Hello From FL

[FL Brewer]

Hi gang, I've been a lurker and voracious consumer of all the great knowledge here for several years. I've been a beer brewer (extract and all grain) for 25 years, and as my taste for good whiskey developed, I thought I would like to try making some. I'm a reasonably capable handyman, certainly not a craftsman, but not all thumbs either. I'm an engineer, so I love to research, analyze, experiment.... distilling has so many pieces to understand, it's a very attractive challenge. I'm comfortable with mashing and fermenting, so I guess I had a head start into the hobby.

I've been running bourbon style whiskey and I think I've learned about 30% of what I know about distilling by doing it, and the other 70% from this site..... that would've been more like a 10/90 split if I read more earlier..... I usually mash about 20 lbs of grain (10 lbs of corn, 3-4 rye, and 6-7 two row malted barley, and add 10 lbs of sugar after the fermentation slows after a couple days. I've finally gotten to where my friends and I think my bourbon is up to the mid priced store bought whiskey quality. I may finally be at the point where I might be able to share the odd, small useful bit of my experience with the group so I joined up.

I made a short copper column (about 30 inches) that I run without packing for beer stripping and with ceramic ring packing for the final run. I have an 11 gal milk can for a boiler. I know the whiskey purists frown on a reflux run, but it's a little easier for me to judge the cuts, they seem to happen quicker (compared to my first couple batches I ran without the packing), so I notice the change before I've missed the optimum cut point. I age in 1 gal glass jugs with charred pieces of a Jack Daniels barrel I picked up at Lowe's. The last batch that turned our real well was on wood for 30 weeks, stress aged, two gallon jugs swapped in and out of the freezer almost every day.

I look forward to continuing to drink at the well of knowledge of this site, especially while drinking a nice glass of homebrew bourbon. Hope I didn't bore you with too many details.

FL Brewer

[Dantuss]

Welcome! Looking good!

[FL Brewer]

Thanks Dantuss, yours too..... like I said, I'm not a craftsman, so the pick is low res.... ain't pretty, but it doesn't leak. And of course, it wouldn't be a proper hillbilly contraption without the duct tape holding the insulation in place.

[dieselduo]

Welcome ! There's a lot of us here from Florida

[acfixer69]

Welcome FL Brewer looking at the pic is that hose making the bend at the end of the condenser?

AC

[jon1163]

Welcome

[FL Brewer]

acfixer69, yes that's piece of silicone hose exiting the condenser making the bend. The material datasheets I've read show that it's impervious to ethanol, at least near room temperature. I don't have any silicone in the hot vapor path (which a bunch of posts I've read here say is a no-no).

Do you think it's an issue for room temp/warm distillate?

[acfixer69]

Absolutely a problem. Rule 8 not debate

AC

[FL Brewer]

Hmm, OK will abide by rule 8, and look for an alternative solution.

[nuntius01]

welcome, post a pick of your rig below, looks great