the HD site has some pretty in depth info on the subject but I'm wondering if anyone here has had success .
Also wondering about filling a GBR with pumice/cake and running a nice neutral through it. Ideas?
Not in the traditional way with pomace, but I do ferment a lot of fruit that I keep as white brandy.
I am sure someone here will have tried it either by fermenting pressed grapes or distilling red grapes that have been pressed after having been fermented on the skins. Often they are pressed very dry so there isn't much left to salvage.
We have macedonians in the family and the old fella showed me how he does Grappa which got me started. They use two old copper boilers stuck together and a simple worm. Run on gas.
They get red grapes by the ute load each year and do wine and grappa.
He said 'do you want the wine' i said no. Then put the whole lot in, if you want the wine you drain it off and add back some water.
They just then bring it up to heat, discard a half cup or a cup and collect the rest in flagons then age white for one to two years.
Not about to attempt to speculate on true/traditional way. But, if you want to know the redneck way....take white or red wine. Toss some grapes into it (stem and all) for flavor. And distill it. If you use white wine, use white grapes. Red wine, red grapes.
Now I have taken 5 gallons of red wine that I had for years 12-20yrs and knew I was never gonna drink it and ran it through the still does that count as grappa?
Yeah. I did an astonishing good grappa from pomace earlier this year. Lot of bloody work cleaning out the keg between runs. I have a basic beer keg with element boiler set up. No pomace burned on to the element. Made very strict cuts and had about 50% hearts. Much more heads than I'm used to. Ran the heads and tails as a neutral. Was going to run it a couple of times to clean it up. Kept a bunch of 95% hearts from the feints run and it made a delectable grappa/vodka.
6 stripping runs. So about 270 litres of pomace and water. Ended up with something like 5 litres of 58% hearts grappa. And then I kept about a litre of hearts taken from the feint run from that (probably mixed with feints from UJSM) at 95%.
Pomace I used was squeezed in a hydraulic press to something like 150 psi if I remember correctly. There just wasn't much left in it. If I do it again next year I'm adding sugar.
@Multipleg,
you just added water and ran the press cake? Doesn't seem like there would be much alc left. Bladder press going to around 4 BAR does a pretty good job of removing the juice. With white grapes there would be remaining sugars as they press off pre ferm.
Maybe grab a few kilos of the press, rehydrate add some sugar and do ferm?
White or red grapes and does it make a difference? sounds like a lot of work for a few L of product.
Most of the commercial "grappa" is probably made from fermented grape juice these days. Modern presses are just too efficient. In the old days the pressed cake was still fairly moist.
You need to either do it in a bain-marry or to use a boiler which has a wide enough mouth for you to insert some kind of rack to hold the fermented pressed skins. you will fill the boiler with water to a few cm below the skins and the water vapors will carry the distilates from the skins. because of all this water you will often get very low proof and after second distillation you will reach anywhere from 40-65% depending on how you fast you run yourstill.
most often very little if any cuts are made. forshots should be discareded obviously.
Modern presses are just too efficient. In the old days the pressed cake was still fairly moist.>
Modern presses today come in various forms. some work exacly like the old ones. basket presses with hydraulic rams. most winemakers will not press till the skins are bone dry because you get crappy wine\unusable bitter pressed wine. a bladder or screw press will leave very little moisture in fermented red skins.
You can referment the skins with some water, sugar, tartaric acid and DAP. (add 50% water by weight of the skins) sugar was extremly expenssive and rare till the 18th century (??), if they had it available im sure they would just referment and load the still skins with wine.
I never tasted\compered different method of making grappa. bainmarry just skins, skins with tiny bit of wine, skins with wine.
But never the less, this is not brandy. Brandy (cognac) is made with clearified wine only. (the wine is left to settle for a few months in huge oak casks, nowdays SS) before distilled.
Comments
the HD site has some pretty in depth info on the subject but I'm wondering if anyone here has had success . Also wondering about filling a GBR with pumice/cake and running a nice neutral through it. Ideas?
Not in the traditional way with pomace, but I do ferment a lot of fruit that I keep as white brandy.
