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I think the flash point of ethanol is irrelevant. The vapours floating around in the still are much higher percent alcohol, and much higher temperature than the flash point. The safety aspect of diluting to below 40% is due to the point at which the liquid will sustain a fire, so if the boiler spill...

Hey all. I just racked my first attempt at this recipe and have a few useful hints and a question. First off the well water I used happened to be very alkaline at about 7 to 7.5ph. I wasn't aware of that when I started and it resulted in a stuck ferment. Anyway I did a quadruple batch and followed ...

Anyone tried corn syrup with this recipe? I don't know how accurate it is, but wikipedia states: Kahlúa is a Mexican coffee-flavored vodka-based liqueur. It is dense and sweet, with the distinct taste of coffee , from which it is made. Kahlúa also contains sugar, corn syrup and vanilla bean . I migh...

Thanks Braz. I do air out my product before proofing, now I know why

I've wondered about this too, what exactly does airing out do?

Also lets say the mash finishes and I couldn't run in right away, would it be okay if it sat for a few additional days until time opened up on my schedule? Or would you guys have any advice to offer to make sure I dont ruin the mash by letting it sit too long? I just let it sit there in the ferment...

If you want to improve the condenser a bit add some copper mesh inbetween the inner and outer coil. I did it on mine (between coil and coldfinger) and it improved the performance. I was getting a tiny bit of vapour escaping when the still first heated up, the mesh stopped that. I think it just helps...

the albino pony

Thos portrait pic of yours met the size restrictions (less than 1000 pixels wide)

Also, aforementioned mods or people on this forum smarter than, feel free to comment below with specific instructions on how to get images to appear in my posts, i tried using the IMG tool and linking it to a photobucket account, it told me the images speifications acouldnt be identifed or somethin...

olddog wrote:A few turns of PTFE (plumbers) tape will do the trick, cheap and replace each time.


OD

This is what I use (wonder who told me this trick ) and it works a treat!

Thanks for the tip Braz. I have a second fridge in the garage filled with mostly alcohol funnily enough, might see if I can fit a carboy in it if I rearrange the shelves.

After some busy weekends I got time to distill the two carboys of WPOSW that I had put down about a month ago. While they fermented OK, I think I need to do a bit more reading on how to clear them properly, as they were still quite cloudy when I racked them into the still. I have a 2" bok still...

I can't take credit for making this still, that goes to OD who did some outstanding work :thumbup: Gave this bok a vinegar cleaning run today with 8L vinegar + 16L water. I used a few loops of ptfe plumbers tape to seal the connection between the keg and the still and it worked a treat, no leaks at ...

Here is some food for thought about drinking distilled water. Do a Google on drinking distilled water you will find many more like this. [balance snipped as a courtesy] I use store bought distilled water to dilute my spirits to drinking strength (usually 80 proof). Based on this info, should I use ...

A banana flavour can be attributed to isoamyl acetate, which is a tails component. Running the bok with a takeoff slow enough to get 95% will help you get nice cuts and eliminate the tails (and heads).

Do you have your boiler or column insulated?

You can buy an alcohol-meter for under $10

In Australia that would be a type U coupler, see the pic on this page

I'm a complete novice (first post here) but I will attempt to answer the questions. 1. Am I using the right amount of dex + yeast? You should be using a hydrometer to know the SG of what you are fermenting. Since the yeast sounds like a turbo it should say how much to use. 2. Am I using the correct ...