Home Distiller

Yes it does dissolve completely, but it is only because I crush them up. They are in fact a slow release fertilizer, little pellets encased in a vegetable oil coating. I have not tried my tap water, everything has worked so well with the Walmart water, I'm sceard to try anything else at the present time.

My question is about what Samohon wrote above in the recipe he is using above are you stripping 200 ml foreshots the first run and not taking any in a second run and why not wait till the second run? Also at what point are you stripping down the mash meaning what percent alcohol is all the spirits you collected have in abv when down and about how much you collect from your 40L mash in the stripping run (1/3 perhaps or 1/5 of the mash volume?).

lucky_jkl wrote:My question is about what Samohon wrote above in the recipe he is using above are you stripping 200 ml foreshots the first run and not taking any in a second run and why not wait till the second run?

You can wait till the second run. Try both methods, then do what suits you.

lucky_jkl wrote:My question is about what Samohon wrote above in the recipe he is using above are you stripping 200 ml foreshots the first run and not taking any in a second run and why not wait till the second run? Also at what point are you stripping down the mash meaning what percent alcohol is all the spirits you collected have in abv when down and about how much you collect from your 40L mash in the stripping run (1/3 perhaps or 1/5 of the mash volume?).

I collect until the collection vessel reaches 40% abv. I don't concern myself with how much I collect, as quality is more important than volume.

Thanks for the response NZChris!

Iv ran gen 2 over the Christmas there. Had enough from one and two to do a small feints run also. I know its special from tasting it white already. This will definitely be left to age properly.
Well done. It's a superb method.

Edit: i clicked the wrong thread my post is meant for the sweetfeed thread. Although this is on my to do list too.

Looking for some advice from some experience with this recipe...
Just pot stilled my first spirit run (second distillation ) of this Birdwatchers. The hearts smell neutral, but the distillate has a funky underlying tomato paste flavor. It's not subtle, but it's not pronounced.
Do I need to pot distill the hearts a third time to get a clean neutral flavor, or will I have a hard time removing it?

The Booze Pipe wrote:...Do I need to pot distill the hearts a third time to get a clean neutral flavor, or will I have a hard time removing it?

Dilute and rerun. It will clean up the flavor with each successive distillation. A reflux column would do it for you in a single pass.

Out of curiosity, how much tomato paste did you add? Whenever I've used it you couldn't even taste the tomatos in the ferment, let alone the distillate.
ss

My notes say i used 29 ounces (a large can) of paste. Volume was 21 gallons. OG was 1.090.

The Booze Pipe wrote:My notes say i used 29 ounces (a large can) of paste. Volume was 21 gallons. OG was 1.090.

I overfilled my boiler a bit once and the wash bubbled up and left a red (IE tomato) residue all over the inside of the condenser. The following run had a red tinge and slight off flavour. Could this be the case for you?

It's a possibility. Although, I haven't noticed a red color in the spirit. My boiler is 13.2 gal and I only strip 10 gal at a time. Leaving decent head space for most washes.

The Booze Pipe wrote:The hearts smell neutral, but the distillate has a funky underlying tomato paste flavor.

What? I'm confused.

How did you do your cuts?
I have managed to make a tomato flavored spirit, but it took redistilling the feints to do it and the heart cut from the spirit run had no discernible tomato to it.

OK are you trying to make a neutral with a pot still, if so test you will need to run it a third time and probably a fourth. Its not you can do that but its not the tool for the job and can take quite a few passes, for this reason most ppl leave the cuts for the final run as each time you cut you do waste some good ethanol and no matter how well you cut low and high wines with a pot your final product with still have fractions. Its just the nature of the beast.

I'm planning a third distillation.
Basically the middle cut I made smells good, but has a tomato flavor. I'm not surprised by this. And I'm definitely not an expert on making cuts, especially with a new recepie. But yes, I'm attempting to make a vodka, Im trying to refrain from using the term "neutral" when operating a pot still.
I appreciate your help guys! So next question. What is the proper procedure to doing a third distillation? I assume I only keep the middle cut from the second run? Dilute and distill, making cuts as I would in a spirit run?
My apologies, I should be researching this.

