Home Distiller

Or I could use my borosilicate steam extractor for most of the botanicals, save the bark and the tea. So, let's say I start with a netural spirit, and steam extract everything but the bark and the tea. I still need to come up with some authentic ratios and figure out how to handle the birch bark its...

If any of you fine folks are in Pennsylvania, perhaps you're familiar with a new spirit coming out from a co-op called "Art In the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" or, simply, "Art In the Age". It's called Root , and it's really something special. Supposedly, it's based off of an ...

Well, you're not really going to be able to taste the real profile of your liquor straight out of the still like that. You should really add some water first to open up the flavor and keep the burning nastiness down. Second, it's not percent you're talking about by burning, but rather proof. Anythin...

I'll be the first to admit, I love the equipment involved in this hobby. I had a great time making my boiler and fabricating and maintaining my still. Then, when I saw a lab-grade essential oil extractor available for cheap, I leapt at the chance to get it and brew up some concoctions. The first thi...

I find JB Qwikweld to be a little misleading. One of the tubes says "steel" or something like that, which it actually is not. It's a form of epoxy. I'll grant you this: it's a really strong, temperature-resistant form of epoxy, but it's still plastic. My friend recently made one of those b...

So, are those white tendrils or a reflection of the flash off of some kind of film? If that's how it really looks, I would ditch it without question. Looks like a water mould of some kind, maybe Saprolegnia? http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en-commons/thumb/f/f8/180px-Water_mold_Mizukabi_c...

The Simethicone was a tremendous success in the carboy as well. One small gelcap was enough to keep it from foaming up more than half an inch or so. It's now bubbling away happily in my furnace room. At like 6$ for 30 of these little gelcaps, it's a pretty good deal.

The reason I would be interested in pursuing this is that I have a REALLY NICE oil extractor that is capable of exceptional separation of pure oils and exceptional yield. As to the ratios, there would be no question because I would be carefully measuring the herbs and adding them into the flask at t...

It appears that what you are proposing is to make absinthe using steam distilled essences (ala Gert Strand). By using steam-distilled oils, the best you'll get is a Spanish absenta-like drink. I wouldn't necessarily compare it to Gert Strand. By comparing it to an essence that is universally agreed...

I'm going to ask this question here, since it seems to be the de-facto absinthe recipe thread. Some background: I have a laboratory-grade steam distiller. It is very VERY good at what it does, and a gin essence I made recently turned out so well that people were practically begging to pay me for a b...

The "IN" seems to be for the cooling water as the glass tube goes from there straight down the middle then coils back up to the other nozzle next to the "IN" which is labeled "OUT". Then it is a Friedrichs-type condenser. I tried it out connected to a large conical fla...

That's a Graham condenser. Basically a glass worm. The glass divots about halfway down are to hold the middle section of the coil in place and keep it from moving and breaking. If I'm not mistaken, the "IN" is the input of the vapor, which is collected as liquid via the small output on the...

I'm sort of searching for my personal ultimate bitters recipe. I love herbal liquors, and would very much like a nice complex digestif without too much sugar in it. Becherovka came close, but was a little too sweet. Campari was nice as well, but a little too bitter and bile-y for me. I know, of cour...

Would you be so kind as to clarify a little? Are you saying that this is what's happening to my elements or what? I was told there would be no electrolysis between these elements and my SS boiler.

It is awesome. Just got one recently, and it's a peach.

Well, it's still fermenting strong and there's only about 2/3rds of an inch of foam at the top. Either the simethicone works really well, or the ferment was off to a slow start. Of course, it's also in a fermentation bucket, so the large surface area and lack of narrowing might be doing it, too. I w...

No. I'm referring to them by their labeled rating. The 1500W is rated for 120V, so it's 1500W when at normal US wall voltage. The 3000W is rated for 240V, so it's 750W when plugged into normal US wall voltage. That was the idea. My stillhead is rated at about 750W, so I use both to bring it up to a ...

I decided awhile back that I would just go ahead and make the switch to the cheap side of things for awhile to see how much I could get for comparatively little. To wit, tonight I started my first ever deathwish wash or "deathwash". Got me some wheat germ. Got me some citric acid, boiled i...

I have a still that can be taken apart into 4 pieces and fits in a handgun case. All joints are sealed with what amounts to large external rubber bands, but you could use teflon tape, flour paste, silicone gel, whatever, and as long as: 1) your sealant isn't reactive with or corroded by alcohols 2) ...

Well, I did my first immersion run this past weekend, and it was a tremendous success. I have two 1" SS half-couplers TIG welded to an old Killians keg, one 3000W (@240) element, one 1500W(@120) element, and a homemade control box with switches and plugs for both (pictures soon). At the beginni...

If you're going to buy a still and you want to go for compact, do yourself a favor and get a PDA 1 . I own one, and it's pretty fantastic for all purposes. If you avoid the tails, you can make a very pure spirit. Just finished a neutral spirit run a couple of days ago that was 94% and mid-run sample...

I do however suggest adding a small bit of citric acid when disolving the sugar rather than lemon juice, this will keep the berries a bright red rather than the duller color they turn too after sitting in alcohol for a bit. Plus the citric acid acts just like when converting sugar for a ferment (su...

I also have just jumped into the oils game, and have purchased (I think) one of the better consumer models of steam distiller available from heartmagic.com. Yeah, the site is a little... "funny", but they make a hell of an extractor. The ingenious separatory funnel / solvent siphon works e...

Always run a new rig with water first, especially if it's one you've built. Steam is easier to see than ethanol vapor, and a lot less flammable.

IC: That's actually a really good suggestion. I'm actually somewhat familiar with refluxing. The main reason I can't do it directly with this setup is because, as you said, the condenser is just a somewhat wimpy glass liebig. That's why the vapor flow is downward through it. I suppose if I set the h...

How's that? I actually have a few of these ferrules and some leftover copper lying around, and I was going to make a column extension. If it's easier than brazing it, I'm all ears.

So, you basically want to bore it out from the inside and weld it to the outside of the copper?

While they are designed for steel, you can use a dremel or something and grind around the edges of both, and eventually you will get a tight fit. As for getting them together, there doesn't seem to be much of a consensus on that. Some people have old me that you can do it with soft solder, though I ...

Personally, I don't see much of a need for a tracking app. I mean, who wants to log on to use a LAMP application when they can just write it in a notebook? Not only that, but this sort of hobby is not -how shall we say- "fondly looked upon" in some areas, and I'd say most of the people in ...

I finally told my mother that I distilled, and was informed that my great-grandfolks had been into brewing and... other things, too. Of course, when you're from West Virginia it's kind of required. But, anyway, I know where you're coming from. This sort of tinkering runs in the blood.