Home Distiller

A good vodka can be made with a pot still. A good neutral you will need a reflux still. So the question is what is your definition of vodka? I guess the easiest way to answer this is to tell you what I like...Grey Goose and flavored Three Olives brands. That being said, I only ever drink vodka in m...

OK...I have a few runs of sweetfeed under my belt with my pot still but I now want to give vodkas a whirl. So, I am looking to build another column/condenser just for this purpose. I have a few questions... 1. Do you age vodkas? Does it help in producing a better product as it does with whiskey? 2. ...

I have since replaced the pot with a keg and made my own flange. So, the thermo is gone and I have a completely leak proof still.

And now...I'm already mapping out my upgrade to a flute. That didn't take very long. :S

John

I have read that most let their final product air out for a day or two or three before putting on the shelf to age. I let my first run a SF air out for 8 days before I finally added my oak strips and sealed up. Is this a bad thing? Can you let it air out too long?

TIA!

John

So I go to Home Depot to grab a half whiskey barrel planter to chop up for oaking my SF. Being this time of year, they had them stacked WAAAAYYYYY up on a skid at the very top of the shelving outside so they had to get the forklift to get the whole thing down. All of the barrels were wrapped in plas...

Thanks Sam, I'm really happy with the results so far. I'm thinkin the sight glasses are going to be a bitch . NC, I used the 1 1/2 inch copper trap adapters from Grainger. Somebopdy posted the ink in flute talk. They were easy to do. I shaped them to fit my pipe with the end of my belt sander. Afte...

Thanks for all of the advice guys. I really appreciate it! :) I tasted...sniffed...looked at.... Jar 4 is where the strong smell really seemed to fall off. It is also where I didn't get hardly any tongue burn. Jar 10 is where I started to get a little buttery smell. So, I went one jar further just t...

I collected 800ml of feints (~30% ABV). How much is safe to add to my next generation?

John

Ran my first sweetfeed last night on my 2" boka......in detuned mode. No packing on a 5' column with a wide open output. Most of the time I was getting really fast drips or a pencil lead sized stream. I had a little over a 4 gallon batch of wash around 7-8% I am guessing. Not sure what to make...

natureboy68 wrote:Collecting the ingredients, and am confused about what sweet feed to get, can anyone give a brand name? What should I get at tractor supply? Pellets or no pellets??
Thanks!

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 2#p7027697

Hi NCH. Just a few quick questions... 1. I think I know the answer but is there any downside to NOT adding the sightglasses? I figured I can always add them later but want to keep cost/complexity to a minimum for the initial build. 2. If I wanted to do vodka and such, I would need to add a valve/lin...

Amazing! After less than 36 hours most of the REALLY strong alcohol smell has dissipated. I thought I was imagining things so I had my wife smell it and she said she agreed. That is a BIG relief! I thought there was no way anyway sonmeone would be able to drink this stuff with the way it smelled. :)...

The product from the run I just did last night (1st gen) has a VERY strong alcohol smell. Now, this is coming from a non-whiskey drinker. I happened to have a bottle of JD in the cabinet so I compared. Honestly, I had no idea that JD had such a strong smell. LOL So in the end, my SF is not far off i...

LOL. 45 minutes later I have 1 bubble a second.

Starting my second generation today. Replaced 25% of the grains, added 8 lbs. of sugar (want just a little more alcohol out of the next batch) and bought the total volume up to 6 gallons. Let's see how long it takes to see some action. :) I posted this is another thread but here are my final results...

Nice... SF really needs some ageing time for best results. Like, a couple years for my taste. I assume you've read the thread on cuts for potstill? You'll probably only keep the middle 1/3, for SF, you can dip into the tails a little further for flavor, be careful towards the heads SF heads is HOT ...

I m kind of new to the blending my self. But i think if you would of recorded the distillation temperature at each jar you collected, that would help your blending decisions along. You will most likely have to just smell it and taste it. assuming you threw away enough of the heads and you want to b...

Sorry for the crappy pic....

I did my first run ever last night...Sweetfeed Whiskey. I think things went well. I started with ~4 gallons in the boiler. I chucked the first 4 ozs. of fores just be safe. I tried to collect in 150ml increments so I can learn my still but overshot a few times...usually due to kids. So, I ended up w...

Collecting jar 8 as we speak right now. :) I am guessing that I ended up with about 4 gallons in the boiler. I am collecting in 150ml increments so I can learn to make cuts. I discarded the first 4 ozs. I know that is probably overkill but I wnated to be extra safe. I took an alcohol reading on the ...

As a novice distiller, I toiled over the best way to score some nice whiskey bottles for my product. I searched craigslist and found nothing other than antiques. Online homebrew stores sell them by the case, but, that is far from free. I am not a whiskey drinker (I know....go figure) so it's not lik...

Durace11 wrote:At that gravity the "activity" you are seeing is most likely CO^2 degassing. Cold crash and run it IMO.

Cold crashing now. I plan on running tomorrow morning.

I did my first alcohol cleaning run last night with a $10 box of wine. All systems are go.

Exactly 7 days into my ferment and the hydro is reading .9960 (SG was 1.058). What do you guys think? Cold crash now? Let it go one more day? There was still a slight hint of yeast activity but almost all of the grain as fallen from the top.

John

I really want to ferment in my garage and the ambient temp can drop as low as 45F out there. I'm afarid that the temp in one of those type fermenters would drop too low. Is this not a legit concern? John 45 degrees could wreak havoc on your fermentation, thats a lot colder than most yeast can work ...

A cooler will also hold heat in. So if the yeast make to much heat. It could run the temps up to high and kill them off. Just something to think about. I would get a 15 gal fermenter. I would let it clear for two days. Not run it as soon as its done. I would rack it off into a 5 gallon bucket in th...

A great cooler can keep temps up for maybe 24 hours but after that it's going to start to chill down to ambient temp. So, depending on your seasonal swings you might want to consider building something like an insulated box. Kinda like a cold box for keeping ferments cool but you just add a lightbu...

First, lugging a 15 gallon barrel full of fermented wash is going to last maybe 1 or 2 ferments and that will stop. You are talking over 100 lbs of liquid going up stairs in an unsealed container...that's just crazy. It's going to be sloshing around and degassing all the way. Get something you can ...

For anyone who is unfamiliar with coller mash tuns, this is basically what I have: http://www.chasthomsen.com/2009/04/cooler-mash-tun-conversion.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow No siphon required...open the valve and let it drain right into your...

/hand on forehead!

I should have searched first. I found quite a few threads about fermenting in a cooler and all indications are that it will work fine. The only X factor is the low temp in the garage. So....I'll run some tests as I stated before and report back.

John

Let me also throw this out there.... I used to be a homebrewer...have since given it up. I know that there are quite a few homebrewers here also so you will know what I am talking about. What do you guys think of using a 15 gal. - 20 gal. cooler converted to a mash tun to ferment in? Like this one: ...