Distilling Wine - how reduce the sweet flavour

[GINKING]

Hi all,

I'm new here :) first post. Been reading here for a while and learnt a lot.

I have a 5L copper alembic pot sill from Portugal.

I'm distilling red wine to finally make gin.

My brief process is:
1. distill 4L of red wine x 3 batches (make cuts to remove head & tails)
2. combine all the low wines and distill to clean up (make cuts to remove head & tails)
3. final botanical run (make cuts to remove head & tails) -,with final product being about 430ml @85% abv

The final gin is too sweet for my liking.

I only have a pot still. Is there any way to reduce the sweet flavour that I'm getting.

Will adding water to the 2nd and 3rd distillation runs assist in reducing the sweet flavour?

Will distilling white wine produce a less sweet product?

Thanks for your assistance in advance.

[bluc]

Depends on attentuation of the wine you are useing. Ie what the fg was. If it does not finish dry then it may be sweet. Still not sure how much sugar carries over but sweet spirit is something I struggle with also.. :angry-banghead:
What is your sg and fg?

[Professor Green]

Welcome Ginking.

What you are effectively making with your initial strip/spirit distillation runs is brandy then you are trying to make gin out of it. You could try re-distilling the base spirit a couple more times to try and remove more flavour but you really need a reflux still to do it more efficiently. If you are dead set on using wine for your base then you could try using the driest one you can find.

Cheers,
Prof. Green.

[GINKING]

Depends on attentuation of the wine you are useing. Ie what the fg was. If it does not finish dry then it may be sweet. Still not sure how much sugar carries over but sweet spirit is something I struggle with also.. :angry-banghead:
What is your sg and fg?

Thanks bluc,

To start with I'm using cask wine (Cabernet Merlot @ 12.5%).
My theory is learn one thing at a time i.e. distilling and then expand to making my own wash etc.

Not sure what the sg / fg is.

[GINKING]

Welcome Ginking.

What you are effectively making with your initial strip/spirit distillation runs is brandy then you are trying to make gin out of it. You could try re-distilling the base spirit a couple more times to try and remove more flavour but you really need a reflux still to do it more efficiently. If you are dead set on using wine for your base then you could try using the driest one you can find.

Cheers,
Prof. Green.

Thanks Prof. Green,

I'll try a few more distillations.
Do you think if I dilute with water it will assist in any way?

I don't think my wife would let me buy another still atm. I only just got the pot still for xmas :D

Cheers,
Ginking

[warramungas]

Sugar itself cant carry over but all the volatiles and flavour compounds will and give you the illusion of sweet flavour.
To you it will be sweet anyway.
If youre going to use wine i would strip it and then rerun it all at 40% before i took cuts. In truth i would rerun it all without cuts a couple of times before i took cuts at all through a pot still.
Yes you can cut from run number one but youre better off concentrating it first before you take cuts or the product is going to be spread wide across your jars. Better to have 10 jars of high abv then 20 jars of medium abv to pick from if youre going for purity.

[BSC_Kilby]

What botanicals are you using? You may be getting more sweetness that you intend from these.

[wynnum1]

What are you paying for the wine as last junk mail had at $15 a 4 litre cask and at $45 a batch may be cheaper just buying legal alcohol and making the gin from that like some distilleries do or start fermenting your own from one of the proven recipes.

[db1979]

:text-+1:
Use weetbix wash (weetbix allbran wash), very easy, you'll save money and you really don't need to worry about going to town with sanitation as you'll be running it through a still.
Bunnings website says they sell a 20 L handy pail made from food safe plastic, give it a wash with detergent, rinse with tap water, whack in a 15 L wash (just adjust the quantities in the recipe) and put some glad wrap over the bucket (forget the lid). Once it's fermented, run it through your still in 3 batches according to the recommendations from the replies above. Bingo, you've saved money and made a better product.

With respect to the wash instruction, don't even worry about heating it all up, just make sure the sugar is all dissolved - I use the garden hose to get it it all dissolved and filled to volume (aerates it nicely too).

[Thelegion]

Hey All,
from personal experience with wine,
I have had many hrs running wine through a 5 plate bubbler and can tell you with great confidence, that wine taste and smell really never leave. I think if this is your route you would be best to use the distillate as a brandy or in a liqueur. I have distilled wine twice through 5 plates and as good as it gets it's just not there for a neutral, as for a gin, it might add a complexity with your juniper in the end product but I have not experimented that far with wine for use in a gin, and I do love a good gin.

There are certain smells that never seen to leave the wine distillate, taste on the other hand seems to clean up okay to "almost" good. I was in a position a while back to have access to hundreds of ltrs. of wine, red, rose and white and all had similar results distilling.

cheers, TL.....

[GINKING]

Thanks All for your inputs.

I will do multiple distillation runs and see if the sweetness reduces at all.

I will move towards making my own wash but first want to figure out distilling and making cuts etc.
I will definitely look at using weetbix!
Will I have a similar issue (base flavour being retained) using a pot still?

The botanicals I'm using at the moment are:
Juniper, coriander, star anise, cardamon pods, cloves, fennel seeds, Tasmania pepper berries, cassia vera, elder berries (sweet), lime skin, orange.

In my next gin run I will remove the elder berries.

[The Stig]

Using a pot still will NEVER give a neutral base for gin

[wynnum1]

What about the additives in the cask wine they use to stabilise can they carry over into the alcohol.

[warramungas]

Btw heads taste sweet. Be careful you cut them out if your spirits.

[db1979]

Btw heads taste sweet. Be careful you cut them out if your spirits.

The smell reminds me of chocolate. Late heads anyway.

[GINKING]

I'm sure I've removed the heads or most of the heads.

1. Stripping run (3x 4L in pot) - I removed the first 120ml
2. Spirit run (1.8L in pot) - I removed the first 160ml
3. Botanicals run (700ml in pot) - I removed the first 40ml

The sweetness is a characteristic if the grape + distilling in a pot still.
I notice it more as I'm smelling it the whole time during distillation.

My wife and father in law don't notice it (the sweetness) as much.