Tell us about your mistakes.

[shadylane]

"This thread is just a place for people to dell every one else what an idiot they have been. Not a good place to get answers."
I'll have you know, I resemble that statement. What fuck-ups have you made?

[Richard7]

"This thread is just a place for people to dell every one else what an idiot they have been. Not a good place to get answers."
I'll have you know, I resemble that statement. What fuck-ups have you made?

To many to mention! But it all seems to work out in the end, even a ruined batch makes good ant killer and or stove fuel!

My best one as of late, pouring a citric based macerate down a copper housed filter system to try to clear it up! The only thing it cleared up was the filter! The distillate looked like THIS.. umpa lumpa doopie de do.

[Thump35]

When I first started distilling I was trying to go the cheap route. I picked up a 6.5 gal carboy and a rubber stopper. Put it in a ten gal stainless bucket with two gal of water on the bottom with a survival blanket draped around the top to keep the heat in. Picked up some 3/8" soft copper pipe and made a coil down into a two gal trash can. It actually produced really well. Did a quart an hour after only an hour to get to temp. Tasted like acrid smoke. So I refined it a bit. cut a foot of one inch copper pipe and stuck it in the top of the carboy so it didn't go past the neck and mixed up an old flour glue to seal the neck (By the time it got up to temp the glue was rock hard). From the top of the one inch I ran it into an elbow sealed with the same flour glue and necked it down to half inch then down into the same bucket. Tasted much better. Ive since upgraded and am going to build a thumper tomorrow.

[frozenthunderbolt]

Took the wrap off my boiler before moving it out of the way instead of after. I'm now the proud owner of a pair of parallel burns on my bicep from the ridges on it.

[Grappa-Gringo]

Ever hear the song LOLA from the KINKS?....... lol..... no just kidding.... thought it was funny....
gg

[BourbonStreet]

I've done 10-15 successful 5 gallon runs of UJSSM on a propane cooker, with no major problems. The last couple had no vapor leaks at all, and made some nice 65% hearts. This time, I had a couple of small leaks, but when I tried clamping them down, it only got worse. I reached over for my flour paste, and the whole thing lit up like a blowtorch!

I instantly shut all the valves off and killed the flame. I have a fire extinguisher and a bucket of water, but thankfully, I didn't need them. After patching the leaks, I had to start all over again, and had to take out more foreshots for the feints jar.

After that, I still had a pretty good run, and only lost maybe 20% overall...

[holeinwalldistl]

So I have been slowly building my still for some time now and my coworker said he has been stilling for some time and invited me over to make some shine... He was so happy with his setup and how he stilled.... Not a good setup lots of rubber hoses and no cuts he gave me half what we made so I had the smart idea of nuke aging to get rid of some of the nasty heads well got in a hurry threw the shine in the microwave and toasted some chips on the stove pulled the shine out and put o. Counter top and dumped the chips in and watched it boil all over counter wasted half quart of bad shine so no big lost

[bassman]

Turbo yeast!!!
Yuck. Nasty crap right there. Tried it in a batch of lemon and it never went off. Pitched some champagne yeast in and got things going nicely. When it finished, it had a not-so-pleasant smell. Tasted like a moldy dish rag smells. Ran it anyway thinking I might lose the smell. It did not! Makes for an AWESOME bonfire trick though

[pfshine]

Well my mistake was trusting an old fermenting bucket handle. I racked off about 6 gallons into the bucket and picked it up to place it higher to siphon into my boiler right about when i got it to where i wanted it the handle broke off and 6 gal of damn fine ag went all over me and my floor. So much work just for my concrete to drink it.

[Truckinbutch]

Well my mistake was trusting an old fermenting bucket handle. I racked off about 6 gallons into the bucket and picked it up to place it higher to siphon into my boiler right about when i got it to where i wanted it the handle broke off and 6 gal of damn fine ag went all over me and my floor. So much work just for my concrete to drink it.

Easy mistake to make . Hard to clean up I keep a large box of cat litter handy to absorbe awshits like that .

