Started with wine - made vodka

[MadDigitalScience]

Very new here.
On my second batch of "brandy" - the first was a throwaway.

I started with about 2 gallons of wine and on my first run came out with about a quart and a half of 80 proof brandy.
It was okay, but based on what I read, it seemed like a second run was in order.
so... I diluted it down to about 20% ABV threw in some baking soda (as suggested on the parent site) and gave it another run.
I threw out the heads because they smelled like wet cardboard.
I threw out the tails because they smelled like wet cardboard.
In the end, I had about 500ml of 110 proof product
I diluted down to about 80 proof and have what tastes like a pretty good vodka that someone spilled a splash of brandy into

Don't get me wrong - I LIKE IT... But brandy it is not.
What did I do wrong?

[still_stirrin]

Hard to tell what you did wrong because we don't know what you did right!

Starting with 2 gallons of wine...did you brew it? What were your ingredients and how did you process them? What yeast? What ferment temperature?

You do know that the flavors you get in the distillate originate in the fermenter, right? So, without that data, it's impossible to help troubleshoot. Sorry.
ss

[MadDigitalScience]

Thanks for the help.

It was Malbec made from a kit. So concentrated Malbec juice, reconstituted and fermented for about 4 weeks.
Yeast was (I think V1116? ) Added sorbate and sulfite.

What I got was a mediocre malbec. This was the first time I used sorbate and I think that made it less than great - but not awful.

I went with a second run because the first run had a greasy taste. Hard to describe.
Just very surprised that a second run could strip so much flavor.

[MDH]

.... Why did you put baking soda in?

[jimsgins]

While I've not made it myself, my understanding is that Brandy gets a lot of its flavor from being oaked

[MadDigitalScience]

.... Why did you put baking soda in?

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

[zapata]

Baking soda is only good for vodka, or what we call neutral. Vodka snobs think neutral too flavorless, most of us think it is devine and hangover proof. The basic ph breaks down esters, things that have taste we dont want in neutral, but you definitely want in any flavored spirit. That was pretty much the only mistake I see.

I do question wet cardboard in heads. Wet cardboard is classic tails, and I've never gotten the slightest hint of it until tails. But its cool, your pallette will develop. Might wanna give the heads another sniff if you still have them, just for learning sake...

[Pikey]

Hi I tink your problem is just that you are new and believed what you read.

Kit wine - almost sure to be lacking in flavour - run twice and as you now know flavour stripped twice.

Pot still - is good for brandy(ish)

Next time concentrate on getting good flavour into your wine (wash) to start with and get the abv UP if you can even by adding sugar so that you can do a single run and still come up with 60% ish so you can oak it for a while - You will need to oak and age to get something tasting like what you get in a bottle. However, if you drink it white, you should get set something tasting "Brandy-ish" as you have

You threw the heads and tails in large amounts. Next time save them in small containers and TASTE them - Brandy and other coloured spirits require some heads and tails fractions to be added back to give those additional complexities of taste and you will recognise the "needed" bits of taste.

However, the drink will now be less "Smooth" and will come with some headaches in teh bottle.

In conclusion then - You have done nothing wrong - you just need to adjust your protocol and learn from your experiences . I hope what I have written helps a bit - Cheers

[Swedish Pride]

I made a fairly nice brandy from bog standard wine kits, think I stripped 45l of it and so had 12l of low wines and and 20l of actual vine that went in through the pot. got heaps of flavour, and kept a few jars of late heads that I've aged separately so i can add as much or as little as i want wen i pull a jar from the aging stock
It's coming up on a year now and is getting nice, I like it for something different on the odd occasion I'm not in the mood for whiskey.

[cranky]

I agree pretty much with what the others said but I do have a little bit to add.

Starting with 2 gallons is going to be very hard to make cuts on.

Using sorbate and sulfite is not a good idea for a brandy ferment, they can add off tastes.

As has been pointed out baking soda will take away flavor, it is only used for neutral.

and trying to make a second run and do cuts on a run made up of less than 1 gallon of low wines is something few of us would attempt much less expect good results.

[MadDigitalScience]

Message received about the baking soda - no more for anything but neutral.
I was also a bit paranoid about having too much tails.
Maybe the greasy flavor was just un-aged tails that needed to stay in place and age a bit.

Not sure why the heads tasted off.

Thanks all.

[still_stirrin]

...Not sure why the heads tasted off.

Possibly a puke....????

[NZChris]

The off flavor was probably from the sodium metabisulfite you used. Never use it for anything to be distilled.

Adding sugar is the equivalent of adding neutral to your final product. It dilutes flavor.

If anyone tells you they got a nice brandy from a single run, I say they could have made a better brandy by sticking to a Cognac style double distillation. I go with the notion that Cognac makers aren't stupid and have good reasons for what they do. The first run of a brandy should should be stripped until the total collection is 30% to 25% abv, or even lower. Stopping higher leaves good flavor in the backset.

Never add water to lower the abv of flavored low wines. Save that trick for neutrals.

Adding bicarb is a trick for making neutrals.

Unless you are in a hurry get drunk, age it on oak without dilution. If you get the stripping run right and make good choices when selecting your final blend, you should end up with around 62%-72%. This is fine for aging brandy on oak.

[NZChris]

While I've not made it myself, my understanding is that Brandy gets a lot of its flavor from being oaked

Whoever told you that is wrong.

[MDH]

I have objections to the use of NaHCO3 even for neutral. In organic chemistry, working with complicated solutions of some knowns and many unknowns (which is what we're doing here), anything can potentially become a pandora's box. Got too much copper hydroxide residue in your still head? Prepare for flavor loss. Throw a ton of malic acid into the still? Prepare for slight ethanol yield decrease and increased fruitiness. Everything does something... With baking soda, it decomposes into carbonic acid with heat and moisture. In the presence of strong heat you're going to get some chemical reactions you didn't bet for, and I suspect some of these reaction products don't smell so great.

There are plenty of other strong bases if you want saponification - Sodium, K, Magnesium hydroxide which won't release anything you don't want.

I think we need to update the homedistiller homepage because of some old info. We get a lot of people coming in here following its advice when we wouldn't ourselves recommend it. We should turn homedistiller into a proper modern interactive wiki. Just my two cents.

[Alchemist75]

"There are plenty of other strong bases if you want saponification - Sodium, K, Magnesium hydroxide which won't release anything you don't want."

Ya know I've tried using sodium carbonate specifically to remove flavors on a spirit run as it has a stronger saponification potential than sodium bicarb. I made a number of observations there but in terms of what occurred when I distilled the final product I found that it not only stripped all the lighter esters but it appeared to alter the tails product as well. The tail went from being hot if somewhat aromatic to foul and rather chemical tasting/smelling. Also it left a royal mess in my boiler, brownish gunk stuck to the inside that I had a difficult time removing with salt scouring or a bottle brush. Overall it did little to improve the quality and made for more to clean up. Nothing I'd attempt again. Potentially useful for ethanol drying but that's the limit of its usefulness.

[cranky]

I think we need to update the homedistiller homepage because of some old info. We get a lot of people coming in here following its advice when we wouldn't ourselves recommend it. We should turn homedistiller into a proper modern interactive wiki. Just my two cents.

That's been going on since February
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... =1&t=65413
AND
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... =1&t=67394
Jump in and give your opinion before it's too late

Edit: In fact there are several threads started by Uncle Jesse recently asking for help cleaning up a lot of stuff but there haven't been many people offering a hand.
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 97&t=67430

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 97&t=67461

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 97&t=67465