sulfur smelling grappo redistill

[psf]

Brother in law makes homemade wine with natural yeast. he had two gallons that didn't pass his nose because they have a sulfur smell. 1 gallon of scupperdine and 1 gallon of Muscadine. He added copper mesh to try and pull the selfur smell out with no luck. He gave me the two gallons to try something with. To me they just smell like cheap wine.

Before I just combine them and run them in my all Copper 2.5 gallon ambelic, what can I do to get the best product I can out of them?

run them separate? the scupperdine is more of a white and the muscadine is more of a red.

should I add any peroxide? Maybe sodium carbonate?

Any advice would be appreciated as I have not ever ran a grappo or wine style mash (don't remember the correct word, tun?). I'll continue to search in the meantime.

Thanks in advance. Merry Christmas!

[still_stirrin]

Did he use Campden tablets to sterilize the must, or kill bacteria and wild yeasts? The tablets are sodium metabisulfite and will contribute the stinky sulfur smell. It will interact with copper resulting in reduction of the sulfur. But, it will turn the copper black.

So, if you have copper in your still, it will help you. But you will need to clean your still after the run.
ss

[psf]

Thanks SS for the reply. "Must" was the word I was missing. He let wild yeast do the fermenting. I don't know his process and have no idea how he ended up with the sulfur smell, nor does he. I'll mentioned the tablets to him the next time it comes up; however I've offered some advice in the past, but he knew it all. The entire still I have is copper, I'll give it a good citric acid, peroxide bath when I'm done. Plan to give him the product I distill, just adding some more experience to my distilling.

[Dougmatt]

Depends a lot on what you have in there. H2S (natural part of fermentation) is different than SO2 (created by adding sulfites). Here’s a paper on removing SO2: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/ful ... 02/jib.100

I believe if it’s H2S then the copper will strip it if you have enough. I would run half of it, see what you get and then try to adjust that.

[psf]

Great recommendation to run half to see what I get. I'll have to reread that link at least 8 more times to take it all in.

BLUF: strip half once to see what I get. Evaluate results and add HP if needed, let stabilize and redistill making cuts. I'll have to read further on how to mix HP effectively.

Thanks again.