[ga flatwoods]

Tonight I let the pressure off of the 15.5 gal keg I had stored some grape wine in after I thought it was through working off. Wrong! I had to take a short piece of 1x4 board and place a short section of 1/2" pipe on the ball and lever it downward until the pressure was released. It had built up enough pressure that I lost half the keg volume before depleating the pressure! I could have had champagne but was afraid to tsp that keg! Now I have some brandy to make with whats left. Reminder to self: Before doing that again make sure to use potassium sorbate well in advance of keggingin this manner!
GA Flatwoods

[Sling_Blade]

1st try at making a mash using the sweet feed recipe from this sight. my thermometer wigged out on me and I burnt the mash to the bottom of the pan and stunk up the house

[Spokerider]

Well a few weeks ago I tried distress ageing some rum. I put a pot half filled with water on my gas fired stove top. I then placed a demijohn 1/4 full with 85% rum and oak chips into that. I let it heat up until the water was about to boil, turned off the gas, then lifted the demijohn out. The sudden change in temperature caused the bottom to crack off causing the whole lot to dump out all over the stove and on the floor. I hate to imagine what would of happened if the flame was still on. Needless to say it cleaned the stove and part of the linoleum up a treat.

Lesson learned!!

Yep, those and carboy's ain't meant to be heated, or have heated liquids inside. Mine say so on the bottom of them.

[gatorpit]

everyone should have a good chuckle when i get some build pics up, was just up in the interior for a cuppla weeks doin the fall thing and in my down time i built a nice little 30 degree miter box to cut in my plate inserts, got back and got rite down to cutting, took a good time measuring the pipe to ensure they would be where they should, made the bottom cut first, beautiful, rite on the mark, flipped the pipe to cut in the top plate, had it all lined up nice on my marks, started to cut, well the rope grab i use to secure the pipe slipped as i was cutting, off course i didn't notice till i was done and voila, I've cut a beautiful spiral down into the bottom plate, i had spaced the plates at 3/4 so i re positioned the pipe an 1/8 below the original cut and hit it again, it worked out fine, i'm gonna slide a short coupling over the damage when i fit the plate in, the extra wall thickness may make it a little sturdier for the therm insert and i reckon when im soldering the sleeve it should suk in enough to seal up nice, long and short, oops,

[yellowdog]

Had a stainless steel pot with binder clips... worked good as a pot still got a lot of runs on it decided to add a thumper... satarted sacrificial run and the lid started to thump just as I shut the propane off I got one good size fire ball... good thing it was just starting to heat up... to resolve this problem I built a copper pot ... need a bigger one anyway

[BourbonStreet]

I did a stripping run a few days ago, saved a jar of hearts, and blended the rest. That night, I had a sip of the hearts, and it tasted funny. It wasn't smooth at all. Tried it again, and it still didn't taste right. I switched to some other stuff I had instead.

The next day, I woke up with a horrible headache. I've had migraines before that weren't that bad. I never get hung over, especially on my own stuff. I soon realized I drank some of my feints!

I had a huge sip of methanol, and who knows what else. Thankfully, the ethanol I had right afterward probably lessened the effect. Still, it was a whole day before I got rid of that headache.

[K-basi]

After introducing myself almost a year ago, I have made slow and steady progress. Started with a small, stove-top pressure cooker to prove I could build something, upgraded soon after to a 3 gallon SS pot with binder clips and am now the proud owner of a keg bolier with pot still attachment and 5' packed column with combo take-off's.

I have enjoyed reading this thread more than any other as it has made me feel much better about myself and the stupid things I have learned from over the past year.

Here is a "highlight reel" of my 2013 blunders:

1. If you notice the flour paste on your column is nicely toasting from the outside in a rapid fashion, you probably have a small vapor leak that is on fire. This is not good.

2. Leaving your undrained condenser coil outside when the temp. is below freezing is a bad idea. Restarting your run the next day without checking everything over is also a bad idea. I couldn't figure out why my cooling pump was running fine, but none of the cooling water was getting returned. After 15 min of thinking and checking all the fittings (While the pump was running), I pulled the condenser coil only to find my cooling water flowing out of the burst coil and down my column into my keg.

