Brandy

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You gotta distill to make brandy. The last thread that talked about distilling got shut down. Google the distillers forum. Those guys will give you the lowdown. I would but got in trouble last time.
 
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.
 
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.

If you attempt to get to 18-20% with yeast, don't add all the sugar at once, it may not start or get stalled. Start with a SG of 1.095. After a week, add more sugar.
 
In order to make Brandy, you need to distill it, since distilling is illegal in the US, and this is a US based forum, it's against the terms of service here to discuss it, that's why the mods shut down those threads, along with ones by underage posters, or that discuss underaged drinking, drug use, keg stealing.

There are a couple threads of folks making what is essentially a very strong brandy-like "wine" or for lack of a better term "hooch" (not meaning to be derogatory here, there's just no real term for something like this.)

This thread,

and This thread.

And then there's this thread, which is trying to make a non-distilled rum beverage.

Like I said these aren't TRUE versions of these spirits, since they don't involve illegal distillation, but they can get you started.

You could start like any of those ideas, making a strong wine type beverage, freeze concentrate it (which IS LEGAL, so don't start the posts, we have posted the info on here numerous times) then perhaps secondary the concentrate with some bourbon or brandy barrel smoking chips for a few months to mellow it out.
 
Distilling (or a conversation about it here) is right out. Discussing fortified wine (port, madeira, etc) might be a good direction to take this one.
 
Making a port is easy. Plan it out. In the spring, I was gifted a few gallons of a peach port which was started in 2005. Made from canned commercial peaches. Unfortunately the full recipe was lost, but I do know it was made by starting at a common SG, 1.090 for example, and then routinely stepfeeding sugar to it once the SG had dropped to a certain point. The ultimate goal was to reach the alcohol toxicity of the yeast and cause die off & hopefully have a residual sugar. But you could still backsweeten if necessary. By keeping track of all sugar added and the final SG it is easy to calculate alcohol content. Then use Pearson's square to determine how much liquor is needed to fortify. I do know my port was made with granulated and brown sugar and fortified with brandy and even peach schnapps. It comes in at 21%. I simply had to filter it and dose with k-meta before bottling.

With the ports I have made I like to fortify with a high proof neutral spirit and a portion of brandy. The combo, to me, just adds the right touch.

So map out a recipe and take off--you will have fun.
 
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
 
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

So it sounds like you sorta liked it, here’s a couple things that I think could have made it better:

-Use a quality champagne yeast instead of distiller’s yeast

-Get rid of the cranberry. It’s probably what made it too tart.

-Let it age for more than 8 months (which seems like was the last tasting you had so I assume it was drank throughout that time.
 
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
Two 5 lb bags of frozen peaches from Costco (10 lbs total)
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?
 
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!
 
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!

I was thinking it wasnt enough. I'll thank you now!

Original recipe updated.
 
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?
 
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?

Since that's just 20% ABV, you can use Wyeast Eau de Vie yeast (goes to 21%) or White Labs WLP099 (goes to 25%). With either of those no additional concentrating will be needed. You'll want to age them for an extended period though. :D
 
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?
 
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?

Start low, like around 1.100, and then add more until you've used all of the sugar source up. You can figure out how much you should add, total, along with the total amount of water before you start. Use the total water amount at start with just part of the sugar source. It would also be a good idea to use nutrient for the yeast and oxygenate/degas during the initial stages.

There are tools available to help you to figure out how much to use for the batch size and total OG.
 
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?

Don't start at 1.30, the yeast may not start. Begin at 1.090 or something in that range.

When you get to 1.030 or so, add more sugar and record the new SG.

By measuring the gravity before and after sugar additions, you can subtract the values and add to your starting gravity. You'll then have an idea of alcohol content if it all ferments out.
 
Made the recipe in my above post but substituted 12 lbs of frozen blueberries instead of peaches (costco was out of frozen peaches). I used 5 lbs of sugar to start, and will add 5 more later in the ferment.

I also bought 2 gallons of canned Del Monte peaches, I might give that a try as well when a fermenter frees up.
 
Well I just tested this blueberry yesterday and the FG was around 0.996. I figure that puts me somewhere near 13-15%. I wasnt expecting the bread yeast to suck it dry, but c'est le vie. Does anyone have a rough estimate on how much sugar the blueberries could have added?

Here's what I came up with for blending, scaled up based on my shot glass and postal scale measurements:
-5 gallons blueberry 'wine' (FG 0.996)
-1.5 gallon 80 proof vodka
-12 lb table sugar
-tannin to taste (I couldnt measure the sprinkling I did but the tannin helped cut the acidity and smooth the alcohol a bit)

The vodka bumps this up to around 20% abv (40 proof) and turns this into a nice sipper. I think the abv is high enough to kill of the yeast but I may add k meta and sorbate just in case, the meta will also help minimize oxidation.

I have to say that this stuff tastes pretty damn good! I think I might also try to age a portion of it on some oak, I might even toast some of it to try to get a bit of a whiskey flavor.
 
Okay after tasting the blend a bit more I think I will drop the sugar to 10 lbs. It was a little cloying. In fact I will probably end up adding parts at a time to make sure the ratios scale up correctly.
 
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