Home Distiller

Different reactions in aging happen at different rates.. Its not a one pony show..

I have a TDS pen (total dissolved solids) that I use to play with distillate.. Typically comse up around 2-3ppm.. The device is just a highly sensitive ohm meter.. I could convert that to ohms/cm if I dug up a chart, but it wouldn't conduct too much..

I can honestly say that I've never looked at a palette and said "I'd like to drink me some of that.." Palettes are a shot in the dark at best unless you know the source because they are made from anything and everything.. My assumption is that if you were capable of identifying woods post-...

Yea, its easy to over oak.. Luckily the result is an oddly enjoyable oak beverage..:) I like to exhaust my oak by tossing it in heads, then dry, then water, then dry.. Until it waterlogs for a while.. In that state I probably use as much as you said, but it ages much mellower/slower.. If I'm going f...

This might interest you..
http://triggernum5.servebeer.com/Distill/OakChips.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

I'd focus on your fermenting first before assuming the Al oxide is seriously breaking the laws of physics.. Fermenting temperatures can be important with certain ingredients (my assumption is various processing chemicals since I've noticed brand differences with things like brown sugar [which can co...

You probably have alot more ventilation than you think.. I don't think houseplants matter much for that purpose.. CO2 will tend to fall to the floor, and will get exhausted however your cold air does.. Its not so much that its toxic as it is an O2 displacer, so initial effects would be similar to hi...

Well, if you burn a large enough sample you should get repeatable results, and thats always worth something.. I just don't know how simple the ABV determination that way is.. Decent results may be obtained using only the obvious variables, or maybe theres a chart if its tricker than it seems.. For t...

The more reliable version of what you're seeking is a solenoid valve.. They aren't cheap, but they are affordable depending.. Scrap your gearing idea unless you'd be failing safely since you're likely to fry the motor if anything doesn't work perfectly.. Strong motors can be scrounged up from many s...

While playing around with flavoring I came across something really nice (IMO).. The distillate was destined to be a bastardized light rum fermented from 75% brown sugar, 25% white sugar, some brewer's inactive yeast (dunno if that helps, hinders, or does nothing), and some toasted Cheerios for a bit...

In Ontario they've recently started a liquor bottle return proogram.. I wondered if it would hinder my abiliity to get empties, but luckily nobody except those resourceful homeless folk care.. Makes sense I suppose.. With beer you're looking at 7-10% return on deposit, with liquor that drops to 1% m...

I believe you're testing quickly, but its irrelevant.. The temperature at the VERY surface of the sample will rise near instantaneously.. I'm talking µ-seconds.. It then cools as it transfers its heat inwards, and warms as it absorbs more heat.. Its the kind of system that supercomputers like to cal...

Ethanol has a flash point of 12°C, but that has nothing to do with the sample temperature but the ambient temperature surrounding it.. The surface heats to near amibient temperature extremely quickly.. Sugarwash can have a plethora of off flavours because of various additions needed for nutrient.. M...

Or he could just try a first run with actual wash.. No need for wine/mouthwash, the the wine is just a more expensive wash.. It sounds like you're a cautious thinker.. You can always shut it off if a problem becomes evident, and problems are typically undenially evident..

From what I understand, that claim has no scientific backing, and was started near the time the general public discovered it was added to tobacco.. Its also used in oral medications and food processing.. So somebody is cranking out BS.. Who is it? Big business, or Big actvism?..

Any molasses could be dried I suppose.. It looks nothing like the dry feed molasses I can get here for $11CDN/55lb bag, and its only really worth while for essence used with another sugar unless you want 3% wash.. I can get fancy or blackstrap at Bulk Barrel for $2.00/kg (.91/lb) though which is gre...

As far as flavouring goes, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, vanilla, peppercorn and cloves (Oh, and extremely well used oak) are the most important.. (Which IIRC is basically the norm..) Cillantro, and jalapeno added VERY judiciously makes it interesting to me atleast.. Oddly, I prefer a very low quality m...

I've never understood why reduce came before reuse.. If you can't reuse, then sure reduce is a biggy, but reuse can't affect anyone except those who have invested interest in collection totals.. I've been pretty vocal about this in other situations, but recycling 'can' actually have some big downfal...

If I was to make a WILDLY irresponsible stab in the dark, I'd guess that may be Botrytis Cineria ("Noble Rot").. Its common in fermentation.. Ironically that mould produces an anti-fungal compound that kills yeast before fermentation completes, and I've heard that its responsible for some ...

Its not disposal thats the problem, its flushing something that size.. You'd basically need an irrigation pump, or a fire hose..

What kind of heat supply are you thinking about? That, along with condensing power should be considered sooner rather than later.. I'm a purist when it comes to pot-stills.. The good ol' bush stillers never used scrubbies..:) Homebuilt has a beautiful example of a solid/simple potstill a few threads...

The funny thing is, with a HUGE setup, who would suspect a still? You could hide that in plain sight in farmland.. Honestly, a few thousand gallon tank with piping and heat source could have me overlooking it thinking legit purpose in the right place.. And I even gots stillin' on the brain..

Simplicity at its finest, but considering your locale and profession, why not upgrade the size?? Imagine a 200 gallon dairy tank on a couple million btu's.. (Just kidding/dreaming).. You can't go wrong with what you got.. How much heat you got under there?

My eyes might be mistaken, but that nodule on the big spout looks suspiciously like a choke hole.. Might get a confirmed answer by posting it in a different kind of recreational forum..:) You said something about labels? Could you edit the pic to show those? Its tough to be sure how the internals ar...

You mentioned leaks.. Do they exist? Can you smell alcohol? It will tend to drop to the floor, but you should be able to smell it if it should be a problem unless your ventilation is far beyond the norm.. Even outside a fairly leaky still will smell up the area in certain weather.. Also, its hard to...

Chloramine: Chloramine in tap water gives a greenish cast to the water in bulk, versus the normally bluish cast to pure water or water containing only free chlorine disinfectant. This greenish color may be observed by filling a white polyethylene bucket with chloraminated tap water and comparing it...

If you got a really big magnet then you're set...

What you bought was probably dried yeast from a beer bed.. Never intended to be active again, probably pasteurized.. Did it smell like beer? I'd avoid all bulk-barn yeast whether its supposed to be active or not since you can get a nice vaccum-packed bag of bakers yeast for ~$4 cdn.. Bulk yeast is u...

More noticable than the abv hike, is the flavour hike.. With distillation you're removing primarily the ethanol from the wash.. Most flavous is left in the still.. With freezing you're basically only removing water.. This can be good, or bad depending on how clean your ferment is.. IIRC, at ~-20°C t...

Updates? Nope, yeast haven't evolved that much since it was printed really:).. You can even get away with chincing on alot of the specialties you mentioned.. As for the charcoal, Adding it to the wash itself sounds really expensive, and its as likely to suck the wanted flavors as much as the unwante...