Swamp water brandy?

[Steve Broady]

Over a year ago, I decided to convert all the unusable wine that I ad on hand into brandy, using my new amazing and super cool (and recently upgraded to HD safety standards!) Vevor still. Then I did a bunch of experiments with it to see what kind of wood would give it a good flavor. And then I put it all in a BadMo barrel to hopefully calm down a bit, because to be honest it wasn’t as good as I could do even just a year later.

Fast forward a bit, and I read a thread here about using activated carbon to remove sulfur from brandy made from wine with sulfites. Reading the comments about a sharp smell and taste, and just using common sense, I figured that’s just one of many problems my brandy has, so let’s fix it!

The brandy came out of the BadMo a gorgeous deep brown, minus what some rather greedy angels had consumed. I added some carbon (didn’t measure, but probably about 4-5g/l), then used my sous vide to hold it at 70C for 12 hours.

What came out smelled and tasted wonderful! I’m very pleased with the change. I was worried about losing too much flavor, but I’m glad to report that is not the case at all. I’ll definitely remember this technique for the future, if I distill more commercial wine.

However, the color is something else… I can beat describe it as swamp water. It’s muddy brown, with hits of almost green. It’s unappetizing, to say the least. I thought it might just be suspended carbon fines, but after 24 hours back in its BadMo home, it hasn’t really changed any. I’m in no rush, so it can hang out there for as long as it likes. I’m hopeful that the color will return over time. If so, I’ll have a rather nice brandy on my hands. If not… who knows?

Just thought I’d share. If you have any advice or opinions, I’m happy to hear them. And if nothing else, hopefully this amused you.

[Bradster68]

Hey Steve. Curious, did the brandy taste funny originally? Is that why you did the charcoal thing? Or where you just experimenting to try to improve the taste a little? I make brandy from wine kits "alot" and love the brandy after oaking for some time. Now I'm wondering if I could improve the flavor even more

[Dougmatt]

We had a couple of conversations here about brandy from kits and commercial specifically around added sulfites which is where I posted a study on removing them using 3 methods including activated carbon. Not sure if that is what Steve is referring to or not.

The net of it was that if you do the kits, don’t use any of the included kmeta or other chemicals and it will improve the result.

Found the old thread: viewtopic.php?p=7733602#p7733602

[Bradster68]

We had a couple of conversations here about brandy from kits and commercial specifically around added sulfites which is where I posted a study on removing them using 3 methods including activated carbon. Not sure if that is what Steve is referring to or not.

The net of it was that if you do the kits, don’t use any of the included kmeta or other chemicals and it will improve the result.

Found the old thread: viewtopic.php?p=7733602#p7733602

Awsome. I DO NOT add any of the other stuff that comes with the kit. I add yeast let ferment then right to still. Like I said I love the product just curious about maybe improving a little.
Thanks for the link iwillread it now

[subbrew]

70C is a bit high so my guess is you got some Maillard reaction with some compound in the brandy. If so I would not expect it to improve in color much. You should not need anything over room temp to activated charcoal to work.

[Steve Broady]

70C is a bit high…You should not need anything over room temp to activated charcoal to work.

I took that straight from the study that Dougmatt linked above. They used 70C for 12 hours at 2g/l. Dropping to 40C at 1g/l took 30 days for the same reaction. Since I have the ability to do it, and I didn’t want to wait (or tie up my sous vide that long), I figured I might as well.

We had a couple of conversations here about brandy from kits and commercial specifically around added sulfites which is where I posted a study on removing them using 3 methods including activated carbon. Not sure if that is what Steve is referring to or not.

Yessir, that’s exactly what got me thinking about this. Yes, the brandy had a burn to it that, after reading, I think was due to sulfur, not just heads. Also, to be honest, it was a bit of an experiment. I figured that if I sacrifice a couple liters of cheap brandy to the gods of knowledge, then it’s a cheap education. The fact that the flavor actually improved is a nice bonus, though.

[squigglefunk]

does it turn you into a newt?

[Steve Broady]

I only tried a little sample last night. I was newt not long after, so… maybe?

[zach]

I see small packages of liquid carbon on amazon. Did you use dry carbon ? What proof is your brandy. What char level did you have in the Badmo?

[Steve Broady]

I used dry carbon. Which made all kinds of fascinating bubbles when it hit the spirit, by the way. I didn’t check the exact proof, but from memory it went into the BadMo (heavy toast and char) at around 60% ABV.

[still_stirrin]

… the brandy had a burn to it that, after reading, I think was due to sulfur, not just heads…

Sulfur is a “stinker”, not so much a burn. In fact, sulfur will taste a little “salty”, like a burned matchstick head (ever tried it?).

If you had a burn in the taste, especially in the mouth or on the tongue, I would suspect that what you were actually tasting was some of the solventy heads. Perhaps, as a beginning distiller you got a little greedy with your cuts, choosing the higher %ABV your hydrometer measured to add back to your hearts cut. “Time on wood” will help reduce the volatiles and, hence reduce some of the noted “burn”.

Worst case (to remedy) would be to rerun your (aged) spirit. You can salvage it, but it will take more patience and time. So, in the meantime, get something else going now to fill your drinking bottle.
ss

[still_stirrin]

I used dry carbon…

That’s NOT the way it’s done. Here:

activated_book1.pdf

Activated Carbon Filtering

(645.39 KiB) Downloaded 45 times

Refer to page 15.
ss

[Steve Broady]

I used dry carbon…

That’s NOT the way it’s done. Here:

activated_book1.pdf

Refer to page 15.
ss

Thank you for the link. I admit that I don’t understand how the folks who published the study I read managed to filter a liter of distillate with only a gram of activated carbon/charcoal (so far as I know, the two terms are synonymous, but I can easily be wrong). The only sense that I could make of was that they had simply mixed the dry powder into the liquid, counting on convection and diffusion to sort out the details. That’s certainly what I did. Since the activated carbon granules I used might not be as fine as what was used in the study, and since it seemed like an over abundance couldn’t hurt, I used significantly more than referenced.

I use the term sulfur because I cannot at the moment remember the name of the sulfur compound (dioxide, I think?) which was mentioned there, and I don’t want to leave a trail of inaccurate information for someone else in the future. The description I read sounded very much like heads, but there seemed to be consensus that this was a result of the sulfites used as preservatives in the wine. My very subjective impression before and after says that the drink got notable smoother and less headsy. I can’t claim that it’s good, but (ignoring the color, which may change again over time) I can tell you I’ve purchased stuff that tasted a lot worse.

I will be the first to admit that the original brandy was not the best. I wouldn’t say I was greedy, as much as just ignorant. I ran the still too fast and smeared it badly. In large part, I look at what I have now as a way to learn from my own mistakes. I hope I come across as suitably honest and willing to admit my own failures, and I hope that anyone who hopes to learn from this takes that into account. I share my results here in case anyone finds them interesting. And I greatly appreciate an opportunity to learn about what I’ve done wrong, because it means I have more knowledge than I did yesterday.

[shadylane]

I used dry carbon. Which made all kinds of fascinating bubbles when it hit the spirit, by the way. I didn’t check the exact proof, but from memory it went into the BadMo (heavy toast and char) at around 60% ABV.

I think it's best to rinse the carbon first.
Some of it is pretty nasty.