Home Distiller

Welcome. Keep reading and good luck!

Many blessings.

bellybuster wrote:I would suggest the surging is from your heat source cycling on and off.

Agreed, that hot plate is probably not designed for this. You're going to want to find something with a constant heat supply.

Related heating element question: Short question: How long would a element need to be out of water before it's no good? Long question: I just converted my rig to electric with the help of an electrical engineer buddy of mine and literally thousands of posts here and on beer brewing sites. I'm workin...

Welcome from 76er part of the country. Good luck tonight and in your journey learning about this addictive hobby. Be safe. +1 on NCHooch's suggestion. if you buy something, buy it as cheap as possible so you can learn and once you do, you'll want to build something.

WB

+1 on size. at least 5 gallons is good. from a functional perspective, as someone who is starting out (i just did in the summer/fall), 15 is good, a keg for reference. this way you can inexpensively buy 2-3 fermenters and try some small batches out easily. anything above that makes for some long run...

Welcome home. Read, read, read, reread. have fun, it's a blast.

WB

It looks like that little bend you put into your intake tube might fix what i believe washashore is talking about. I would be concerned that the liquor coming out of the still wouldn't mix enough with what's in the parrot to get an accurate reading. But if you were having problems with your old parr...

It's a can of worms, I know, but no one in Europe is gettin' hammered on soap. Relax a bit and let the kids have a beer or glass of wine with dinner and they won't be curious enough to mess with stuff that's much worse for them on the long term.

Take it easy. Back pain is no fun at all and I hope this surgery cures what ailed your body and your whiskey heals your mind.

WB

I got one at Northern Tool shipped with a connector for $75 or so. Works fine. A bit slow on the initial warm up but perfect for the run. If you go that route, it's a good one to start with. $55 for 230K btu is a lot more that the 35k they offer but it works. On a related matter. I'm considering upg...

That's rough. I work in the administration at a convent. I'll ask some of the sisters to keep him in their prayers.

Dan,

Thanks for taking us on that trip. What an awesome job. Setting the bar high. Enjoy!

Ok. agreed. Freezers are an inefficient way of freeze stripping.

Devil's Advocate: It's snowing here. So free cold versus propane. Is there any reason not to do it?

Welcome. People are friendly enough around here to well researched and thought through questions. And we love pictures...especially shiny copper.

wb

I have a logistical question for you. You mentioned storing this finished wash outside. How are you planning on moving a 55 gallon drum mostly full of wash? I don't remember who said it here, but some of the best advice was to enthusiastically avoid picking anything up over 4 gallons. Your back will...

Apple butter, eh? Well done. What do other people "do" in the garage for hours at a time when people ask?

My mom was so proud of me, she was telling her friends, I had to put a stop to that. Gotta love the woman though...

Now that was an intro. Well done sir. Welcome. As I´m in the Dominican Republic, bienvenido!

Is it possible to not have tails in a run by design or accident or is it more likely that my nose isn't properly trained to recognize them? Background: I am running a pot still UJSSM. After running 5 or 6 stripping runs, I collected enough low wines to fill my 15 gallon boiler to 10 gallons. On the ...

Welcome. As someone who was in your shoes not too long ago, might I recommend going with a tried and true recipe to start. And the thread on mistakes was a huge help to learn a few mistakes without having to make them...

Enjoy!

Today I'm doing my first spirit run with the 9 gallons of low wines saved up from an UJSSM. It's dripping at 2-3 drops/second and started at 84%. Just in time for the holidays. First of all, thanks for all of the advice that got me here. I have taken the advice of many and read and re-read and found...

That boiler is a restaurant style tilt skillet I've used to make huge batches of marinara (gravy to the weirdos up in New England). How does that work for you? I know that they click on and off and on and off, etc. Do you have any problems with the consistency of the heat during a run? That looks ni...

I took a tour of their distillery a few years back, right after they released their 80 proof whiskey. I stopped drinking it on principal that day. I bought the stuff growing up because of that extra 6 proof! Of course old timers tell me it used to be even higher proof than 86. They set a stack of wh...

It was the first run. I opened the jar and smelled it and opted for a cold beer. Thanks for the advice.

Thanks LW.

Cheers!

Stupid question I can probably answer myself. But rather safe than sorry. Before actually fermenting anything, I bought a bottle of rail whiskey and ran it through the still just to get some practice. I was hoping to get a feel for the cuts. In retrospect, there probably wasn't a huge amount of head...

That was even better than what I found...

http://homedistiller.org/#use_pot

A friend of mine work for Uline. It's a shipping supply store. They sell everything one could possibly imagine for shipping anything. I've picked out a few glass jars and am about to make an order. They have nice widemouth gallon jars for $4.55 each. He has told me repeatedly about how great they ar...

No worries at all. This community is made stronger by everyone looking out for everyone else. I remember reading a thread about how we're all basically one jackwagon's accident or arrogant mistake away from Nightline's shocking revelations about what's going on next door. I just turned off the still...

I appreciate the advice. I flirted with "eastern Pa" for a while until I saw so many of the members state the town too. Reading is the closest city, but far from my home...Wendell Baker is the lead character of a movie.

Cheers!