Drug info - Aging Brandy

[bcubed]

SWIM, several months ago, made a brandy out of cheap chardonnay as a means of testing his still. Turned out very yummy, and got him thinking to make some for his dad's b-day.

SWIM would like to age it as best he can, but here's the problem. The only aging method he knows is to use oak (barrels impractical, so SWIM would throw in some toasted oak chips). Only SWIM doesn't care for the taste of commercail brandy (and doesn't think dad would, either). SWIM wants to smooth it a bit (really isn't bad at all unaged) while keeping the flavor light.

Any suggestions?

[ironmics]

This will age it quite differently but it will add wood flavor. Aging apparently comes from the barrel breathing, so contact with air is necessary but you do not want to much contact because I believe it can go bad. I do not know whether or not brandy barrels are charred either. Sorry I'm a bourbon guy lol.I sent you a link to something pretty cool and you could just give him the whole shabang.

[nEone]

One way to age it is to simply do just that - age it. Let it rest in an airlocked carboy for 6-12 months.

There is some evidence (citation needed) that it is better to age in bulk rather than bottling and then putting aside. It's likely that this is due to less agitation/oxidation from racking to bottles - as well as just a general "largeness" factor - the end product will be more consistent from bottle to bottle if it's all aged together en-masse rather than in smaller bottles.

Run it through some activated charcoal - that will also help.

A little toasted oak will smooth the spirit. If you make a large batch, you can experiment - much like adding hops to beer in stages, you can rack off brandy in stages, and then sample the stages to determine what works for you.

Distilling is a science - but blending is an art.

Good luck!