Home Distiller

I've just recently done my first all grain beer. It was an IPA for which I followed a recipe form an American Clone book. I followed the recipe exactly except I increased the total volume of water as to lower the OG a little form the recipe. I then used a liquid yeast with a slightly lower apparent ...

Nice work, what weight is the copper you used? Where do you fill it, does the top section come off?

oz per square foot is right. 18 oz copper is about 0.024" thick.

It was -37 C here this morning not including the wind chill factor. Your poem needs some adjustment for that temp, Shit doesn't express it. I heard many people comment on the cold and most used another word in place of shit I'm in Southern MB.

an oven toastes, a torch chars. I think if you charred oak in your oven in your house someone would be upset plus it would take forever. I use a gas burner outside as well.

Yes you do have to do a temperature correction. What is your hydrometer calibrated at? For 20C:

10C -0.002
15C -0.001
20C None
25C +0.001
30C +0.003
35C +0.004

There is your cloudiness. Replace the collection hose with a copper one and use flour paste or cork to seal the bowl.

Are you using a cork gasket? I remember a while back someone had the same problem because of the type of cork casket he used, he said his distillant was coming out yellowish.

As for the cloudiness, any plastic in your setup?

I love this thread

If the distillant came out with any sort of colour I wouldn't drink it. At very least I'd distill it again.

You can't get solder to stick to a HOLE? :lol: sorry, couldn't resist. Clean it like tater said then put the cap with the hole side down onto something solder won't stick to, like aluminum. The put he flux on the area around the hole, heat it and allow a pool to fill the hole. Let it cool and it'll ...

That's one thing I prefer about this hobby as opposed to beer/wine making. The product you are filling the bottles with is also a disinfectant.

That is kind of what I was thinking, copper salts. Was it a purple grape wash? Did your still boil over? Your wash may have foamed a lot because of the incomplete ferment and the foam my have entired the condenser giving the distillant the colour. You would have notice if this was the case when you ...

You have a little over 10% wash. You should get a fair amount out of that.

Doesn't the Cosco near you have bigger bags of sugar? I picked up a 100 lb bag at Cosco once. They asked me if it was for commercial use :lol: The maximum you can buy at once. So go to the car and put in the bags then go back in and get another load. My wife happens to work at Shoppers as the store ...

Aquarium carbon is made from dead fish and other shit. You should not use it to filter spirits. Do not use aquarium carbon. This can sometimes be made from very dodgy sources and contain crap which will leach into your spirit. You fish won't mind, because water doesn't do this, but you will. That is...

I'm more concerned with finding a cheaper source of white table sugar since I use a few 100 kgs per year.

Keep an eye out at Shopper's Drug Mart. They'll sometimes have sugar for 50 cents per kg but they'll have a maximum amount that you can purchase at once.

what was the OG? Have you tasted it? Is it still sweet? What I am getting at is that it may be done. If you wash has a lot of solids in it it won't get back down to 1.000

Strip runs are done to decrease the amount of wash, not to have a good product in the end. Keeping that in mind remember that the harder you run it the worse the output will be leaving more work for your reflux in the end. You don't really need any column at all in your potstill to do strip runs. If...

Good to hear of your success. Now about carbon filtering, try it and see if you like doing it. It requires hours and hours of filtering to remove all the carbon dust. I have another solution for you that is much easier. Let the product air out, you'll be surprise how much it improves. After you dist...

Birdwatcher, the advise you gave is in regards to using bakers yeast but is not advise that should be followed using turbo yeast. Turbo yeast can handle that much sugar, in fact I use 8.5KG in a 25 liter wash. If you insulate a fermentor running on turbo yeast it will over heat and the yeast will di...

Sorry Ricky. I understood you where running a straight potstill with the line coming off the boiler, condensing and then creating a trap at the output.

Not sure if it's all across Canada but where I am you need a liquor license to by a keg of beer. You used to be able to purchase a keg for a house party directly form a brewery but no more. Only bars and restaurants with liquor licenses are allowed to purchase kegs now so if you want one you need to...

Jim, I got the same tip, only to use oat hulls in the mash to help in straining. I never did try it though. I use internal elements and wasn't really convinced it would get me the clear beer I needed in order to distill with internal elements. It may have worked but I decided to build a double boile...

Are there any adverse reactions between ethanol and chewing gum?

The heat would be more of a concern.

This is a quote form a brewing site about using rye in beer brewing. "Avoid combining rye with raw barley; raw barley also has high levels of beta-glucans, and this could make for an extremely sticky combination." My very first mash was Rye and Barley and it was really thick and "goopy". I find that...

Pouring liquid through I wouldn't expect to be a problem. That is the same idea as a "P" trap on a sink. What my concern would be is surging. When you do a run there is heat involved so there will be a little pressure from the boiler so when you have a closed system with trap on the output the disti...

OH! and Ricky, you say it's connected with the output on your worm? If so do you have a vent somewhere's else because with the whole thing connected together it would seam that you created a trap. Same as if your ouput line is under the liquid level in you collection vessel. Just wondering.

Good idea with the lower valve. I don't use one but I always wondered for those of you who do, do you have thermometers on your alcohol meters or what do you do about temperature corrections?

muckanic Comparing two samples is a lot easier than sniffing one sample and wondering whether or not you can detect marginal tails, based upon some memory of the aroma. That is great advise. Tring to remember a previous smell is hard, at least for me. If you've got something to compare to it makes ...