thetankfrank
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Has anyone here made brandy?
What are your recommendations for yeast and recipes?
What are your recommendations for yeast and recipes?
kpr121 said:A friend of mine’s grandfather makes a peach brandy that he insists he doesn’t distill. I think it’s just a bunch of sugar, 5 lbs of frozen peaches, and champagne yeast. I don’t have the exact recipe. I do know they said that they throw a lb or two of raisins in there, I imagine it is to give the yeast some nutrients.
Its been two years since I’ve first tried it and everytime I see them they say they are going to get me the recipe. Havent seen it yet, so I cant confirm any of the above (and whether it is for sure not distilled).
But if you can get a OG of approximately 1.12 to 1.15 you can get a wine that is up to 20%. Its going to take quite awhile for that to age out though.
Discussing fortified wine (port, madeira, etc) might be a good direction to take this one.
Freee concentration for me has always taste like cheapo hooch that should be used in an airlock, not put in you mouth.
I have always called the high abv brews FAUX liquers [kind of like the spirt blends they sell]
A couple years ago i remeber making something like this i wanna say it was a cran grape from concentrate, it was just juice concentrate, yeast hulls, sitillers yeast. DAP, and alot of airration.
On brew day i mixed it up just using straight concentrate, nutrients, airated the crap out of it and added the yeast as per instructions.
In a week it had fermented out so i racked it, andded in more nutrient, and airrated, i repeated this process 3 more times or so till i hit an abv of 20 %. i racked it again topped of with watter and some charred oak barrel. let it settle for 2 weeks and racked again, stabalized ,back sweetened then bottled.
It reminded me alot of a liquer that I had when i was younger, nice tartness/ to sweetness ratio, as tart as it was i added alot of sugar to sweeten and it became a little to filling, the charred oak came through giving it a little whiskey character, but very little. It did smooth out very much so over the 8 months that i drank it.
If i did it again I would find a concentrate that wasnt so tart, if it was lighter on the stomach it would have been as good as you could ask for
kpr121 said:Im going to give this a go, probably use a similar recipe from Revvy’s first link (beninan’s Grandma’s recipe). I like the idea of blending in some Everclear or other neutral spirit to get the ABV up (Revvy’s second link), that way you don’t really need to worry about a yeast getting you all the way to 20%.
So with that said, Here’s what I am thinking for a recipe (apologies to beninan’s Grandma for poaching her recipe):
3 Gallons warm water
10# Sugar
4 Lemons cut in eights
5 lb bag of frozen peaches from Costco
1 Large cake yeast (I’ll use a EC-1118 cake from apfelwein or wine batch)
Yeast Nutrient
Mix well and cover. Stir once a day for 7 days. Then add
4# seedless raisins, let stand for 21 days.
Do not stir after the 7th day. Let stand 28 days total.
When SG gets down somewhere around 1.00, rack to secondary if clarity is needed or just
Blend in Everclear or other neutral spirit (vodka) to taste (maybe 20-30% ABV?).
Package in pint mason jars.
I’ll let you guys know how this turns out! Im wondering if this would be benefited from some oak chips at all?
Including the lemons and raisins, you have about 10 lbs of fruit, 3.33lbs per gallon. I don't think it'll give you enough flavor. Go with 10lbs of peaches, you'll thank me later!
Thanks everyone!
Yes I am not talking about distillation of the beverage but more of a wine. Actually I think in its earliest forms, Brandy was not distilled.
Will champagne yeast yield a 40 proof wine?
So, I mean if I add too much sugar it will just stall fermentation. Do I start at 1.30 for gravity and gradually add in more sugar to the batch until it stops and assume it is then at its alcohol tolerance?
That is something I have never understood is how to measure your OG Versus FG, if you constantly add sugar along the process, obviously if you have enough sugar in there for a OG of 1.67 how will you actually know that if you can't measure out?
I guess that is when you go by alcohol tolerance of the yeast?
thetankfrank said:So, I mean if I add too much sugar it will just stall fermentation. Do I start at 1.30 for gravity and gradually add in more sugar to the batch until it stops and assume it is then at its alcohol tolerance?
That is something I have never understood is how to measure your OG Versus FG, if you constantly add sugar along the process, obviously if you have enough sugar in there for a OG of 1.67 how will you actually know that if you can't measure out?
I guess that is when you go by alcohol tolerance of the yeast?
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