Edit- researching...

All but a strip is run the same, as stated taste the middle jar and if ya think it needs another run do no cuts. If its done with cut to taste. As you have done cuts in previous runs I'd think your middle should be most

Knock it down to 40%, then run it after reading Kiwistiller's guide to cuts.
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 63&t=13261

I stilled a third time, let it air for a couple days and it turned out decent. Triple distilled is the for sure way to go on a pot

Hey fellow Birdwatchers... Sometimes lemons are expensive where I live, so I tried substituting citric acid. The PH was measured using both lemons and citric acid, and came up close.

My question is, are my calculations correct for substituting citric acid for lemons on the calculator that I updated: http://shuggo.com/birdwatchers/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

It seems to work for me, but some confirmation would be helpful. I hope you're all enjoying the calculator.

No news is good news, I guess...

Undies wrote:Hey fellow Birdwatchers... Sometimes lemons are expensive where I live, so I tried substituting citric acid. The PH was measured using both lemons and citric acid, and came up close.

My question is, are my calculations correct for substituting citric acid for lemons on the calculator that I updated: http://shuggo.com/birdwatchers/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

It seems to work for me, but some confirmation would be helpful. I hope you're all enjoying the calculator.

The acid in lemons is citric, but comes with nutrients. I don't use a calculator or recipe, preferring to check the pH before adding any type of acid or alkali to any ferment I make, then adjust the pH to keep the yeast happy. With my water and ingredients, adding whole clam shells to BWs keeps the pH nice without further additions. Your experience my differ.

you add a clam shell to get the PH closer to 7?

i never had an issue with the PH after the lime or lemon. yeast still works.
i have a water softener. we have hard water here.

i never thought about doing that. since i never had an issue with an acidic wash.

maritime wrote:you add a clam shell to get the PH closer to 7?

No. Without additions, my BW pH is often close to 6.5 so get a squeeze of lemon juice from the tree outside the distillery door.
I often add a few clams after the first day, especially if the pH has dropped under 4.5, as adding them when low pH is already stalling a ferment is just pissing into the wind.

HookLine, temperature using bakers yeast should not be a major issue as bakers yeast has a very high temperature tolerance. It will still run clean at temperatures approaching 50deg C.


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Hi Everyone,

Yesterday I did an 8 Gallon BW, first potstilled made the cuts and then refluxed, the thing that I found out is at first when I potstilled it gave a funky smell and taste, like a minty smell, I should say, I did the fermentation at 30 degrees celcius (82 F)
And starting OG:1.080 when I refuxed evetything went away very natural spirit maybe still a hint at the very end but its ok,
I am wondering are you also facing the same situation ? İs that something to do with the tomato paste does it smell bad and funky at first distillation ?

I often don't bother to taste stripping runs any more. I don't think they are a great indicator of what to expect in your final product unless you have really stuffed up big time.
The BW's that I spirit ran today didn't get tasted at all until I was deciding what to leave out of the cut. Even then, I didn't taste the middle, only the extreme ends, and I'm so confident that I have made good product that I have put the jar away without tasting the final blend.

I understand but I also followed the recipe %100 but did a cold crash at the end which really helped me but still, there was a smell and taste that was not pleasant.

How much copper have you got in your still?

Where is it?

NZChris, I do not have any copper in potstill, but in reflux I have around 32" filled with copper mash packing, it is inside the column. starting just after the boiler, but as I said earlier, the bad smell starts in the 1st pot still run.

artooks wrote:.... but as I said earlier, the bad smell starts in the 1st pot still run.

Maybe you need some copper in that. I've smelled some pretty funky stuff coming out of another distiller's all SS still.

Can you taste the funk in any of the ingredients you are using? Maybe you should try a different wash.

artooks wrote:...I do not have any copper in potstill, but in reflux I have around 32" filled with copper mash packing, it is inside the column. starting just after the boiler, but....the bad smell starts in the 1st pot still run.

Do you suppose the bad smell could be the result of "no copper" in the potstill? FYI- I do!

What have you learned?
ss