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Very interesting posts! I live in a small mountain village in Bulgaria where brewing rakia (brandy) is carried out in all the houses using the local fruit. This fruit is collected late summer, crushed and put into 200 lit drums to ferment. This is usually complete as the snows arrive so the wash is left all winter, usually outside or in an unheated shed. Temps drop to -20 deg C (-4 F) which is enough to freeze the top of the wash. Distillation does not occur until late spring so the wash develops a thick blanket of white/brown mould on top, which the locals say gives a better flavour. It sure sounds like this is effectively a wash/ aged dunder, all in one. As they use the wild yeast (turbo yeasts are unavailable in Bulgaria) I guess the ABV is low enough not to interfere with the growth of the bacteria/fungus on top. The wash smells just like an ordinary wash and does not have a putrid smell at all. Having studied microbiology and read lots on fermenetation and aseptic techniques I was horrified to see these mouldy. fly infested washes but then amazed that they did not progress to form vinagar but this never seems to be a problem. Anyone else heard of distilling a mouldy wash?

Nazdrave (cheers in Bulgarian)

Yes yes clarkee142.

Lots of anecdotal success stories regarding aged washes and the like.

My most recent batch (rum) was rather suspect after only one pass through the still...But the second pass was very very very,,,,,,very good.

I am a believer.

I believe Slow & Steady has had some good success with aged washes as well.

Yep, I aged a 240 gallon batch of golden delicious hard apple cider for 19 years in closed barrels, it had a little vinegar smell to it after that amount of time but the brandy was sublime. The vinegar fraction comes over way, way late in the tails around 98 degrees C.

19 years isn't a recommendation I just forgot about the stuff and was pleased as punch with the results I got with double distilation of the cider, then I aged it in 6 gallon Char Oak barrels to finish it as an aged brandy.

S&S