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I dont usually bother to check the ph. Only if its not fermenting well, and then I usually just put another tablespoon of Calcium Carbonate in the wash

You from the northwest of oz??

OK, round two.
Backwash went into the fermenter approx 40L, some calcium carbonate, 2L molasses, 500ml fancy molasses, 2kg sugar. On top of previous wash, with a little bread yeast added, Waterc up to 50L. Its going off..
Bacteria in 36-48 hours...

I would have listened to the guys running pot stills.

I would have trusted that turbos are shit..

I would have listened to the guys running pot stills.

I would have built my VM long after a pot still, when I had some feints to run..

I would have listened to the guys running pot stills.

The 4th fraction went into the rum. Only trouble is that the %abv is lower than normal. Probably 58%. usually I get about 65%. Note.. I do the 4th fraction by taste. It is supposed to run from 37% down to 30%, but if you taste it you can get the cuts right.. BTW I just tasted the last rum and it tas...

OK, time to run this thing. I just put 40L of it into my boiler, with another 2L into the thumper. Saved about 18L into a clearing cube. as a beer. I do this with my rums and UJSSM in case I get an infected wash and need to toss it out. I can then grab one of the old washes and use it as backset for...

wash2.JPG The wash looks like a normal rum wash now, the film has gone. Dpit2.JPG I added some wash to the dunder container, so it has yeast and bacteria now. Smell is very heavy and complex. Will run in the next couple of days. Had a great suggestion though, I should take off some wash at 7% as a ...

Put the final 4KG raw sugar in yesterday. Looks like I left it too long and the yeast population has declined, hit it with a bit more bread yeast but its going slowly. Total calculated ABV about 11%. Its looking like a normal wash now, a little filmy but fairly normal. The smell is getting better an...

Dpit.JPG This is the source of the bacteria Wash.JPG The wash. Its fermenting well, looks better than yesterday. Initially I left the PH low to encourage the bacteria, once it had a good hold I corrected and the yeast took off.. You cant really see it in this pic but there is a kind of film over th...

I have just run off my first distillation from my dunder pit. I have documented it on another forum, but S&S asked me to post here. I wanted to follow the arroyo patent and do the full dunder pit thing. So got some dunder (backset) put it in a pot, covered it with cheese cloth and left it outsid...

Do a HD Google Search (top right) and look for vapor management. Adding essences to vodka is going to be about as good as it sounds. I tried it once.. Foul stuff.. and expensive.. :roll: To make bourbon try the UJSSM recipe. http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=725 Run it through ...

Thanks all to the replies. Trouble with making my own is that I do not have access to a mig welder and to do a good job it's probably going to cost me around $500 in materials and then I need to find someone to weld it together. You dont have to have a mig, A small gas torch from bunnings is all yo...

I have run both. A boka is easier to build, but harder to run. A VM is harder to build but easier to run. I currently run a VM coz i like building stuff that works. You have to decide what you like. Some like fiddling with the still the whole run, some like set and forget. I like something that just...

I agree Barney, I have run 1" inside 1 1/2" and 1/2" inside 3/4. The 1/2 inside 3/4 works best because it has a turbulator inside it. Water is so efficient at pulling heat away that the size of your liebig is not as important as avoiding laminar flow..

Try these guys for second hand corny kegs $60 each if you buy more than one. http://www.craftbrewer.com.au/shop/details.asp?PID=898" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Otherwise I get 5L glass demijohns from my LHBS for $12.50AU each.

would help if you tell us where in Oz you are. If you are in WA, I have a couple spare.

50L keg is the standard size, very useful.

Use the easy flange to connect your keg to the still. Do a HD Google search (top right) and enter "easy flange". Buttwheat also posted easy flange 2

I agree with goose eye, wheat is where the vodka taste comes from. I save up all my feints and any hearts I am looking to make into vodka. Then boil up some wheat say 3kg, mash with some malted barley say 1kg, add to 20L water and use bread yeast. Once it has fermented, then throw in all your feints...

Great info, olddog, good to hear the experimental results.
I wonder though, if returning the heads is the go. Would it work better if the heads where just taken off as they came out?

If you are doing a sugar wash, then you really need to screw every ounce of flavor out of your wash. Other wise you are making vodka..

Use it all up...

You can also do a partial mash, like they do in beer brewing. You get a lot of the flavor with a fraction of the work. My variant of the UJSSM. Each ferment gets 1kg corn, 1/2kg rye meal and 1/2kg malted barley for conversion. Boil water, add corn and rye, stir like mad. when it hits 68C add barley....

As I posted earlier, I dont think its the congeners in the product giving it flavor (well not in a fractionating column). Its water soluble flavorings that come across with the 5% water. The whole point of what we do here is to eliminate the congeners as much as possible to make a better quality pro...

Hi Bagasso, I think what you are saying is that there is a "soup" of molecules in the wash, and when the ethanol boils off it will drag some of the soup with it. That doesn't really happen because the alcohols are not separate in the wash, they form compounds with specific physical propert...

I'm on 10th gen and still think i need more.. I would wait until you are further along..

Oh and BTW I use close to 100% backwash with a bit of calcium carbonate for PH leveling.

Define "flavor"? Even 96% ethyl has flavor, the flavor of ethyl alcohol. True, I find it tastes sweet, with a int of banana's :ebiggrin: I find the thumper produces little flavor at the start (depending on what is in the thumper) Most of the flavor is produced from halfway through the run...

IMO there isn't even a 'need' to remove foreshots when stripping.h Some prefer too, but it's not nessesary as long as you make good cuts at some point in your process. Afterall, foreshots are just the strongest part of heads right? My understanding is that the only reason we talk about them in isol...

I find there is a noticeable difference in taste between a vodka and a neutral. If I run my rum and or UJSSM feints through the reflux, I get a neutral product with a very slight rum or corn whiskey taste. Fine for mixing up with mixers for cocktails etc. If I do a wheat and or barley sugar wash and...

SG is too high, Barney is right, wait for at LEAST a week. Trust me, I do more than a brew a week.

You don't mention the temps you are fermenting at. If you bottle at 1020 the bottles will likely explode. and yes, you can explode the PET plastic bottles..

Cheers

Hi HT, 1. Sounds right 2. Pushing your yeast to 22% abv is asking a lot of your yeast. They will probably throw some off tastes. if you aim for 10% to 12% you will get much faster ferments, with a cleaner product. My grape washes ferment out to dry in 2 to 3 days at 12%. The higher the ABV the lower...

+1
Thank you HD, almost everything I know about distilling I learnt here!

Cheers

I use a column to take off the heads, real quick!

Then I put on the Thumper and run off the hearts, saves me about 2 hours..