Cheap / simple grape brandy wash...

booger · Post by **booger** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 9:59 pm

First off, I haven't been here in a while...if you had a question or a PM to me, sorry I blew you off. That damn work thing got in the way.

Thought I'd post a quick (and cheap!) grape brandy wash that works well as a LPR (liquid panty remover) as my welcome back post.

It's a 5 gallon recipe, but it should scale up without any problem:

64 oz white grape juice
64 oz concord grape juice
12 pounds brown sugar
1 tsp yeast nutrient (if you're not using yeast nutrient in your wash, start!)
fill to five gallons with water
pitch yeast (high alcohol tolerance - at a minimum champagne yeast, preferably distiller's yeast that will take up to 20% alcohol).

Ferment at about 70 degrees for three to four days (after a day, the airlock will be going quicker than a jackhammer), rack to secondary, give it two weeks to settle then distill according to your preferences.

It will yield a wash at about 19% ABV, and if you can catch a sale at costco is quite cost-effective.

Enjoy-

Bujapat · Post by **Bujapat** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 4:25 am

Nice recipe, but I've a question :
Is the grape juice quantity enough to give a good (full) taste to your brandy?

I ofthen use grape (or apple) juice to make washes, but the juice proportion I use is much higher... In fact, I don't use water, but only juice (and sugar).

booger · Post by **booger** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 4:07 pm

Is the grape juice quantity enough to give a good (full) taste to your brandy?

I've been very pleased with the taste - I think it has plenty of fruit taste to give it a "full" taste...I actually run into a slight problem with this as my old lady likes me to give her a bottle or two out of every batch that she and her friends drink like wine.

I usually end up with a slumber party after they open a couple of bottles.

sherriff Buffoerd pusser · Sun Oct 22, 2006 9:52 am

Im trying this today got some brand called juciy juice.Want to try out new pot still do you run this just once or how many times for brandy?

pothead · Post by **pothead** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 4:29 am

go by your own judgement.
Juicy Juice is great...no preservatives

if you run it slow(2-3 drips per second), you'll be fine with 1 run...but if you run it twice, you'll get better separation, and higher proof(and a tad less flavor).

hornedrhodent · Post by **hornedrhodent** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 4:41 am

="booger
I usually end up with a slumber party after they open a couple of bottles.

Them slumbering because of the grog - or you slumbering with boredom waiting for the panties to drop?

pothead · Post by **pothead** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 6:13 am

"I usually end up with a slumber party after they open a couple of bottles."

"Them slumbering because of the grog - or you slumbering with boredom waiting for the panties to drop?"

sherriff Buffoerd pusser · Mon Oct 23, 2006 8:27 am

I used a little more juice than recipe jugs were 48oz. check hydrometer it was 1.135.Airlock is like Booger said going like crazy this morning.

sherriff Buffoerd pusser · Tue Oct 24, 2006 6:14 am

How far do I let this go .990 or do you run quicker 1.100 for brandy

booger · Post by **booger** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 9:48 am

I run it at about 1.1 or slightly less to keep some sweetness to it. If you're not ready to run it, rack it into a secondary and add some gelatin and that should slow the fermentation enough to keep some residual sugar in it.

msrorysdad · Post by **msrorysdad** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 6:07 pm

ok, I got tricked by juicy juice grape. My friend tossed three bottles of "grape"(cocktail, other juices) in my basket. I got home, dumped them in read them, dumped two welches concentrate concord, about five pounds of sugar, 12 oz of mollassas, a packet of started 1118, into a 5 gal carboy, and topped it off. I was sorta out of it, Yes, I need to use my hydrometer, of course mine came without directions, it seems fairly straight forward, plus I am remodeling. Basically life gets in the way of livin sometimes. will show results

Samogon · Post by **Samogon** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 1:34 pm

booger wrote:I run it at about 1.1 or slightly less to keep some sweetness to it. If you're not ready to run it, rack it into a secondary and add some gelatin and that should slow the fermentation enough to keep some residual sugar in it.

