Home Distiller

Hi there
i run my first batch tonight and was very excited. everything went ok but the taste is sour.

i made a mush of peaches. i add 5 Kg sugar to 20L bucket of sliced peaches.
muxed it once a day till the 8 day.

what did i do wrong?
not enough sugar or too long fermentation?

10x

what is sour? the wash? if that is what your talking about it is supposed to be like dry wine. if it is sweet you did something wrong

Dnderhead wrote:what is sour? the wash? if that is what your talking about it is supposed to be like dry wine. if it is sweet you did something wrong

no, the distilled that came out of the pot was sour.
sorry for my english...

describe your run , so someone here with the skills can see what may have happened ,
can you recall temperatures times abv etc try to write what you saw or pictures of still setup on burner etc

G & A

did you make vinegar? (acetic acid) did the wash have mother in it? (slime)

i wanted to make peach schnapps. (the images are from my seconde attempt with plums)

first i cut the peaches


then i put them in plastic bucket (25L) with 1 to 3 sugar and closed with a piece of cloth. so it was about 20Kg total


i waited 8 days, every day i mixed the mash, and then i moved it to the still


i warm the still up to 70c in 15 min and then turn the gas down and slowley raised the temp till it started to come out.
what came out was surley alcoholic but it tasted bad, a bit of sour a bit of rotten.

so, what went wrong?

Did you add any yeast...???
Did you add any water...???
How did you determine that the wash was ready to be run...???
Sounds like you were successful at making peach syrup using a mix of peaches and sugar...

no yeast but wild
no water at all
it was fermented and as for what i read here after a few days it should be ready...

next time use a good wine yeast, and make up a good starter. it should over power other bacteria etc. that's in the wash.
unless you know where the fruit came from and that it has good yeast on it your taking chances on the outcome.

No water? Did you scorch it maybe? bd.

Hmm what went wrong?

Well I see...

No airlock on the fermenter and no use of yeast. In such situations its possible that some other bacteria or fungus took over before any yeast could get established. That would explain the bad/sour flavors.

No initial gravity or final gravity readings. Guessing is not a good way to determine the final alcohol content of the wash nor if the proper amount of sugar has been initially added.

No grinding up of the fruit. Yeasties need to get as much access to the pulp as possible to minimize fermentation time. More lag time equals more time for things to go wrong.