My first brandy making process.

[udiraz]

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Hi.
So I am going to summarize the whole process of my first time alcohol making, which is grape brandy.
First, I have to say that I thought about it for long time (years) - to distill my own alcohol drink. making flavored liqueurs is not interesting for me.
So, first of all, I had to get equipment. I decided to buy a still and not to build one. distilling alcohol is not very common in Israel, and some people who do it do not keep safety with materials etc, so I because of lack of knowledge and experience I bought a still. it is an alembic pot still (did you know that the word alembic is derived from Semitic languages, probably from the word hebrew ?)

Second, I had to decide what to make the alcohol from ? my first passion was for fruit alcohol. actually for peach palinka. I had a Hungarian neighbor who brought every year peach palinka that his friend makes from hungary, and that gave me the drive to distill my own drinks.
But peaches seems to me (I am still not sure if it true or not) more complicated to hande, so I decided an grapes or apples. since grapes are much cheaper in the season than applesm and give more alcohol per KG of fruit, I decided on grapes. I had to look at internet boards for grapes for sale. In the last 20 years in Israel, we had a renaissance of wine making that we haven't seen for thousands of years (two thousands probably), and that are lots of wine grapes and grapes for eating available in the market. I picked 220-250 KG of eating grapes, which measured 20 brix. The guy who sold me the grapes also crushed them for me, so it saved lots of time and mess.
That the grapes in the car:

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Have to be careful when carying almost 1/4 ton of grapes in the rear of the car. it almost touch the road

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Here's the hydrometer in the grape juice:

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Now, it was closed in the buckets for almost a week, I tested it for SG once a day ot two.

After about ten days I pressed them, and back in the barrel for a few days. I just did not have time to distill it then. we also had holidays in Israel, so I had to wait.
Then the distillation started.
I ended with about 120 litres of wine @ aprox. 11% ABV.
My still can contain up to about 23 litres of wash, and so I had to do 5-6 stripping runs. each run took about 2 hours, and I did it in the evenings after work. My wife did not see me for a week
This ended up with about 40 litres @ 35% ABV.

Now I had to get jars for the spirit runs to collect the fractions and decide about the blending. bought a package of 60 jars of 380 ml. that should be more than enough. And it was.

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Well, after blending, I ended up with 11 litres @60% ABV of quality grapes brandy. All feints run gave another 2-2.5 litres of 62% ABV quality drink. I tested it for hangovers the fun part... no hangovers at all.
I put 10 litres in an oak barrel I have, and then I decided ti put what I got from the all feints run in the barrel instead of the spirit run result that was already in there, so I had to take 2 litres out, and pour 2 litres of all feints result in.
I was surprised to see that after 6 days in the barrel, it already got nice color, and much better taste !

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Now I have to wait for a few month (hopefully 3) to taste what it will be like...


I want to thank you all for your help, and for all the wonderful information here, and in your answers.

Thanks a lot,
Udi.