I was under the impression that sugars, like salts, are non-volatile - that is, they stay in the still and your distillate won't be sweet or salty because of dissolved sugars or salts. So running this brandy with residual sugars still in the wash is just reducing your yield. Comments or corrections anyone?

Post by **theholymackerel** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 4:14 pm

Correct.

Sugar in the boiler isn't carried over and is nothin' but a risk for burnin' and makin' a bad taste/smell.

mtnwalker2 · Post by **mtnwalker2** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 5:34 pm

Hey Holy Fish,

I have strived to learn from you. Correct me if I'm wrong, the sweetness and body are from the heads and tails cuts, so collect seperately and add to your own taste. Ageing will mellow an initial overpowering shine. Depends on how long you want to have to wait, and final taste.

I usually get by with a month or so, but others like years.

Going to try the Juicy juice, and frozen also. I'm learning and trying. The rasberry, white grape sounds fantatik!

msrorysdad · Post by **msrorysdad** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 6:12 pm

o.k. After my run sat it has started to take on a more grapey boquet. It is startin to turn nice. It's on oak in bottles, at about 75%abv Thanks. Im with Walker, thanks guys

Post by **theholymackerel** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 12:43 pm

mtnwalker2 wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong, the sweetness and body are from the heads and tails cuts, so collect seperately and add to your own taste.

Correct, except for the tails part. Heads are sweet. Tails are oily and start off sortta interestin' smellin', then turn nasty.

Sweet spirits usually are traditionally made with a good deal of heads in em, while grain spirits tend to have no heads in 'em and have some early tails. Tequilla, brandies, rums, etc often have a little to alot of heads in 'em. Whiskeys usually have a bit of the early tails in 'em.

pothead · Post by **pothead** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 6:24 am

with grapes, and only with grapes, I collect pretty far into the tails, and add that back to the spirit for taste....my tails always seems to have a very light grape-juice taste to it. The last couple times, I pumped the tails pretty darn fast through a activated carbon filter just to remove some of the oils, yet still retain some of the flavor, Then added it back to the product ( to taste ) .

Post by **theholymackerel** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 3:58 pm

I find a freezer is a good way to get oils to come out of solution.

goose eye · Post by **goose eye** » Sat Apr 14, 2007 2:56 am

these boys - if circumstances permet - collect in small mouth gallon jugs. if you top em off you can get a flashite an shine at angle an see the slick floatin good. then just dab it off with a paper towel mite take a couple three swipes but you can get it all. got to top em off cause it a hole lot easyer than reachin
so im tole

gs_moonshine · Post by **gs_moonshine** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 11:32 am

I've made a similiar recipe with the exception of I used cranberry-apple juice. Used 4 64 oz bottles then topped to 5 gallons. I used two pounds of sugar with 2 packets of red star bakers yeast. The wash or wine tasted like a watered down wine and the distilate didn't have a "full" flavor. You could tell there was a faint cranberry-apple flavor but was very faint. I think next time I will use a all juice and no water mash.

Post by **blanikdog** » Sat Apr 21, 2007 7:37 pm

I just started my first grappa run using cabenet marc - seeds, skins, stalks, the lot - from a local winery. Usually I find with my potstill I get around 100 - 150 ml of methanol. With this lot it was closer to 350ml. Is this normal?

stoker · Post by **stoker** » Sat Apr 21, 2007 11:48 pm

blanikdog wrote:I just started my first grappa run using cabenet marc - seeds, skins, stalks, the lot - from a local winery. Usually I find with my potstill I get around 100 - 150 ml of methanol. With this lot it was closer to 350ml. Is this normal?

that's perfectly normal.
methanol is basicly formed during fermentation of pectine. and seeds, stkins,... contain almost all the pectine of the grapes.

Post by **blanikdog** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 4:11 pm

Thanks stoker.