I am sure someone here will have tried it either by fermenting pressed grapes or distilling red grapes that have been pressed after having been fermented on the skins. Often they are pressed very dry so there isn't much left to salvage.
We have macedonians in the family and the old fella showed me how he does Grappa which got me started. They use two old copper boilers stuck together and a simple worm. Run on gas.
They get red grapes by the ute load each year and do wine and grappa. He said 'do you want the wine' i said no. Then put the whole lot in, if you want the wine you drain it off and add back some water.
They just then bring it up to heat, discard a half cup or a cup and collect the rest in flagons then age white for one to two years.
He neve mentioned scortching issues.
I've also heard the same thing from others.
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They press it pretty dry here. So might have to do a re ferment with dextrose and the pomace?
I've made Crappa but never grappa
Not about to attempt to speculate on true/traditional way. But, if you want to know the redneck way....take white or red wine. Toss some grapes into it (stem and all) for flavor. And distill it. If you use white wine, use white grapes. Red wine, red grapes.
Now I have taken 5 gallons of red wine that I had for years 12-20yrs and knew I was never gonna drink it and ran it through the still does that count as grappa?
Brandy. What about filling up a Gin Basket with pomace?
My understanding is that you want the flavor profile created by fermenting the left-overs from pressing.
All the sugar is gone. So use Dextrose and 50# of press cake? we are getting closer!
Yeah. I did an astonishing good grappa from pomace earlier this year. Lot of bloody work cleaning out the keg between runs. I have a basic beer keg with element boiler set up. No pomace burned on to the element. Made very strict cuts and had about 50% hearts. Much more heads than I'm used to. Ran the heads and tails as a neutral. Was going to run it a couple of times to clean it up. Kept a bunch of 95% hearts from the feints run and it made a delectable grappa/vodka.
6 stripping runs. So about 270 litres of pomace and water. Ended up with something like 5 litres of 58% hearts grappa. And then I kept about a litre of hearts taken from the feint run from that (probably mixed with feints from UJSM) at 95%.
Pomace I used was squeezed in a hydraulic press to something like 150 psi if I remember correctly. There just wasn't much left in it. If I do it again next year I'm adding sugar.
@Multipleg, you just added water and ran the press cake? Doesn't seem like there would be much alc left. Bladder press going to around 4 BAR does a pretty good job of removing the juice. With white grapes there would be remaining sugars as they press off pre ferm. Maybe grab a few kilos of the press, rehydrate add some sugar and do ferm? White or red grapes and does it make a difference? sounds like a lot of work for a few L of product.
Most of the commercial "grappa" is probably made from fermented grape juice these days. Modern presses are just too efficient. In the old days the pressed cake was still fairly moist.
I have an un-limted supply of skins. add the skins and seeds to the boiler along with the wash, post ferm?
They were red grapes. It was just water and the press cake. If I do it again I'll add a fair bit of sugar.
that seems to be the go. then run on skins as well.
harvest is about to kick off here. Anyone done one of these recipes and had success?
anyone? It is really hard to find any intel on Grappa. Some real ghetto stuff on youtube. and thats about it.
Maybe Proofprof can stop by and share some info if he has a spare minute? PM him with a link to this thread.
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how do I reach him?
He is a member here. Can PM him.
StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America
how do you search for members?
got it thnx.
You need to either do it in a bain-marry or to use a boiler which has a wide enough mouth for you to insert some kind of rack to hold the fermented pressed skins. you will fill the boiler with water to a few cm below the skins and the water vapors will carry the distilates from the skins. because of all this water you will often get very low proof and after second distillation you will reach anywhere from 40-65% depending on how you fast you run yourstill.
most often very little if any cuts are made. forshots should be discareded obviously.
You can referment the skins with some water, sugar, tartaric acid and DAP. (add 50% water by weight of the skins) sugar was extremly expenssive and rare till the 18th century (??), if they had it available im sure they would just referment and load the still skins with wine.
I never tasted\compered different method of making grappa. bainmarry just skins, skins with tiny bit of wine, skins with wine.
But never the less, this is not brandy. Brandy (cognac) is made with clearified wine only. (the wine is left to settle for a few months in huge oak casks, nowdays SS) before distilled.