Distilling Wine....yes or no?

[Havenor]

Here's my issue, I have recently made approx 5 gallons of wine but we're not a family of wine drinkers so it might be around for years. It actually came out decent, sort of a dry blush wine. I'm thinking of combining it with a gallon of tails and distilling it in my reflux still with packing removed. I have no idea what the finished product will be like so I'm looking for guidance. Should I leave well enough alone, or will I end up with shit? Any input would be welcome.

[Bushman]

You can distill it, if it's good wine you might want to serve it to friends. I have combined wines that are past their shelf life with runs before. We have a winery in my area that does the same thing and makes brandy to sell with their outdated wines.

[NZChris]

Tails from what? Adding tails from anything flavorsome other than brandy should be carefully thought through.

If Camden has been used, you will need lots of copper in the still to get rid of the sulphur. If it has been recently used, that might not be enough.

Distill to 30% or less, only removing the foreshot, then redistill to barrel strength.

[Havenor]

Yes, campden was used, a basic amount, and the tails are from an all sugar washes. I was going to do it with my packing removed, which is all copper mesh. I've used my reflux still both with packing and without packing, and it seems to strip out flavors either way. The ABV stays pretty much the same also. So you think I should add the packing back before I run this?

[bellybuster]

I've used my reflux still both with packing and without packing, and it seems to strip out flavors either way. The ABV stays pretty much the same also.

this indicates an issue that needs to be solved prior to going forward. Can you describe your still? Photos maybe?

[NZChris]

Sulphur reacts with copper and gets taken out to some degree.

If you are wanting to make brandy, use lots of copper, no reflux and no added neutral, as you want flavor left in, not stripped or diluted.

[Rod]

BERRI BRANDY

Run it as fast as you can in pot still mode but hold back some of the wine. Make a foreshots cut but keep everything else all the way down to about 20%.
Dilute the low wines to around 30% and put it back in the still. Add the undistilled wine you held back. (I like to have the boiler charge be about 10% undistilled wine. A 10 gallon still charge would get an additional 1 gallon of wine)
Now run it slow, collect in small jars, air out and make your cuts. There is likely some good flavor in the tails so don't be afraid to add some to your hearts cut. Just taste and see what you want.
Age it on oak and add a little bit of maple syrup and maybe a small handful of raisins.
You should end up with a very passable brandy.

5 litres Berri Traditional Dry Red

4.5 litres in still

run fast

50 ml to waste , methanol

run in parrot to 20%

dilute to about 30 %

add remaining 500ml

run slow

add Jack Daniels wood chips, some raisins
and maple syrup to colour

method is here somewhere on site given to me for a similar post by me from Baz

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Rod
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[620rossco]

add Jack Daniels wood chips, some raisins
and maple syrup to colour

Cheers Rod, I ran 15 odd litres of brandy from 75 litres of light bruised wine out of the bubbler month or so ago.put it on some french oak sticks that are not charred or flamed. Was wondering how to finish it. How many raisins and how much maple syrup do you recon? Its in three 5litre demis atm, the sticks just sank and the colour is good.
Rossco

[Rod]

about a handful of raisins

add maple syrup until it looks like brandy

wood will add some colour

I also use caramel colour in place of maple syrup

caramel colour is made by putting a cup of sugar into a cup of water and boiling until it goes dark brown

be careful not to burn the sugar mix as it will go bitter

[stevenun]

My first still test was with wine. I just bought a gallon bottle of the cheapest stuff I could find and ran it. It was horrible, the smell would curl your nose hairs and it tasted worse. We poured it down the drain, but it was proof of concept.
I've read that the grapes that make good cognac are almost inedible or undrinkable as wine, so it seems there's an art to what goes in vs what comes out.

[620rossco]

Thanks Rod.
I have maple syrup so I'll use that.
Rossco

[NZChris]

Thanks Rod.
I have maple syrup so I'll use that.
Rossco

Do a test pot first. I wouldn't be putting anything like that in any brandy of mine.

[Braz]

Maple syrup: I have put it in apple brandy when it goes into the barrel but be careful of the amount. One teaspoon per gallon seems to work for me. You don't want maple syrup flavored brandy after all. (Or do you?)

Caramel color: I have used it to get the color of brandies or whiskeys to look right. The commercial scotch distillers use it so I guess it is not cheating too much. Since I have converted to nuclear aging followed by barrel aging I have not had the need to use it.

[Havenor]

I ended up running the wine over the weekend, no feints added. I did get some flavor thru but I wouldn't do these types of grapes again. I started out with a dry blush wine and the result was just OK at best. If I were to do wine again I'd make sure it was sweeter, some bolder taste. My guess is a red wine would probably be a better choice. I'm going to save this for an all feints run, which leads me to another question. If I'm running feints and need to dilute it can I dilute it with something other than water? I'm thinking of taking the roughly 3 gallons of feints that I have and adding root beer soda or something similar. Does anyone do this? Is there a best way to run feints?

[NZChris]

Did you distill twice?

Sugar doesn't distill, so the sweetness of the wine will stay in the backset.

Cognac is not made from red wine, so your guess might be wrong.

There is a lot of flavor late in the distillation. If you shut down early, it is still in the backset instead of your jars.

Taste your feints. Ask yourself what flavors would be a good match. Maybe ferment something matching to cut them with.

[Havenor]

Thanks for the reply, and it's pretty much my thinking now. I suspected that the late distillation would get better when I was doing it so I pushed it as far as I could. The distillation flavors stayed fairly consistent and never did turn nasty, which is a positive. The final product isn't nasty, nor good, just sort of different. I'm a newbie here, more of a rum, bourbon drinker, so the smell of the final product is just really foreign to me. I know I don't want to drink it the way it is. My first reaction was to throw it in with the feints but I'm starting to rethink that. I'll probably revisit it from time to time with a fresh nose and see where that takes me. I know it needs something, just not sure what that is yet. I am getting the wine smell, but not a sweet smell, so I think there might be hope here.

[NZChris]

The wine would have improved with age if you had let it.

The brandy is the same, plus your brandy is missing oak. All of the tricks that will improve your rums and whiskeys, will work on your brandy.

[Wildcats]

Just got 5gal of wine from a local winery. Stripping run now. Will keep y'all posted on how it goes.

[6 Row Joe]

I ran some old wine we had. It turned out pretty good after hanging out with some toasted oak for a while.

[jonnys_spirit]

I make wines and each year choose the ones that don't end up in bottles and distill into Brandy - Sometimes it's wine from grape must sometimes it's a cheaper kit wine or blend of both. I always save pressed wine skin pomace to make grappa whenever I get wine grapes. I use some white and put some on used oak.

Cheers!
-jonny

[Wildcats]

Just finished my stripping run. Got a gal and about a half a quart. But will have to water it down some for my spirit run. I think I'm gonna like the way this turns out. Even better that I got the wine for free... Maybe I'll try to put it on oak for a bit and see ... Spirt run will have to wait until tomorrow or the next day. Cheers!