It turned into an even greater disaster! After I discarded the heads my heart extraction was only 40 abv when I usually get 75 from my potstill. After collecting 150ml of drinkable product I started to collect tails. This after several hours of using energy to heat the wash was not an option.

I suspect that I stuffed up by using using my hands to press the resulting marc/water mash just didn't extract enough from the marc. As I don't have access to a press I've given the idea of using marc/water as a wash, and as I have no facility to steam extract I might use the rest of the marc as compost.

I just can't think of any other way to use the stuff so in future I'll stick to UJSM, Harry's GGGP rum and sugar vodka base for 'fancy' stuff.

It seemed like a good idea at the time but sometimes one has to recognise ones hobby limitations.

Old Blue · Post by **Old Blue** » Fri Apr 27, 2007 7:00 am

booger wrote: Ferment at about 70 degrees for three to four days (after a day, the airlock will be going quicker than a jackhammer), rack to secondary, give it two weeks to settle then distill according to your preferences.

-

I am trying this recipe right now and have a question, at day four of the fermentation my bubbler is still going pretty hard, 11 - 12 bubbles per minute. Should I still siphon it off and rack it to a secondary, or let it go until it slows down some? Will I be loosing some flavor by letting it go longer.

Thanks,

Garry

Samogon · Post by **Samogon** » Fri Apr 27, 2007 7:46 am

Old Blue wrote: I am trying this recipe right now and have a question, at day four of the fermentation my bubbler is still going pretty hard, 11 - 12 bubbles per minute. Should I still siphon it off and rack it to a secondary, or let it go until it slows down some? Will I be loosing some flavor by letting it go longer.

Thanks,

Garry

Times given for ferments are always approximate. Don't rack it until it's done vigorously fermenting. (BTW, 11-12 bubbles/min doesn't sound too vigorous - I've seen constant bubbling, like 1-2 per second) I really don't think you'll lose flavor no matter what you do - I've only heard that from some folks about whiskey. I've got one of these fruit juice and sugar washes going and it's been casually bubbling for about a month now - haven't had time to run it thru the still (I've been busy runnin' UJSM about 5 times!). Letting it completely ferment will increase your alcohol yield.

Old Blue · Post by **Old Blue** » Fri Apr 27, 2007 9:31 am

Thanks Samogon! I thought that was the case, but knew it wouldn't hurt to ask.

pothead · Post by **pothead** » Thu May 17, 2007 5:06 am

blanikdog wrote:I just started my first grappa run using cabenet marc - seeds, skins, stalks, the lot - from a local winery. Usually I find with my potstill I get around 100 - 150 ml of methanol. With this lot it was closer to 350ml. Is this normal?

Read my grape wash recipe....it is best to remove the seeds as soon as possible.

Post by **blanikdog** » Thu May 17, 2007 8:11 pm

Thanks Pothead. Next time I'll try getting lees rather than marc. Tho whole exercise was a bloody disaster except that it made good mulch for the garden.

Old Blue · Post by **Old Blue** » Tue Jun 12, 2007 7:38 pm

OK, I made this recipe back in the middle of May, it has a great brandy flavor, but man it has a real bite to it. I have it cut to 40%, smells great, great initial taste and great aftertaste, but the bite is real strong.

What is the best way to mellow this out? Is it simply a matter of aging and maybe airing it out a little?

Post by **blanikdog** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 6:21 pm

Old Blue wrote:What is the best way to mellow this out? Is it simply a matter of aging and maybe airing it out a little?

I think that you will find that airing will make a big difference. I had the same problem but thanks to this group, I removed all my lids and now have much better results. This may be co-incidence so wait for more experienced replies.

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Cheap / simple grape brandy wash...

Cheap / simple grape brandy wash...

a twist

volatile sugars?

after a while.

Re: Cheap / simple grape brandy wash...

Re: Cheap / simple grape brandy wash...

Grappa