Home Distiller

O.k. I don't normally subscribe to wine expectorator mazagine, but Feb issue cover was all about American Whiskey report. Page 62 was article about makin whiskey the american way. "Step 8: Bottling The whiskey is screened to take out chunks of char, then chill-filtered to remove proteins that c...

Hope this is the right spot for this topic. My challenge has always been how to distill on the grain without scorching it - cooking on natural gas. So I made a double boiler. I remember some of the guys on this forum talkin about doin this a few years ago, oatmeal smop. 4 gal. backset from last suga...

If you just chop up the apples and add water, it ain't gonna happen. It'l go bad. 1. If you press the apples, you will get a cider with a potential alcohol of 4% to 6% depending. You absolutely have to scald the cider, unless you like to gamble. Fallen apples are gonna have a lot of funk on them. Us...

UJSSM thread, I try to experiment a bit with peated & malted barley. Right now I think my "bill" is something like 80% corn and 20% cracked barley. Difficult to discribe what it does to taste Done that plenty o times. Straight up UJSSM with just sugar an corn reminds me of kellogs cor...

For the warsh : 12 lbs sugar, 1 lb wheat germ, a coupla scoops of corn and a coupla scoops of 2 row barley, enough water to rack into 5 gal carbouy after primary fermentation. Didn’t have any backset at the time since it’s been a while. Used distillers yeast, which I think is probably just EC-1117. ...

As far as store bought wine goes, you don't always get what you pay for. It's a lot of fun to do a "blind" tasting with a bunch of friends. the word "blind" refers to how you taste the wine, not how you feel after the party. Have everyone bring a couple bottles of the same variet...

I used to re-cycle feints run to run, but not long ago I saved them all up for an all feints run. I was worried about off flavors, so I cut up a couple a lemon and a lime and tossed them in the pot (8 gal still, 5 gallon charge). Of course, I added a gallon or so of water to cut the alcohol level do...

I know it's not whiskey, but I tasted Pinnacle vodka the other day as was impressed. It's french, pot distilled and priced for bottom shelf. I've tasted top shelf vodkas that clearly were a product of crappy distilling and excellent marketing. Pinnacle tasted clean, I couldn't taste any heads or tai...

I’ve been emailing yeast labs all over trying to find out about sherry flor yeast. Many home wine and brew websites have recipes that simply oxidize a sweet white wine, but that ain’t xactly sherry. The guy who owns my local brew supply store (and is also a commercial vintner) let a carboy of wine o...

A little tip I've been using lately to help start up on boiling corn to go faster. Put the full amount of corn in the pot w/ one third the water an start heating. Put another third water in a pot on a different burner. It'll take the corn long enough to start swelling, by the time the other water bo...

one more thought.........mighta been mislabeled, like it could've been black cap or thimble berry.
I mislabeled a couple of bottles a few years ago (muzzle not thy bull) and was happy to find 3 of pie cherry cordial.

Not malt, the actual barley seeds, Cornall. Sorry Dnder....When I bring up the temp I just through my cracked corn and the rest of the grains in my boiler heat it up till it gets nice and hot around 150-160 then let it sit till it cools... ummm next day after work always works... You gotta boil the...

If I can let my blackberry wine alone for a few years, I find it gets softer and it lightens up. But it takes years 'cause I use a lot of berries when I make wine. Maybe it gets lighter faster if you use less berries. My father-in-law & I recently had a bb wine taste-off from a coupla bottles ea...

FYI anyone around Seattle area. Wouldn't it be fun to go, but until the construction industry picks up, it's sugar wash and home made beer & wine for me. A bit pricey, though. Artisan Distilling Workshop ™ Monday, September 27 – Tuesday September 28, 2010 (Everett, WA) - The Northwest Agricultur...

For more info about types of corn, see http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=9847 http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=5960 Excerpts from The Omnivore’s Delimma, by Michael Pollan, Penguin Press, 2007 In the early years of the nineteenth century, Americans began ...

