Air still 4 liter wine run

[freeflow]

Hi, I have started with an air still sugar wash, but I got some spare bottles of wine I want to turn into brandy.
I can only do 4 liters at a time, how much of the good stuff (hearts) in ml do you think I will end up with? Is it ok to put in some Copper Saddles to deal with the sulphur? Any tips welcome.

Thanks

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi Freeflow. What is the ABV of your wine. That will tell you how much ethanol is in solution. If you have 4000 ml and your wine is 10% ABV then you might be able to pull about 400 ml at about 130 proof (65% ABV). If your wine is 5% then you might pull 200 ml at that same proof. Distillation cannot create alcohol from water.

But you want to make a brandy? But you refer to a "sugar wash", not a wine. To make brandy don't you need to begin with a fruit wine? Sure , you can flavor the distillate with fruit but is that a brandy?

And you suggest that your yeast produced hydrogen sulfide. I am not sufficiently knowledgable about distilling to know whether you can make a good distillate from a poor wine simply by adding copper to bind with the sulfur but I can say that wine makers will view the production of hydrogen sulfide is a result of poor wine making - often caused by stressed yeast and stressed yeast always, always return the favor. Very karmic creatures they are. What you might want to do is see if you can remove the sulfur before you do anything else. In wine making H2S can become mercaptans and you cannot without a great deal of work remove mercaptans from a wine. It is almost impossible.
Good luck.

 

[bracconiere]

they said their first batch was a sugar wash.

i think this is store bought wine so probably around 8% ABV, i'd dump the wine in a container it fits in and add some more sugar & yeast. but i'm not picky. it'd be a better version of your sugar wash without the need for added nutes that would effect flavor of distillate, i think anyway....(done it myself, still got the jug, it'll be old enough to drink itself here soon! lol)

 

[freeflow]

they said their first batch was a sugar wash.

i think this is store bought wine so probably around 8% ABV, i'd dump the wine in a container it fits in and add some more sugar & yeast. but i'm not picky. it'd be a better version of your sugar wash without the need for added nutes that would effect flavor of distillate, i think anyway....(done it myself, still got the jug, it'll be old enough to drink itself here soon! lol)

Yes, this right first one was sugar wash, but we make our own wine and beer.
I got good bottles of white wine or red, about 11% strengths which I want to experiment with. rumor and story on the internet are, that distilling can create sulphur. I do not taste any in my wine. I was hoping to get answers from somebody who has experience with this and a pot still style distilling.
Thanks

 

[bernardsmith]

Distilling simply removes the water from alcohol to increase the ABV (AKA proof) by boiling off the alcohol in the wine and allowing it to the vapor to condense and collect BEFORE a significant amount of the water in the wine also vaporrizes and collects. It does not create anything that is not already in the wine (grain or fruit). Things like methanol are in fruit wines so distillation does not "create " methanol either. If you made or bought a wine with detectable sulfites or sulfates then that may come through in the distillate. AND since most wine makers add K-meta to their wine before bottling or during aging and before crushing the fruit there will be some sulfur in solution although much of the "free SO2" used to inhibit oxidation and increase shelf life will bind with O2 over time (which is why it is added in the first place) so in a reasonably well-made wine there ought to possess virtually undetectable levels of sulfur. (That many people CLAIM to be allergic to sufites in wine may simply mean that they are SENSITIVE to the chemical). Few people need to apply an epi pen after drinking a glass of wine - and for many who are "sensitive" that may be more because after three or four glasses of 12% ABV wine their reaction may be due to the volume of ethanol they have ingested.