First time distiller

[billb0925]

A couple of questions. First, my product is a little cloudy right out of the still - no cut yet. Second, what is the general ratio of liquid in the still to product? I started with a little more than a gallon and a half - four cups cornmeal, four cups sugar, one packet of yeast, fill a two gallon bucket to within a couple of inches from the top. I put it on and got a little product going, but it took 9-10 hours at 200 F to produce about 12 ounces of product after tossing the first two. Is that about right? I am worried I might be getting the tails in my product.

[Dnderhead]

one lb of suar per gal=7% ,,,.07x 148oz=10.3oz of totle alcohol..of this 1/2-1/3 will be kept.

[NcHooch]

isn't two cups sugar roughly equal to 1 pound? ...
Can we assume you let it ferment out completely ....for say 1 week?
...seems like you shoulda got more than 12 oz ..
what kinda still were you using? ....what ABV were you collecting?

cloudy usually means you were running it too hard and smeared the tails into the rest of the run.
The good news is, it aint ruined, you can mix with water and run it again .

[billb0925]

Thanks for the info. I let my mash ferment for five days, and it seemed to be ready. I used a 12 quart stainless steel stockpot. Drilled two holes in the top and put rubber stoppers in - one for the thermometer (turkey fryer) and one for the copper tubing. I used 1/2 inch ID copper pipe, two feet up, 90 degree joint, three inches more 1/2 inch pipe to a 45 degree down joint, and then another three and a half feet of 1/2 inch copper pipe. I joined that to ten feet of 3/8 ID copper tubing that I put into the cooling bucket. Probably overkill, and it was a pain to build, but I had read that the more copper you could get the steam to go through, the better. I made the connections with lead free solder, although I made a mess of that before I finally got all the joints sealed. The product started dripping around 170 or so, but then stopped. I let it get up to 205 and it started producing again, although at an intermittent pace. I'd get a little drip and then it would stop for a few minutes. I think I probably need to find a conical top to my pot, or at least move the stopper with the pipe in it to the center of the top instead of just off center opposite the thermometer. As far as the tails are concerned, I moved the main collection jar after it had stopped producing for awhile and replaced it just in case it started up again and it never did, so I may have had some of the tail in the jar. I don't have any other product to compare the taste, and I'm certainly not an expert on what it should taste like, but it seemed fine to me.

Another question: Is there usually a lot of mash left after the alcohol has been collected? It seemed like I had almost as much as I started with. I guess if it was only 7% to begin with then I wouldn't have that much of it gone when the alcohol cooked out.

[Dnderhead]

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=11640

[rad14701]

Drilled two holes in the top and put rubber stoppers in - one for the thermometer (turkey fryer) and one for the copper tubing.

Yum...!!! Rubber... Not...!!!

Please see The Rules We Live By... You don't see stills here using synthetics for good reason... < HINT >