My first run

[ERL]

Equipment:

• 27 gallon stainless boiler with 240V heating element
  Stainless reflux tower
  Copper mesh
  15 gallon mashtun
  27 gallon stainless conical fermenter

Recipe:

• 20 lbs 6 row
  10 lbs corn meal (was going for 20 but it was too thick)
  10 lbs sugar
  Lalvin EC-1118 yeast

Creating the mash:

• Cleaned all equipment.
  Boiled corn meal in 7 gallons of water (super, super thick) for 20 minutes.
  Added 2 gallons + of water to get temp to 165 degrees.
  Added 20 lbs of crushed 6 row which dropped temp to about 152.
  Maintained a temp of 148 to 158 for 2 hours.
  Transferred to fermenter (Note: this took about 2 hours because my stainless screen continued to clog with corn mush. I will go with cracked corn in the future)
  Boiled 1.5 gallons of water and added 10 lbs of sugar.
  Added sugar water to fermenter once all liquified.
  Added more water to get about 18 gallons (visual estimate)
  Starting gravity was 1.069
  Waited for temp to hit 90 and pitched 3 packs of yeast.
  Fermented this for 14 days
  I racked off the liquid 2 times to clear
  Ending gravity was 1.011
  ***note: I forgot to add yeast energizer, but all seemed to go well***

Distilling Process:

• Transferred liquid to boiler.
  Turned on heating element with half power.
  Packed tower with copper mesh and ceramic rings.
  Hooked up water.
  Cleaned jars.
  Checked temp.....heating very slowly...turned up to 75% power
  Waiting....waiting...temp at 169.
  Turned heat back to 50% power.
  Opened water valve to get reflux working
  Boiler temp stabilized at 174. Tower temp stayed at 63 degrees for about 40 mins.
  Tower started to slowly increase....tweaked water flow for awhile to get tower temp (above reflux coil) to 173.
  The drips are a coming.....
  Collected 10 ounces (heavy solvent smell)
  Colledted another 6 ounces (light solvent smell with hint of popcorn)
  Collected another 4 ounces (mostly a popcorn smell)
  Collected another 4 ounces (still a popcorn smell)
  Collected another 4 and still a popcorn smell.
  Dropped the first 20 ounces and collected another 4 quarts
  On a partial 5th quart, the tower temp hit 192 so I stopped.
  Tested efficiency.....WOW...180 proof....I'm impressed

Final thoughts:
Although the smell isn't offensive, I'm thinking I had a mild scorch with such a popcorn presence in the smell. Maybe that is just how it is suppose to smell......not really sure. I did some sample tasting along the way and I'm very happy with my first run. I'm thinking of running it thru some charred oak cubes and letting it sit for 30 days.

Erl

[SoMo]

The corn always comes thru, tastes like corn whiskey. Try aging some white too, I'm finding I like it that way too, them if you over oak you can dilute it with the white. Congrats and good luck.

[Truckinbutch]

Read up on nuclear ageing . 3 sessions (4 minutes each for me in my microwave) of a quart will drasticly change flavor profiles and mouthfeel . Shortcut on long term ageing to see where you are . Works on bare white dog or with oak sticks .

[HDNB]

after all that work, you may want to consider going deeper into the tails for a better yield. don't sweat the temperature, look at ABV output vs. energy/time input.
save the stuff you don't like from the first run for a future spirit run.

sounds like a resounding success anyway!

[ERL]

Thanks for all the feedback.......I will certainly review the microwave trick and fully intend on using ABV to gauge progress.