Hello,

I just built a pot still as I mostly imbibe rum, whisky, and brandy. I attempted to share a picture of my setup, but the auto moderator keeps deleting it due to a shortened link being used. The link is generated by Google pictures. Any suggestions? I am looking forward to sharing ideas. I have made 3 batches of rum, 3 slivovitz, 1 apple brandy, 1 whisky, and 1 muscat grappa. I have degrees in chemistry, and I was a pro brewer for 15 years. I feel like a noob all over again, and I am excited to learn.

Longer story short, I spent about a week picking wild grapes at the farm, and I got almost no alcohol out of it. And Im kinda crushed.

I really want to do grape brandy. I was either thinking of buying box wine, or bulk cooking wine and distilling it.

Has anyone tried this before? How did it go?

I know cooking wine is adulterated with salt, but the underlying wine tastes pretty good.

Was gonna try to make a grain based (whiskey) new make spirit with muck to see what happened so I added fresh backset and a portion of spent/fermented grains from ferment (strained before distillation bc didn’t wanna scorch grains in homemade pot still) and left it covered with a brew bag/cheesecloth for 2 days before covering with a lid and airlock (hoping I inoculated it a bit then sealed it such that co2 built up and made it less favorable for aerobic mold) but I got the idea (good or bad) to give it a little inoculation with a dollop of sourdough starter and splash of fermented hatch chili water with the hopes of giving a good bit of lactobacillus and potentially other favorable microbes. This is after about 6 weeks. Thoughts?

I have aged a few rums in medium toasted American oak chips; first round was 2 weeks with 1.5% by weight in glass bottles with plenty of head room. I did want some oxidation.

I liked the results and didn't think any of them were close to getting over oaked.

What I have started now is 2% by weight in Worthy Park Overproof (medium ester count). Monymusk (low ester), Barbancourt Haiti Proof and Don Q white rum.

The plan is to taste and collect a 50mL reference sample of each at 2 weeks, one month, and 2 months, then compare and decide if further aging is desired.

My friend mentions ultrasonic baths for accelerated aging, and I have heard of sous vide/elevated temperatures.

In doing online research, and reading about those methods, I don't get a sense of the relative merits, and the flavor effects of the various methods.

Do any of you hobby distillers have some favorite methods, or any beginner friendly references to share?

Edit: Also, to get a wider range of possible flavors, any other wood chips I should try, and what would be the effect of lighter toast or heavier toast or charring?