Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

I'm planning to make scotch, but did a first run of cognac to learn how to use the still, seeing as I had access to cheap champagne. It came out pretty ggod, so I put it in a carboy with some toasted oak sticks and left to age for a month. Now when I say "toasted" oak I actually mean I forgot about it while it was cookiing and came back to find 90% charcoal and 10% wood left. I knocked off most of the ash but left quite a bit on as I figured you use charcoal to filter, so it couldn't be bad for the taste, could it?

After a month my cognac was the colour of strong tea and tasted dangerously good. I say dangerous because I have 17l at 60%! Two month in, though, and the ash taste is becoming too strong. I tried running it through a coffee filter, but that made no difference. Can I filter out the ash taste using a charcoal filter? If not, then I guess I could cut it with unaged spirit (I just need another 17l of cognac) or put it all back in the still for another run.

Any ideas?

Regards,

Steve C

You could carbon filter it but the some flavors will be removed also.
I think your best bet would be to blend it with un aged.
How much oak are you using?

how did you run 17L through coffee filters?

Andy wrote:how did you run 17L through coffee filters?

Patiently.

There's more experienced people than me but I'd be tempted to add medium toasted uncharted oak to what you have as it will continue to develop and suspect that it will come back round with some patience...
Thoughts anyone?

i would mix it with the same amount of unaged to half its taste like rummy said then put on good oak to finish it off, not too much though
otherwise i would filter it fast in carbon and oak