Home Distiller

In days gone past I had the opportunity to consume brandy and cognac while in the EU. Very impressive.

America does not have, in my opinion, products with the level of taste and quality. So, why not try and duplicate it myself…

My wine making is limited to high end wine kits – 6 gallons of product for about $200 (aprox), 60 days of preparation and then at least a year of ageing.

The concept of taking one of these expensive kits and distilling it hurts my sensibilities and pocket book.

I am looking for a way to make a reasonable brandy and then with more fiddling possibly make a cognac

I am in mid-America in Arkansas. Fresh fruit and grapes or other items are not readily available so starting from ‘scratch’ probably not going to work.

Any recipes, hints, or leads on concentrates that might work would be appreciated.

As always, thanks to all who might help.

Try a cheaper wine kit if you can't get real fruit.
Time and the right aging may surprise you.

+1 to cheap wine.
I bought 30 gallons of Cab and distilled it and its on used wine oak in the shed for the next few years. I figure the longer it sits in the dark recesses of the shed the better, and I'm not a big Brandy drinker, so 3 gallons @55% of well aged brandy is going to last me a very long time.

Duplicating would be difficult unless you got all of the ducks in a row; type of grape, type of still, distilling protocols, etc.. The more changes you make the further you will be from the target, but it can still be great product.

For each step, do the research, then do the best you can with what you've got. Cognac producers make no secret of their grape varieties and distilling methods, so I get my ideas first hand from them.

I've recently planted a more suitable grape variety than what I already have, I hope, the previous attempt wasn't true to label, GRRRR

I just read that Riesling and Baco Noir are the best wines to use if making brandy. Thought I'd pass that along.

I have not tried kits, as I have plenty of options for grapes, but I've been reading a forum (winemakingtalk) for the last three years

Several members have recommended labelpeelers dot com for kits. Just looked and a 23 liter Classic Washington Riesling is $66. They are in Ohio, so not too far.

Thanks to everyone who responded – Good information but not what I was expecting. Essentially everyone advised to buy cheap wine kit or use your own garden fresh fruit.

Not what I wanted to hear but then …

viewtopic.php?t=110 archived topic on same basic question

One of the respondents suggested he used Welch’s Concentrate and some other additions to make an inexpensive (cheap?) wine that he drank as a youth – it could be distilled.

To make any meaningful amount of wine for distilling you need at least six gallons to start for stripping and a spirit run.

A Q&D spreadsheet has indicated that 6 gallon of ‘pseudo’ wine referred to in the topic above would cost about $59.

And then "zach" came up with a great option. So I am off to the 'brandy' races to see what happens.

As an editorial comment after the fact, viewtopic.php?t=56164 is a great read. Lots of background info.

Thanks again.

have you tried an apple brandy? Fall time is now and should be plenty of apples around.

Arkansas Is not without vineyards. My first two grape wines were from grapes that I hand picked after doing deals with owners. One was Riesling.

I get offered free grapes by mates at the pub, but never get them because without me bird netting them the birds wouldn’t leave me enough to be worthwhile picking.

Another option for an out of season brandy is to use raisins. 30 lb packages of bulk raisins are available on e bay today for $100 including shipping to my location.

It's not cognac, but can be interesting white or oaked.

Mr_Beer wrote: ↑Mon Nov 06, 2023 8:02 am Thanks to everyone who responded – Good information but not what I was expecting. Essentially everyone advised to buy cheap wine kit or use your own garden fresh fruit.

Not what I wanted to hear but then …

viewtopic.php?t=110 archived topic on same basic question

One of the respondents suggested he used Welch’s Concentrate and some other additions to make an inexpensive (cheap?) wine that he drank as a youth – it could be distilled.

To make any meaningful amount of wine for distilling you need at least six gallons to start for stripping and a spirit run.

A Q&D spreadsheet has indicated that 6 gallon of ‘pseudo’ wine referred to in the topic above would cost about $59.

And then "zach" came up with a great option. So I am off to the 'brandy' races to see what happens.

As an editorial comment after the fact, viewtopic.php?t=56164 is a great read. Lots of background info.

Thanks again.

I order from label peelers frequently. Always check Amazon or your local home brew shop (HBS) as the shipping can add up and will be more than a discount kit with free shipping.

Other alternatives are:
- look for cheap wine sales
- peruse the “discount bin” at the grocery store.
- buy bottom shelf big bottler’s (ex: Cabot creek or any other 4 buck chuck) and use that wine to make brandy.