Smokerscully : Sorry about the delay, I haven't checked back on this post. The book is Company of Adventurers , author Peter C. Newman, Viking (Penguin Press) 1985 The Company for over two hundred years had a rule against relations with Indian women and I am living proof of how well that rule was fo...

A gorgeous young redhead goes into the doctor's office and said that her body hurt wherever she touched it. 'Impossible!' says the doctor. 'Show me.' The redhead took her finger, pushed on her left shoulder and screamed, then she pushed her elbow and screamed even more. She pushed her knee and screa...

I second what Myles said. I usually rack my wine only once, sometimes not at all if it clears well. There are flavor considerations, though. Over-racking : like myles said, can oxidize the wine, usually this will not taste good, and you will loose the fresh fruit flavor and aromas; each time you &qu...

I'm curious about blending, solaras, and the possibility of getting a flor growing in a barrel. Anyone mess around with these things at all? I also am curious about making a portified apple cider using calvados or applejack sometime soon. There are some apple orchards nearby that I get juice from i...

The tricks to getting the CM head are a precision flow control valve, a water pressure regulator and power management. I'm using a micrometer hydraulic flow control valve and it gives very precise control. I tried a fixed regulator at 40psi, but that was too high and am now using an inexpensive pla...

One thing about whiskey, you have to let it age a while before you can see a cash flow. there are quite a few companies making legal shine that do well. I am sure you have read some articals about our countries favorite beverages of the past. Maybe you can make a variety of spirts to generate some ...

I just finished a book about the HBC. Below is the recipe for spruce beer from a HBC manual. I’ll leave it up to you to decide if it would work or not. Also are a few interesting excerpts from the book. The demand for liquor grew so fast that by the end of the eighteenth century the Company shipped ...

They talk briefly about resins. I took my organic chemistry from the dude who actually invented ion exchange resins when he worked for Dow. He's still alive. I consider him a living treasure. That's cool. Schnell (et al): I've read about the use of cation exchangers by distilleries for removing met...

The teacher gave her fifth grade class an assignment: Get their parents to tell them a story with a moral at the end of it... The next day, the kids came back and, one by one, began to tell their stories. There were all the regular types of stuff: spilled milk and pennies saved. But then the teacher...

Here's something I just found about the actual chemistry behind the flavor of rum and other esters. It's a lab assignment, but gives good explanation of Fisher esterification, reflux, role of carboxylic acid, etc......... http://courses.chem.psu.edu/chem36/Web%20Syn06/Exp82Syn06.pdf" onclick=&q...

Results? Well, loads of butter, but early in the run (contrary to the conventional wisdom that all the rum action is in the tails). I believe the diacetyl ester responsible for the butter flavor blows off early, if the wash sits around a couple of days you'll lose it, so it's interesting to hear th...

Plonkdude, doesn't seem to add up, I mean..... you might have got crappy distillate because you ran an infected wash (done that too!). For instance, got fruit flies? Got ethyl acetate. Brettanomyces, not uncommon, can make it taste and smell like a barnyard, or "sweaty saddle" (although Br...

one hurt my hand the other hurt my pride... couple years ago after stripping off a keg of wash I wanted to put another keg on to strip it too. so son and i put on thick, heavy welding gloves and took the hot keg off the propane burner. out it went to get dumped. we grabbed hold of the bottom of the...

Several months ago it was late at night and I had just finish filtering a full gallon of white dog at the kitchen bar, (bar stools on one side, range on the other). Was cleaning up and I whacked the glass jug real good on the edge of the bar. My bar is porcelain tile. Glass and booze went flying all...

Did a taste test last night. First, I ran the 3 samples as consistently as I could, taking my typical amounts for foreshot and heads. I collected down to about 50%+, put in a jug with lots of head room. I tasted them around 37%, white, no oak, room temp. Distiller’s yeast : least amount of flavor gr...