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Annual spirit run of brandy from my grapes.

NZChris wrote: ↑Sun Apr 24, 2022 11:07 pm Annual spirit run of brandy from my grapes.

Very nice. Iv been using wine kits. Taste great but can't wait to try the real deal come fruit season

Stripping 5 gallons brandy

Mashed 48lbs of Munich malt. Beautiful color, and smells great!

K

Made another 5 gallon brandy yesterday

I'm finishing off my old Tom Gin today.

Making 5 gallons cognac.well.... what I hope to be one day

Rrmuf wrote: ↑Wed Apr 27, 2022 4:35 am I'm finishing off my old Tom Gin today.

After some digging, I see that style of gin is a totally different style with a great story behind it.
I'm surrounded by juniper bushes(the edible kind). I can't wait till season and start to play around my gin experience.

Rrmuf wrote: ↑Wed Apr 27, 2022 4:35 am I'm finishing off my old Tom Gin today.

Awesome Rmuf! Old Tom is by far my favorite. Been super excited to try my hand at it.

Bradster68 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 27, 2022 3:23 pm Making 5 gallons cognac.well.... what I hope to be one day

Cognac production falls under French appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) designation, with production methods and naming required to meet certain legal requirements. Among the specified grapes, Ugni blanc, known locally as Saint-Émilion, is most widely used.[5] The brandy must be twice distilled in copper pot stills and aged at least two years in French oak barrels from Limousin or Tronçais. Cognac matures in the same way as whiskies and wines barrel age, and most cognacs spend considerably longer "on the wood" than the minimum legal requirement.

You're making brandy.

But pedantry aside, I'd be intrigued by your method. What are you putting in? What will you age on?

Does anyone here living in a wine-producing area have the time and / or resources to test two different grape varieties to see how different the resulting spirit is?

I'm racking 3 bottles of cherry 'port' made of my cherry wine and 2/3 apple brandy and 1/3 banana brandy, and racked 3 bottles of cherry wine too. Soon I'll be preparing for a raspberry rum attempt as that is my absolute favorite rum.

Made some Gin test, I'm fine-tunin my watermelon - cucumber gin and made a grapefruit test also on another batch. I may redistill this week, can't wait.
Started yesterday a LME whisky from a Pilsener Lager beer kit, curious to taste the result! 20$ for 23L kit, pretty cheap IMO. Basically skipped the3-4h mashing procedure... I made a DME test in the past and ended up pretty good, so I am positive about the future results of this one!

Evil_Dark wrote: ↑Thu Apr 28, 2022 3:18 am Started yesterday a LME whisky from a Pilsener Lager beer kit, curious to taste the result! 20$ for 23L kit, pretty cheap IMO. Basically skipped the3-4h mashing procedure... I made a DME test in the past and ended up pretty good, so I am positive about the future results of this one!

did you add extra dextrose to boost the ABV of the beer?
Assuming it gives 5% plain, you would get what? 2 bottles of whiskey out of it?

curious

NormandieStill wrote: ↑Wed Apr 27, 2022 10:43 pm

Bradster68 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 27, 2022 3:23 pm Making 5 gallons cognac.well.... what I hope to be one day

Cognac production falls under French appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) designation, with production methods and naming required to meet certain legal requirements. Among the specified grapes, Ugni blanc, known locally as Saint-Émilion, is most widely used.[5] The brandy must be twice distilled in copper pot stills and aged at least two years in French oak barrels from Limousin or Tronçais. Cognac matures in the same way as whiskies and wines barrel age, and most cognacs spend considerably longer "on the wood" than the minimum legal requirement.

You're making brandy.

But pedantry aside, I'd be intrigued by your method. What are you putting in? What will you age on?

Does anyone here living in a wine-producing area have the time and / or resources to test two different grape varieties to see how different the resulting spirit is?

This is my first time. So nothing fancy Carmel maybe sugar maybe toasted Carmel or sugar. There's an extract from oak but no one seems to know about it locally. For now it'll be aging on some toasted oak. I'm pretty good at letting stuff be so only time will tell what the oak does to it. Then maybe add something. I do a strip and a spirit on all my "Brandy". And.... of course not all will be aged. Always a sample jar for tasting, the women especially like it on ice.
I should add this is a simple brandy as it's made from a kit. It's very drinkable. I'm very close to areas that grow lots of fruits come season. Then I will be making some much better brandy I'm guessing

TFFV wash... Although I am going to have to follow that up with getting some spirit runs and bottling done. I am running out of glassware for low wines and product.

Just like brewing, this hobby sprawls out over the garage in quick time

Mashed 20lbs of Munich malt w/ 10 gal water, and added to my already in-process ferment barrel.

Total in the barrel now is 68.5lbs of Munich and 34 gal of water. OG at ~1.060. Fermenting with some old bread yeast I had laying around and the slurry of S-04 that I had in a beer that I racked on Monday.

K

Stripping malted oats, malted barley, malted wheat and corn mash. Two runs of 12 gal.

I took some 80% neutral. (TFFV) AND MIXED WITH SOME BURNT MAPLE SYRUP.
Mmmmmm. It's tasty....

Spirit running 20 litres of Brandy, perfect for a rainy day

Busy three days
- Racked off and bottled a Dark Ale
- mashed in 3 x 50 L fermenters with Corn Meal, Rye Flour, Oats (Toasted and plain) (Using enzymes to convert - no sugar added)
- racked off a Rhubard brandy wash - 24 L - hoping to run it this week - being at 10% should be a pretty good yield
- macerating ingredients for an OEG

and for tomorrow - run said Gin, plus redo a failed GIN

Rat Bastard Rumski Run Saturday with a boiler full of low wines, feints, and some fresh cleared rumski wash! I love the smell as a spirit run charge comes up to temp to where I cap it with riser and condenser. I’ve got enough strip/feints/top up rat bastard rumski wash to do two of these back to back. Prolly spread it over a couple weekends.

Cheers!
-j

Made up some Apple Pie.
1qt 90%+ neutral
1pint apple cider
1pint apple juice concentrate
2 cinnamon sticks, 10 clove, 5 pieces candied ginger
Honey, malic acid crystals
- boil cider, juice concentrate, spices until it smells good, let it cool
- combine likker and boiled juice, add honey and acid to taste

It should come out around 40-45% abv, sweet, appley, spicy.

Drinking some now with soda water and ice, pretty good.

making up some 70%corn 16%wheat malt and 14% Vienna malt today. That vienna malt sure smells good!

Pasta Bolognese, and a loaf of garlic and cheddar sourdough.

2-23 litres pails of TFFVODKA.

Put down a UJSSM. It’s one of my favourite white dog tipples and I’m close to running out. My last series was four and a half years ago. I still have plenty on oak, so this series will be mostly kept white. Gen #1 has frozen backset from the last run.

Stripping 23L of rhubarb wash

First go at a Odin’s Easy Gin. Nice recipe, my execution was a long way from perfect, but it still turned out pretty nice.

NZChris wrote: ↑Sun May 08, 2022 12:26 am Put down a UJSSM. It’s one of my favourite white dog tipples and I’m close to running out. My last series was four and a half years ago. I still have plenty on oak, so this series will be mostly kept white. Gen #1 has frozen backset from the last run.

Wow. 4 years ago. That's a good run

Spun up a 200L teddy sadd ffv.

Be good to have for testing spp as its clean now just need to do sac run with the 4l of 95 percent forshot and heads I kept for this.

B