3. Finished a 5 gallon SF run last week. Collected the harts for aging and put all the heads and tails into a 1 gallon glass wine jug for a future reflux run. Didn't leave any headroom and put the jug in the basement. I can't believe how far those shards of thick glass can travel! Also it is very difficult to get the stink out of porous concrete. wife=pissed

4. Used a gallon of my first great neutral to make apple pie a couple weeks ago. Came out about 25%. A sip here and a sip there as I was working around the yard and I suddenly have no memory of my Saturday night.

Good times!

[Prairiepiss]

Those glass jugs do make a mess. Don't they. I think I already posted why I know that.

I had a little incident the other day. It was stillin equipment. But I wasn't stillin.
My water heater went out on us. Of course I didn't have the funds to fix it right then. So I had the bright idea to use my boiler. To heat up some water. I used a pump to go from the drain on the boiler to the drain on the hot water tank. I then tan a hose from the outlet back into the boiler. Shut the cold water supply off. Open the other valves and turn on the pump. Circulates the water through the boiler heating it up. Workers pretty slick. It would heat up the 40 gallon water heater to around 120 in two hours.

Well in order to do it I have to close two valves and open two. Then turn the pump on and the element. Reverse when done. I forgot to turn the element back off. It boiled the water away. And burned up the element. I was pissed. So I have two elements in my boiler. Was only using the one. So I hooked up the other one. The very next day. The hose fell out of the boiler. So the pump just pumped all the water out and down the drain. Guess what. Yep burned out the other element. @%$&?@&$?@?#&&*@?#*&@*.

All I have to say is. Who ever started saying the uld wavy elements can be dry fired. Is full of shit. And they make a mess when they burn out.

[OlympicMtDoo]

Can't ya just jack the waterheater tank up a little and put yer turker kooker under it PP

[Prairiepiss]

Can't ya just jack the waterheater tank up a little and put yer turker kooker under it PP

I wish.

By the way its all fixed now. Was just a temp fix to get US through.

[Jimbo]

That sucks P! No good deed goes unpunished.

Camco advertises them as being able to fire in sand. I think thats their definition of dry fire. Cause everyone has a hotwater heater full of sand?

[Mr Shine]

Didn't realize a bucket of UJ had like 8 inches of corn in it (for some reason). Put normal amount of sugar in it and after a few days, the SG was still high (1.04) while other buckets from that time were done. Just poured half the liquid and a pot full of the trub into another bucket and added water to both. Should turn out fine. Hopefully the yeasties didn't get too stressed and shit in my drink.

[WDE]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMAiiM8ZzIE

[shadylane]

WDE, what were you fermenting?
Most of my mistakes like that are usually found after having time to make a bigger mess.

[NZChris]

Wanting to aerate my rum wash I connected the air stone to the suction side of my modified aerator pump that is no longer stocked by my supplier.

[Odin]

Dropped a 20 liter glass carboy to the floor with 12 liters of 40% Zubrowka in it. It broke and everything smells. Hate that. Not the smell, but that it is now spoiled.

Odin.

[Jimbo]

Dropped a 20 liter glass carboy to the floor with 12 liters of 40% Zubrowka in it. It broke and everything smells. Hate that. Not the smell, but that it is now spoiled.

Odin.

Tragic. Sorry for your loss.

[Azure]

Reran some corn shine I didn't care for. One of the jars had been flavored with cinnamon sticks. That flavor came over in the tails and has been lingering in the boka. It's almost gone now but the packing needs replaced.

[Jimbo]

Didnt wash my cracked corn and feedgrade wheat. And things stopped fermenting with batches bought in the winter. Apparently they add anti fungals so things dont get funky in the damp winter. Wash your feedgrade grains before using them.

There's a thread on this here http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 3#p7141178

[ga flatwoods]

Jimbo how much your stuff it take to defungicide yourself?