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I'm making my first batch of fruit brandy. I made a mash of passion fruit, mango, corn meal, sugar, and malt powder and I'm going to distill it as soon as fermentation stops. My question to anyone out there who's done this before: Are there any issues with methanol. I've heard that methanol is higher in fruit than in grain. How much of the foreshots should be discarded? Anyone know?

I think you forgot the kitchen sink. Thats a crazy recipe, fruit brandy + faux corn whiskey sugarhead + malt whiskey?

Na dont worry about methanol. take foreshots off by taste and smell and yourll be fine.

Pectin in fruits creates a little more methanol but its tiny. The ferment wont have enough methanol to worry about even if you drank it as a wine without distilling and making cuts.

Thanks Jimbo. Actually, I sort of built the recipe on one I read from another posting where he actually did put in the kitchen sink! Just kidding, but he had three different sugars, four different fruits, cornmeal, and I don't know what else! I'll let you know how it comes out. Thanks.

haha, cool, curious, let us know. It will be unique, dats fo sho

Just distilled the first batch today. Tastes really good, with a definite tropical fruit taste. Can't figure out the proof since I broke my hydrometer A new one coming in any day now. Satisfied but now trying to figure if I should add some oak chips for flavor or some burnt sugar for sweetness/color. Any suggestions?

Im partial to oak aging. But thats just me. If you experiment, break it into smaller jars and try different things to figure out what you like.

That makes sense Jimbo. Thanks.

That's good advice Jimbo and exactly what I do when I'm unsure how I want to age a new recipe. I will break a quart jar into pints or even 1/2 pints(depending on how large the batch was) and try a number of aging methods. Lately I've started playing with different woods, I've got some cherry, apple, american white oak, and french oak, but would like to get a couple more wood choices still. Ive toasted and charred some of each and the results so far with the fruit woods are promising. For my fruit brandies I generally leave some white and age some on french oak(it is a bit more subtle than the american but gives great color) and I usually end up preferring the oak aged, but that's just me