few gins and sugar washes and even one rice wash under the belt. What I have been eager to try though, is a real grape brandy (cognac?). Its just about the national drink here in SA, but surprisingly, I struggled to find affordable grapes. That all changed 2 weeks ago when I discovered the Johannesburg fresh produce market and got my hands on 18kg of seedless Sugro(?) white grapes. The cost was about 25% of the greengrocer price so I was pretty pleased. (R7.00, or about $0.5 US per kilo)

I was surprised to find little mention of grape Brandy here on HD. Lots of fruit brandies, and lots of grappa, but scanty info on grapes. I'm flying a bit blind here, so any suggestions will be very welcome.

Question: what grapes should REALLY be used for making brandy? White? Red. A friend of mine suggested Chenin, but I couldn't find much info on the net.

I juiced the 18kg grapes that evening and it yielded 13.5 kg of juice. My still takes 20l, so I added 6.5l water and 1kg sugar (I know...next time I'll go all purist and ferment only grapes) I used a Oscar juicer on its lowest setting (least pure juice). The final SG was about 1.065 after water and sugar.

For yeast I used 20g of Anchor 'Brewers yeast', from the local grocer at R4.00 per sachet. This brewers yeast is mostly used for making traditional Sorghum beer here in SA but I have not had problems with it. If this batch is dodgy I'll fork out for a imported wine yeast next time.

So here is my second question: if grape juice has a natural SG of about 1.06, why are wines typically 16% ABV?

I pitched the yeast at room temp which was about 26 °C. Loosely covered with the lid. (Not wanting to take a chance with puking up the water trap. The next morning it had stated fizzing nicely. This picked up to a good pace by the next evening (but nothing like an All Grain Barley ferment) I closed the lid. It fermeted out within about 5 days total and I got my lowest SG ever < 0.98!

I strained the solids out. The proto-wine smelled good and looked like cloudy, pale, greenish, thin soup, but there was still quite a bit of suspended yeast. I put the wash back into a clean closed bucket for another week and this is where I am now.

So onto my next questions: I understand that brandy is simply distilled wine, so I googled how to make wine. Most recipes say I am now busy with the 'second ferment' but It doesn't seem as if there is much fermenting going on? The water trap is silent. The recipes also suggest that I now leave the wine for about 2 months (!) And rack it off about every 2 weeks to get it clear. Then it has to be bottled and left to age for 6 months or more. Really? Now, not to sound like a philistine, but this all sound a bit demanding. Any comments or ideas? Will it make a big difference to the final product if I didn't wait too much longer? My current thinking is to rack it about twice, which means that I will only get to distilling in another 3 weeks. The suspense is killing me.

Eagerly anticipating your thoughts.

Pieter
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Swedish Pride
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Re: My first attempt at making Brandy

Post by Swedish Pride »

I'm as far from a purist as you can get.
I made brandy with wine kits, when the ferment (60L) was finished I striped a kegs worth and did a 1.5 spirit run through the pot with the rest of the wine.
leaving it sit and settle is something I do when i do a wine, but could not be fucked with the same for brandy.
It's a year and a bit now and is quite sippable indeed.
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Badmotivator
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Re: My first attempt at making Brandy

Post by Badmotivator »

papstoker wrote: The suspense is killing me.

Eagerly anticipating your thoughts.

Pieter
Don’t worry. Relax. Let go of your troubled thoughts.

The brandy will be what it will be! You have already made many of the decisions and actions that will determine your brandy. The die is cast. You have crossed the Rubicon and you just have to march your army to Rome and See what happens. :)

Ferment to completion, do a stripping run and spirit run, make your cuts and the age it for a loooong time. Brandy is not a young spirit.

The only place I would put my concern, if I were you, is how you will give your spirit an appropriate environment for long-term aging. Will it have continuous access to small amounts of oxygen? Will it have properly-treated oak to communicate with? Will its environment be within reasonable limits for heat and cold and humidity? Can you bear to watch it grow and mature for years?

In the end you’ll get what you get, my friend. It’ll become what it wants to become.

I hope that helps ease your mind a bit. Good luck, and cheers!
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Re: My first attempt at making Brandy

Post by Pikey »

Hi - I've never made a grape brandy, but I do know quite a lot about winemaking.

Ok - Your sg is down to 0.98 - so it's pretty much done.

To get wine at 16% from just grapes, it would need to have either added sugar in the ferment, or added alcohol I think. Generally wine over here (UK) is around 11% some a little higher.

As you say, your primary ferment is done. The secondary ferment takes place as the abv gets higher and the yeast struggles a bit with devouring the last of the sugar. In the case of a medium or sweet wine, it never actually manages that and dies off, leaving a residual sweetness. You will not have that issue since your abv from a 1.065 OG is well withing the range of the yeast. So "It is done" - if you just let that clear, you have Wine. It "improves somewhat in flavour with storage usually.

In your situation, I would just run it now.

You wll end up with "White Brandy" and it will likely be drinkable, but to take it to "Brandy" as we know it from the bottles, it will require Ageing in contact with toasted (and probably "charred" oak) to try and mimic the "Barrel storage. There are many threads on here about the preparation of oak "Sticks" or the like to make "whiskey". The process will be similar.

To summarise my advi ce then, "Just do it !"
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kiwi Bruce
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Re: My first attempt at making Brandy

Post by kiwi Bruce »

Don't know if you can get canned white grape juice (no preservatives) in the super markets in S.A. but if you can they should be cheap, they make a totally disgusting white wine that is perfect for making a basic Brandy. I use this as the starting point for Absinthe as the grape flavor still comes over.
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papstoker
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Re: My first attempt at making Brandy

Post by papstoker »

Thanks for the advice gents.

I stripped and the yield was 3.2l of low wines at 40%. I just binned the foreshots and put the rest of the strip away, with the idea of doing another batch and then a spirit run on both strips. TBH the strip smelled and tasted uninspring and I lost a bit of enthusiasm.

Clean forgot about the project until tonight. On opening the bottle with the strip I smelled and tasted it and 3 months of rest had done it a world of good. Decided to ditch the idea of a second batch (visiting the market for another 17kg of grapes, juicing them etc etc seems too much of a bother right now) and just put this one on wood. 3 toasted oak sticks and 1 tablespoon of grape must syrup went in - what the hell. Will update again in a few months.

I still couldn't find info on whether white or red grapes are used in brandy. I have a bunch of red grapes - and one failed foray into making red wine in the freezer, and am unsure whether this could be turned into a brandy as well. Maybe next experiment...
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papstoker
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Re: My first attempt at making Brandy

Post by papstoker »

Ok 2 things.

I figured out the HD Google search. I feel like a dunce.

Its first result took me to Odins writeup on making brandy:

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=56164

Thanks Odin! You da man, man!

Red or white grapes, wide cuts...
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jonnys_spirit
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Re: My first attempt at making Brandy

Post by jonnys_spirit »

I had 24 gallons of wine kits that I turned into brandy. The wines were about one year into bulk ageing so i did two stripping runs then a spirit run. I’ll have to look at the dates again but about five months on oak now? A gallon and a half of ~65%. I think I’ll just let this stuff age for a while. It’s for sipping only and is very smooth as I had a snifter last week. I gotra say that the wine kits were pretty nice high end kits so I have high hopes for this brandy. It was a blend of an amarone, a super tuscan, a Sauvignon blanc, and another white. I stripped the two reds together and the two whites together then boended the low wines and spirit ran the batch. I hope mixing those wines wasn’t a mistake but I’m liking it right now.

Cheers!
-j
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i prefer my mash shaken, not stirred
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