Cognac/Grape Brandy

[hawkwing]

I’m considering trying to make Cognac or something similar. At the very least brandy.

I’m considering using purchased lugs of grapes. I’m unsure maybe someone knows, are lugs of grapes sulfited or gased with sulfur dioxide or something like that? Is this a problem? Can it be rinsed off? Does it need to be? I can get French Colombard which I would probably prefer over my other choices of Muscat and Thompson Seedless. I’d probably need 30 lugs to fill a 30L barrel and have some extra but not much.

What about using juice buckets that are sulfited? These would be much less work and would give access to more kinds of grape varieties like Tempranillo. I’d probably need 12-15 pails of juice. Or a mix of juice and grapes. That said I don’t know how critical the grapes are as long as they are acidic and end dry. They seem to have historically changed the grape varieties used based on several factors including disease resistance and availability.

I think they press then ferment to avoid the tannins. Is this correct? Am I correct to not ferment and distill on the skins and pulp. Also definitely not the stems?

What yeast is best for grape fermentation when distilling? Any make better esters or just use regular wine yeasts or even natural yeasts on the grapes?

Apparently a MLF or Malolactic fermentation is also desirable. I’ve done this for wine before.

I was going to do a double pot distillation. I can’t remember for certain but I think the fruit flavors are more into the heads. So will be interesting to see how the cuts go vs whiskey and rum.

Then I was planning to get a 30L French oak barrel. Smallest I can find and dint want to be too small. I realize they use Much larger than even whiskey barrels in France. Reading about the aging process they tend to not use new oak for long. They seem to start around 65-70% ABV then they dilute and move to used barrels a couple times. I was hoping to maybe age for upwards of 10 years.

Not sure if I missed anything or not. Any experience would be appreciated. I don’t want to spend a bunch of money, time, and effort if the sulfites will be an issue or if I’ll over oak and not be happy. Using buckets of juice would be nice and convenient but not worth it if the sulfites are an issue.

Thanks for any and all help. I need to make up my mind pretty fast to make an order for September delivery.

[Stonecutter]

This link contains information regarding different wine yeast strains in the first few pages. https://shop.scottlab.com/content/files ... ok2020.pdf

Cognac producers speak about a really dry shitty wine being the best type for Brandy.

Yes, double distillation for sure taking extra care with your heads cut.
If I recollect correctly white grapes are used in France so your Columbards should work great. I aged my grape Brandy in a used whiskey barrel. It came out great and I swear it picked up an almost bubblegum flavor. Really good stuff

[Bradster68]

I double distill all my brandy. Iv only made 2 batches of cognac (a white grape version).
Mostly I use red grape varieties of pre-made wine. I use EC-1118. I oak at 60%. I don't add much oak but have tried untoasted,toasted,charred and uncharred. Iv never been disappointed with the results.
+1 to SC I couldn't put my finger on it,but it does sometimes have a bubble gum flavor.
The hardest part is keeping my mits of it.

[hawkwing]

How does one know if sulfites are a problem? Especially if you are distilling commercial wine it has to be the same as buying juice pails right?

[zach]

I've distilled wine that I made that contained sulphites. The wine was not good enough to bottle, so it made a nice brandy. I did double distill it with of copper in the vapor path. If the wine is destined for brandy from the start, then leave out the sulpher.

[hawkwing]

I've got the brandy in progress. I recently ran a stripping run of some second wine grappa I made last year. I found it hard to find a clear point were the heads to hearts transition was to make the cut. Is this common? It's not as obvious as bourbon. I'm not really sure I'm happy about my confidence in the matter. I have more to run from this year and I'd like to get it right. I want to use in in a port fortification that will happen in the next week likely. Any guidance that might help me deciding would be appreciated.

[Deplorable]

I just put up 3 gallons of Brandy I made from around 27 gallons of 2018 Cab-Sav and so far I think its pretty good in the white at 35%. I put it up at 55% on used French oak.
If you have a copper riser on your pot still any sulfites the grapes were treated with should be an issue.

[Bitter_Brew]

I've got the brandy in progress. I recently ran a stripping run of some second wine grappa I made last year. I found it hard to find a clear point were the heads to hearts transition was to make the cut. Is this common? It's not as obvious as bourbon. I'm not really sure I'm happy about my confidence in the matter. I have more to run from this year and I'd like to get it right. I want to use in in a port fortification that will happen in the next week likely. Any guidance that might help me deciding would be appreciated.

I've made Reisling brandy from expired wine kits. The biggest problem I had was the cuts - the heads all smelled and tasted good on the stripping run, the tails smelled and tasted good on the stripping run right until the oils started to come over and it started to smell like wet cardboard and petrol - but this was at about 20% (at the parrot) and not the 40 or so that you might get with grains. I mixed all the stripped wash together and left it for 4? 6? months because I didn't have any time for the spirit run, and it tasted pretty damn good (almost broke my heart to do a spirit run - in hindsight, I should left some to age).

When I did the spirit run, everything tasted and smelled good deep into the tails. I can't remember where I discarded from but it was quite deep.

I might end up with mad hangovers when I go to drink it though, so take my experience with a grain of salt.

[Bitter_Brew]

How does one know if sulfites are a problem? Especially if you are distilling commercial wine it has to be the same as buying juice pails right?

I have read on here that you should remove them with some food grade hydrogen peroxide before running, but I've also read that doing so strips flavour. I haven't tried it myself, though.

[Demy]

I distilled some terrible wine (a gift from a relative of mine) but it was barrel aged.... I got a fantastic brandy, not even he could believe that product was made from his wine... If you keep the skins you will get a product very aromatic, halfway between a grappa and a brandy.

[muscadine]

If you keep the skins you will get a product very aromatic, halfway between a grappa and a brandy.

You mean run it on the skins?

[Demy]

If you keep the skins you will get a product very aromatic, halfway between a grappa and a brandy.

You mean run it on the skins?

Generally the prolonged contact of the skins during fermentation extracts greater aroma (perhaps more heads therefore more careful cuts), same thing if you distill with the skins.... the best is obtained with both.... if you distill only wine you still get a great product