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I am very new to distilling and ran my pot still for the first time last weekend. I had 5 gallons of raspberry wine that I wanted to get rid and thats what I used...I ran my still slowly and got some very good hearts running about 150 proof. My question is that this doesn't have any flavor at all and I would like to make some brandy out of the wild plums I picked last fall, but would like to know how to get some flavor with it..thanx for any input
turko77
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try using some pectic enzymes with your plum ferment. Seems to bring more of the flavor profile over in brandies
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hello, A couple things I would try is not making a high content abv of wine when you start out...try to get a nice 12%, then run. While you wont have as much proof, the flavor tends to come out more. You can also try adding a thumper or even a 2nd thumper that seems to "wash" the flavor into it a little more. I usually flavor after running. Take your plums and fill till there's like 5 inches to the top in gallon pickle jar with them. Pour 3 pnds of sugar on top and fill the rest with your shine. Stir once a day for a week and strain. You can repeat the process and use the same plums (fruit), just add more sugar and shine. While you wont have "clear", you'll have more flavor, and be able to keep a high ABV as you want to (as your taste will allow) without having to add a thumper, or running a "fruitier" wine. 
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Thanx for the info, the batch I did was through a thumper......Im really new to this and appreciate the advice......I guess I really didn't know what to expect........It seems like its best to flavor after the fact......I picked 100 lbs of wild plums last fall and juiced them so I'm sitting with a bunch of juice to make wine or brandy with.......Also picked 100 lbs of choke cherries and juiced them......so I got the juice, just wondering the best way to use them........I would really like to make slivovitz .......but really don't know the proper way to do it....thank you again for the advice 
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One more thing to ponder...you said you ran it very slowly, if you ran it on the hotter side which would be faster then it would create the action of pushing or pulling more of the flavor component over with the distillate. Remember, nice and slow gave you a higher proof heart because it left more water behind. Now then if you ran it faster (hotter) it would push or pull more water and hence more flavor into the finished product.
If you took a boiler full and ran it faster and you didn't like the end result of course you could add it back to more juice and rerun it anyway so it's not a total lose.
In my experience if you add one thumper or two it will just make it more and more neutral because it's actually distilling it over and over again so in my opinion a thumper is not the answer, unless you add a gallon of wine to each thumper. To get the most flavor go with the pot still and run it hotter.
Again my opinion...yes for the most flavor adding something after the fact is indeed gonna give the MOST flavor. You can achieve a flavored distillate but depending on how much flavor you want you may want to add your hooch to juice.
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 1 user thanked heeler for this useful post.
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Quote:in my opinion a thumper is not the answer, unless you add a gallon of wine to each thumper. My, bad I should have pointed out that it should be the low wines you want to flavor with. When I bought my copper, I wanted a thumper because I knew it increased the ABV. And you could throw low (wines or backings) into it to flavor. When I asked about adding a 2nd thumper he told me that "thumpers actually refines your product. Collecting your reflux action and preventing it from running back down into you boiler. So its essentially re-distillation of your product. Adding a 2nd one is not going to increase it another 10% -15%, you'd get only get more of a 2 to 5% increase, since it's already been refined. Running a 2nd thumper would be something you'd only really want to do to add flavor and take more sulfates out of your product." I know higher ABV your still can produce means less flavor but...It did kind of makes sense to me as what he was trying to relay. Adding one gallon to my thumper and running fast would cause trouble for me it seems. I'm always afraid of getting into a puking situation. Yet. I like what the thumper does. I think no matter what , using one is a learning experience. If you can deal with the long runtime they create. I'm also wondering Turko if your blending your low and high hearts together? Sometimes just a little hint (running a little deeper, make smaller cuts at the end) into your feint isn't a bad thing. Esp. if it's really good wine. And maybe start thinking about saving your backset from your boiler to add even more flavor to your next runs of the same wines.
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thank you for the suggestions, I really don't want to run it fast because i am very very new at this and will probably screw things up.....you guys are very helpful......another question...just wondering if anyone puts a thermometer on their thumper. It seems to me that that is where your critical temp is.........Im doing the half pint thing through my run(which is a awesome way to do it) and i know temp isn't super critical doing it this way but still it seems it would be nice for temp control ? thanks again for the help!!!!! 
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Mine don't even have a thermometer on the boiler. I don't think there really necessary. When I first started I used a temp gun. But anymore I go by sound and feeling around the copper. The "thump" even tells me a little as to how much is in my thumper. If it sounds like someone is blowing threw a straw, I know it's pretty empty. If I hear long belching, I know it's taking awhile for the bubbles to hit the top of my thumper.
To me it's not so much how hot, but how much and how fast my thumper is filling up. After you start doing it awhile, I bet you'll hardly look at your gage to see how "hot" you are. However, I'm sure that it has been done is some form or fashion. Many swear by going by temps. They can tell you how long it's going take them to run, at what speed, and a hour by hour of what abv% they should be at.
But I don't think I'd stick one on my thumper. I don't even think I'll ever stick one on my boiler. If they made one that told me how full my thumper was, I'd be interested.
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