distilling store bought wine

newbie · Post by **newbie** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 11:45 pm

any one ever tried distilling store bought wine like burgandy and would the sulfites cause any problems.

LeftLaneCruiser · Post by **LeftLaneCruiser** » Mon Dec 13, 2004 1:21 am

Distilling storebought wine is in fact a good method to start with distilling without having to go trough the trouble of making a mash.
The cheap white wine, mostly sold in cartons, makes a rather acceptable brandy actually. After you get the basics you will want to try other recipies.

The sulphites could give a foul smell / taste to the product. But if you have copper in your still that gets in contact with the vapours; lid, lyne-arm, condenser, then the sulphites will react with the copper en get 'eliminated' .

Good luck.

KJH

Yttrium · Post by **Yttrium** » Mon Dec 13, 2004 7:27 am

The first few distillations I tried were store bought box wine. The result was god awful, but that was a result of my complete lack of experience. I have thought about trying it again now that I have some experience, but now it seems like a waste to pay ~US$30 for a 5 gallon wash when I can ferment my own wine from grape juice.

pangea · Post by **pangea** » Mon Dec 13, 2004 9:51 am

My son distilled some;GAK

, MD20/20 once. It turned into some pretty fair spirits.

We ran about 12 gallons of blueberry through this weekend. The stripper run produced 7 1/2 quarts. The final run turned that into 3 1/4 quarts of potent brandy. I toasted some whiteoak cubes and put eight of them in each quart. In one hours time the color had changed from water clear to light yellow.

Goofy · Post by **Goofy** » Mon Dec 13, 2004 8:08 pm

I distilled 16 litres of Carlos Rossi Burgundy wine and it really screwed up my copper packing. I tried to clean the packing with vinegar and baking soda to no avail. Soooo, if you do it maybe leave your packing out for a quick stripping run.

Post by **Grayson_Stewart** » Mon Dec 13, 2004 9:33 pm

I left two rolls of copper packing in my column for a pot still run on some mangos...turn them black as night and soaking in vinegar for two days didn't clean them.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 10:03 am

If ya wanna distill wine, use a potstill. Strip it, then run it through slow. If the wine has a high sulfite content, you could get a sulfer smell. Airing it out for a long period of time after adding carbon can help it a bit.

timeout · Post by **timeout** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 1:31 pm

jep, airing helps a lot.

i often make brandy out of bought wine ( mostly old stuff from pub cellars )
just hold a mixer or a cappuchino milk foamer into the spirit for about 5 minutes with full power, the spirit gets much milder and looses its sulphury smell.

if you dump spices into the brandy for a few days it makes a nice spicy schnapps.

c u
timeout

newbie · Post by **newbie** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 11:02 pm

would there be foreshots in store bought wines and how should one make
cuts?