Hydrometer

[toofless one]

Hey! I am new to distilling, just ran my first batch (20L+/-) of rum through my pot still. It turned out ok, did the trick, but I think I could have gotten more out of the batch. I yielded about 750ml plus a half mason jar of "hearts" (pretty sure it was hearts). Have about a half a mason jar of fients, which smells somethin awful. I have read in some books that a hydrometer is not necessary and in one book it is even frowned heavily upon, says it gives a false sense of security. Any thoughts?

[LWTCS]

I agree that a hydro will not allow you to measure the quality of your taste.

If it taste good to you, then it is good (for you). The hydro can not make that call.
It can only measure ABV.

Had some a while back @ 70% that was much better than the 85% and so forth and so on.

[blanikdog]

What was your recipe? We can't tell you much about your yield without knowing what you put into it. It does seem low for 20 litres of wash. What was the OG and FG of your wash?

And what LW said about a hydrometer and taste.

blanik

[toofless one]

I made my wash with 8lbs of dark brown sugar, 1/4 cup honey, 2 oz of highly active bakers yeast and about 5 gallons total of water. They were left to ferment for 14 days, however i live in a cold climate. the temp prolly never got about 62F. The wash in one bucket still tasted kinda sweet, I think it could have gone a bit longer. the bubbling was quite vigorous the entire two weeks. looking back, due to the fact it was a cold ferment and the wash was slightly sweet still (and bubbling), it could have gone longer. now i think im starting to answer my own question....a hydrometer would tell me if my wash was done. see, the book i was reading was real keen on homemade devices and apparatuses and frowned greatly upon hydrometers. the focus of the book was mainly coming out at the end with a finished product.

so, getting a hydrometer would take the guess work out of "when fermentation is complete" and help make my cuts, right?

[Usge]

so, getting a hydrometer would take the guess work out of "when fermentation is complete" and help make my cuts, right?

Well, sort of, but not exactly. There are 2 different kinds of hydrometers...one that measures ABV (alc %) and other that measures sugar potential in wash/mash that you are going to ferment by measuring where it starts...(starting gravity SG) and where it ends (terminating gravity, or TG) and subtracting one from the other can give you your potential alc yield. It can also "help" tell you when your fermentation might be finished. They are 2 different instruments though. (one for measuring alc abv in distilled spirits and the other to measure sugar/alc potential in your wash/mash that you are fermenting)

All a proof hydro can tell you is what proof is coming out of the still at a given point in time — not that in and of itself that is not handy info. It can give you a general idea of where you are in a run, particularly if you run the same thing over and over the same way. But, it can't tell you what that distillate tastes like. You have to work for your cuts every time. Sometimes it's suggested for people just starting out that certain cuts are made at certain numbers or percentages. The truth is...those numbers change (sometimes dramatically) just depending upon what you are starting out with in your pot, what kind of still you have, and how you run it. I've had tails at 77% before. I've had nice tasting stuff (hearts) at 77%. I've had heads at 77%. It just depends on too many variables. If you have a simple pot still, depending on what you are running, you might never ever reach 80% to start with!! So, just keep this in mind and use your senses/taste/smell even AS you are learning and monitoring things along the way. It also helps if you keep detailed notes on every run..so you can go back and cross ref data from various runs. So, it's not that they aren't handy...they are. But, I wouldn't use one to make my cuts. Use your own taste/senses for that.

[Hawke]

The beer/wine hydro is a good tool for doing new washes. It can definately keep you from making major goofs with sugar quantities or running a wash too early.
I prefer a proof hydro when running the still. (Not for cuts as much as where the run is at) Much easier than a thermo and chart.

[Dnderhead]

hydrometers/alcohol meters and thermomaters, are tools, can be used to your advantage,more so on a column still,
but just like a wrinch it wont do the work for you, you have to do that yourself. you can set a wrinch on the finder
and tell it to fix your car and nothing going to happon and having fancy tools makes no differance if you don't know
how to use them.

beer/wine hydrometers are grate for a wash, espcialy making your own reicpes like in fruit mash,as you mite not
know the sugar contant or if any sugar if left in the wash.

a alcohol meter/proof hydrometer is a good thing to have for cutting as what taste ok for you mite be "hot" for someone else.
it is also good to tell if it is time to sample but it cant tell if it taste or smels good.

[rad14701]

Honey, even in small amounts, can have adverse effects on yeast... Due to the complex chemical composition of honey, even from comb to comb, based on the pollen collected, how yeast react to it is unpredictable... For this reason I've never used honey other than when making mead, and the last time I make mead was many years ago... I'm not saying that honey was the definitive reason for the slow ferment, but it could have been a contributing factor...

[Hawke]

Honey will inhibit any microbial growth. That is why most mead ferments take forever to finish.
Taste, smell and feel are the only indicators for cuts.

[toofless one]

Does the fact that the wash was still sweet when I ran it tell me anything about how far along the ferment was? Thanks alot for all your help guys. This is a great source of information and everyone here is just too cool and helpful (unlike alot of other forum websites). Thanks again fellers.

[LWTCS]

Sweet means it was not done.

Dry like dry wine is done. Don't need a hydro to taste sweet or dry either.

You'll get it. Your doin good.

[toofless one]

So I reckon that there are two possibilites that could lead to my slow ferment: Possibly the use of honey and definietly the low temp, ~60f. Am I about right on this assumption?

[Dnderhead]

yep, both will do it.

[rad14701]

When you distill what you've got just try not to get the boiler foaming due to unconverted sugar... Aside from foaming things should go fine...

Good luck...

[toofless one]

No, I never got any foaming. My dad gave me a heating pad (among other things) for christmas. I have it wrapped around my carboy thats fermenting dwwg. The temp is around 72F and the ferment is still bubbling strong. Last night I noticed it didnt taste very sweet anymore. Im planning on letting it ferment until it stops bubbling then rack it off and put it in a bucket in the snow for a few days before i make my run. Seem like a sound plan?

[rad14701]

Sounds like a plan... Keep us posted...

[toofless one]

Bubbling has stopped as of this morning. Tasted wash and it has no sweetness to it . Gunna rack it off today when I get home and place it in the snow till it settles.

[toofless one]

Got an update. Ran the dwwg last nite. all went well except for one thing...there were these little black floatys coming out in the distillate. I filtered them through with a coffe filter then did my spirit run. all was well after that...but WTF were these floaties?

[rubber duck]

Got an update. Ran the dwwg last nite. all went well except for one thing...there were these little black floatys coming out in the distillate. I filtered them through with a coffe filter then did my spirit run. all was well after that...but WTF were these floaties?

Solid black like flakes or transparent black?

[toofless one]

solid black. not see thru. seem almost oily, but solid. like soil particles. all my equipment is clean. best i can come up with is there is some very small wheat germ particles making their way up with the distillate.

[rubber duck]

If your spirit run was clean wheat germ would be my guess also. A little wheat germ won't hurt you. If it was transparent like oil on water then I would guess flux. This is just a guess so use your own best judgment on whether or not to drink it.

I have used way to much flux on my rigs before and had to run them three times to get them clean. That doesn't sound like what you had coming out of yours but it's something to consider.

[toofless one]

yea, my equipment was all clean, the gasket on the cooker lid wasnt coming apart, so the germ is the best guess ive got as well. thanks