Grappa

[Rivver]

I just picked about 25 lbs of a hybrid norton grape the other day and I've got them in the freezer for now. Any suggestions? My brother uses them every year for some great wine, but I'm not much of a wine drinker.

They've got great sugar content to them, hardly any tartness at all. Anyone have a good basic recipe for some grappa other than whats posted?

[Dnderhead]

are you set up for this? grappa is made much like wine only fermented on the skins,pulp,stems. then distilled same .so you need some way of keeping it from burning.

[Rivver]

Ahhh, did not realize that, I had planned on filtering out the pulp and skins.

[blind drunk]

One thing you can do is make the wine as you would normally, then use the skins to make a second wine by adding sugar and water to an abv of say 8-10%. You can strip both and then do a spirit run with the combined low wines. It's technically not a grappa, but you can get some of the flavors associated with grappa, especially with the second wine's contribution. The flavor of the skins can really come through this way and you also increase your yield. Don't go too high on the abv of the second wine or you'll ruin the whole thing.

[Dnderhead]

mite add...try to git the skins from making white wine.there will be more juice in them.

[Rivver]

Thanks for the advice guys. Any idea how much sugar for a 25-30l wash, or should I shoot for a certain SG?

[Dnderhead]

sugar is not usually added,but if you want, add a small amount.
the more sugar /water that you use the less flavor.

[blind drunk]

I wouldn't use any sugar in the wine wash and use enough sugar in the second wine to get about 8% abv.

All the calculators are on the Parent Site, so you may as well learn your way around -

http://homedistiller.org/calcs" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[Rivver]

Sounds good, and thanks again. I'll keep a post when I get things started.