The above ones run the risk have having sulfites which “could” be a problem for some people’s nose / taste according to some on this board…

Other ideas:
- visit a local farmers market and find a grape provider then ask to buy overripe fruit / non marketable fruit at wholesale price
- you can buy grape juice from the store and some people say it’s good. Some people have no taste too so mileage may vary
- visit your local HBS. Many of them do group orders of grapes from Italy, California and Chile (to name a few) and you can get frozen fruit or juice at a reasonable price to ferment then make brandy
- there are online wholesalers of bulk grapes from
Washington state and California that make good wine and great brandy
- you can make a sugar wash with fruit, fruit concentrate, fruit juice etc and then make brandy (search dragons blood as an example)


Lots of options. Just depends on what quality you want. I’ve done most of the above for wine, many of which have now ended up in spontaneous “I don’t like this wine” brandy…. Most are drinkable especially with a mixer or used as a base for a PD.

Edit: P.S. concord wine tastes like poo to me and I found the brandy to simply be a much stronger version of poo…. Or Welch’s wine sucks to me, but you may like it. Many do….

If you can find a vineyard in your area you might be able to get grapes at a reasonable price. 200# will make about 12 gallons of wine to charge the boiler so 500# would roughly yield two strips and a wine top up for a 1.5 in a 15g boiler. 500# of grapes is about ten five gallon buckets. I purchased 200# of cab sav grapes for wine last weekend which cost about $260 and those were trucked across the country with a much larger order. Cheapest wine kit might be the way to go for economy and i’ll use those as an adjunct for grappa after the wine is done.

Cheers,
j

Right now in Arkansas, you can get all the raw apple juice you want.

Don't over think it, apple juice, heat pasteurize it if you want (I do at ~140f), optional to enzyme it like grain for starch conversion, and use EC-1118. It will be more like European Brandy (almost whiskey) than the watered shat you buy in USA.

Some of the wineries will sell you the second grapes or the off wines (distill them).

Hello All-
I am primarily a hobby wine maker. I came to this site to find a use for my unsuccessful experiments, so I have a bit of experience working with different varieties of grape wine. I always keep copious notes on the wine making processes; tannin, sulfite and acid additions, pH and sulfite levels, etc...and have come to recognize they all make a big difference in the quality of the distillate. An acidic white wine with no oak or additives (other than sulfite) is best when double distilled in a pot still. Wine that's been heat and cold stabilized and sterile filtered distills cleaner than those that are not, and so on.
With all the variables in the wine making process, unless you're doing it yourself, you'll never know what your going to get. Commercial wineries often use a wide variety of additives depending on weather conditions, heat and other factors in the vineyard during growing season. Wine making techniques and grape character can change dramatically from year to year. Even though I source my grapes from the same supplier every year and my processes are relatively consistent, I have had dramatically different results with some of my finished wine. It's also important to note that a wine produced for distillation is not the same as one produced for table wine. I have yet to make a wine for distillation so my opinions`and results are based on wines intended for consumption. If your using bulk wine from a winery or cheap commercial wine, my experience should be relevant.

Generally, these are my opinions based on my results:
-If you can, sterile filter wines before stripping. It removes some of the bound sulfite (and whatever it's bound to) and other unwanted organic compounds.
-Double distill whites in a pot still with tighter cuts in the spirit run than AG whiskey. Let it air out at least overnight before blending. After blending and aging on oak for at least a year, this has produced my best cognac-like product. Cognac is made from a specific variety of white grapes which don't generally make a very good table wine. I've distilled Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, and Viognier (sometimes randomly combined) with very good results. Aging whites doesn't take as long as reds to get a good product but like with any other aged spirit, more time is better.
-Strip reds in a pot still and spirit distill in a reflux column. I run the column very slow and collect in as many jars as I have available to try to reduce smearing. Generally, heads and tails are almost completely avoided in the final product. I have occasionally found a nice early or late jar to include in the final product as well as some hearts jars that seem foul. I always let them aerate overnight or longer because it seems to change more than AG whiskeys. Without aeration, I would toss more than I'd keep. I proof down to barrel strength with well water and age for a year minimum before looking at it. The off flavors in heads and tails are more off putting than those in all grain and they don't dissipate and/or integrate with aging as with whiskeys. I think it's better to dilute with water and let the oak fill in the gaps than to introduce the negative flavors of the heads and tails. In my opinion, heads and tails from my reds don't contribute to finished product flavor in a positive way. Maybe a longer aging period will change that but after several years what I have stored is not as good as what I have consumed. It's still aging in a barrel so maybe someone's grandchildren will enjoy it.

In the interest of full disclosure, I use different yeasts, I always barrel age and often use tannins and other additives and secondary (malolactic) fermentation on my red wines, which probably all have an effect on the distillate. I don't do most of that with white wine.`Red wine is fermented on the skins resulting in higher tannin content and astringency. That's probably why I've had better results distilling white wine. If you are making a red wine to distill, you probably wouldn't do any of that and you might press the grapes and ferment off the skins as with a rose'. Regardless of the varied wine making ingredients and grape varieties I use, I have gotten consistently acceptable results with these distillation processes.


Best Regards.

Thank you for your generous explanation and the time you spent. I appreciate it.

Sorry it took so long to respond but I have been out of pocket for a while.