Home Distiller

Move to New Zealand, you can distill what you want for personal use and you can bring stills into the country too. Having said that we tend to export a lot of stills to the USA too. They get exported as water purifiers and associated equipment. Talking to the vendors none has ever been confiscated b...

Further to my earlier post, New Zealand is not alone, in Austria, Italy, Russia, Romania, Bulgaria, and the Ukraine it is also perfectly legal to home distil for personal use, in Australia it is legal as long as your maximum batch size is 5L but elsewhere like the USA for example, it is not As far a...

Yes it is legal to distill alcohol in New Zealand - as long as it is for personal consumption. That includes beer, wine, spirits etc. You are not allowed to sell, trade or swap said alcohol. As long as you keep to these rules there is no excise tax, no duty to pay, no registrations, no forms to comp...

="vinifera"I use a dimmer so I can control the power from 0-2200 W. Works excellent!

The problem with using a dimmer is that you are creating cycling on and off which will create surging. to do the job properly you will need a triac controller

You would be better off looking for a 4500 watt low density element and running it on 120 volts, this would give you 1100 watts and would last for ever running on 120 V. Hey, fellas, this dude is from Australia, they don't have 120V, they use 240V as standard. With regards to your element problem, ...

="snakeysnakes" Anyone have any other tips for improving the Still Spirits still? I've tried searching but I couldn't find much information. Also, I posted about using the Still Spirits still as a pot still in another thread however nobody has replied so I'll ask it again here. I found th...

="Grayson_Stewart"Thermo is a great class. I enjoyed it more than any other. It's been awhile since I had the class and I never use it other than in this hobby, but if you have any questions, I'd be glad to try to help out offline in PM's. Hey Grayson, what have you done wrong? I see you ...

="liquordude" The part I am not sure how to use is the cup and the 2 tubes going down to the the bottom. The tube on the bottom (Pic 4) does not run through as the heating element slides into the bottom. From what I can see that is your cooling system. My guess is you simply need to attac...

High tolerance yeasts were primarily developed to allow people to legally create drinkable? spirits. In almost all countries it is quite legal to produce a wash, it is just not legal to distill it???!!! So by producing 20% ABV washes you have a wash that has enough alcohol in it that you could if yo...

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="kevangogh" Question - does it matter what the temperature is? I think it must...

Most alcometers are calibrated for 20 degrees C (68F) and you need tables for the adjustment, there is a set on the mother site.

. . . you should collect 10-30mL of foreshots and pour those down the sink every time. After that you can put the heads in the next batch. As an alternative to simply throwing away the foreshots, store them for use as a cleaner or for firing the camp stove (waste not, want not :D ) but don't save t...

If you are wanting to start from neutral spirits you could try soaking your neutral spirits in whisky chips (chips from old whiskey barrels). You can speed up the process by alternating every 3-4 days from room temperature to fridge temperature (to emulate the seasons). This will speed up the aging....

If you are fermenting with sugar there should be no need to worry about the PH of the wash

anf Happy new year from me too

Hmmmm, your friend appears to acheived the impossible (unless your friend was operating in a vacuum) and based on the picture that does not appear to be the case. You see there is a thing called an azeotrope which determines that in normal air the highest theorectical ABV is 97.2% because 95% alcoho...

Just imagine going to the liquour store and finding your favourite 12 year old whisky was now in a"'metal" bottle, now wouldn't that seem strange, even if the metal was copper I don't think I would be keen to drink it. Just imagine the chemical reactions that would take place over a 4-6 mo...

="AfricaUnite" Tough for me to remove the mesh, however you've got me thinking. I'll give it a shot the hard way and report if I see a difference. This will be an interesting test. My mesh has been cleaned with hot water only, for ten years.. There is no need to remove the mesh, simply re...

="rangaz"]Does anyone know the process for aquiring licences to legally distill alcohol in Aus. How does one apply for one and are there any restrictions on minimum production and does it need to be a commercial operation? The answer is easy, move to the East Island of Australia, it's cal...

="Arthur"As a noob I've read about the Bokabob Mini and Nixon-Stone etc and I still don't know which of all the designs will suit me best. I re-read the theory stuff and get no clue as to why one still would suit me better than any other. Reflux = Vodka, Pot = Whiskey I got that... but wh...

While I agree copper is good, structered copper has by the the highest surface area - which is what you are after. With regards cleaning your copper, when I first started distilling I used to, like you, just use hot water which as a result I typically obtained about 88%ABV. I was then advised I shou...

Absolutely, but as Peter says, make sure it is sealed. Also the fuller the keg the longer you will be able to store, but one to two months won't be a problem. Also keep the keg in a cooler spot if possible.

he said his crossflow was giving 95% ABV Yes I know that's what he said. That's why I posted, just to clarify it's not the condenser doing that, it's the reflux column. Hi Harry you are absolutely 100% right, the 95% ABV is a result of the column, let's just put it down to typing after a few too ma...

Don't do them on the grill, wrap them in tin foil and bake in the oven at 250 for 2-3 hours. I think you will notice the difference

Enlikil wrote:I have 4 once's of American Oak chips. I put them in 1 half gallon of rum. been on it for a week? its dark as hell. should i pull it off now?

The only way to test is to taste it. If it is too strong for your liking you can always cut it with some neutral spirits.

The carbon is in there to get rid of the off flavours of the yeast. As you are in NZ it is not necessary to use such a yeast as it is quite legal to distill in this country. This yeast is designed to produce a high alcohol (20%) wash specifically for use in countries where distillation is illegal ye...

I would be inclined to use V1116 yeast. A tin shed is the worst place to put your wash as you will have high extremes of temperature 30oC+ in the middle of the day and 10oC or less at night. You want as consistent as possible ambient temperature.

I have just finished building that exact design of crossflow condensor. It's not that complicated, just a little tricky to put the end caps on with all the cooling pipes. Achieved 95% in the first run. Very happy with the result and you can run it quite fast even on a 2" column.

45 degrees is a good compromise between space consideration and balance versus cooling effect.

I also suspect the plates are appearing to fail due to the temperature of the liquid being poured in from the top of the column. It will be very hard for the column to create an equilibrium