Home Distiller

There's no need to, the drawings had been around for many decades before I found them and are now available online. It's built out of what was available in the local scrapyard on the day, so posting pics won't be much more help than the original drawings. I have seen one built using two kegs.

Yes. That's where I got the idea from. Built it when I was a newbie. So are you thinking ferment 2 or 3x your still size and strip until you have enough low wines and load all those low wine in the preheater on your last run to get them up to temp too? I quite often start a spirit run of a differen...

Yes. That's where I got the idea from. Built it when I was a newbie.

Double distillation using a preheater is the most energy and cooling water efficient system I know of. I've just watched a Moonshiners episode where they have built a "heater box" which is a primitive, but effective, version of what I use. The next strip starts producing a few minutes afte...

Going back to water, whilst it's clearly nowhere near as important as when brewing beer or cider, I have found that adding a campden tablet and leaving it overnight really helps before adding the ubiquitous epsom salts and citric acid. Obviously everyone's water might be different, but we have high...

"astronomically low" isn't a number.

Baking soda is not the best chemical for adjusting pH.

1.090 is quite high. You do have some alcohol in it, so maybe just run it and get what you get?
Use the high SG backset for the next generation?

I do them outdoors with no cooling water. Don't treat them as 'practice' runs or keep any distillate. Chris do you do your sac run outdoors with no cooling water? What's your heat source? Whatever it is for that still or cleaning run. I have stills with internal elements, plus stills that run on fi...

It sounds like it's 'use what you've got', the same as Poitín and prohibition era moonshine, etc..

I'm sure that I've made spirits that fit the descriptions, especially when morphing sour mash generations into rum generations and vise versa

I do them outdoors with no cooling water. Don't treat them as 'practice' runs or keep any distillate.

If you had the flavors correct but too strong, swapping the flavored ingredients for others sounds like a mistake.

You can dilute flavor by adding white sugar to the ferment, or neutral to the heart cut.

Five gallons is a lot to have under an element, especially when it's barely covered. Watch out for stratification.

I'd rather err on the side of too much flavor, then dilute it with neutral to get the intensity I like.

...however i want a bicardi style with a bit more ruminess if ya like. Have you looked up how Bacardi makes their white rum? It isn't white rum straight off the still, it's barrel aged, then the color is stripped out of it with a specialized carbon that I bet you can't obtain, or make, without doin...

You can include as much flavor as you want by how you run the still and choose your cuts. For Jenever, I use narrow cut hearts from a pot still. For gin spirit with less grain flavor, I reflux the feints from the pot still spirit run.

I sometimes use a 12V pump to add cold water to the bottom inlet of the flake stand, overflowing the hot water from the top outlet. A cheap 12V temperature controller is used to control the temperature in the flake stand near the product outlet, the thermocouple is in the water, not the product. Thi...

I doubt it. The entry point, G, for the vapor is too high. It will work just fine if the pre heater outlet piping is plumbed to allow removal of condensate generated in the pre-heater. STRIPPER W PREHEATER.jpg I've never seen the inlet to a thumper designed like that. What stops the thumper drainin...

Watch out for burning. It would be safer if they were put in a Carter Head.

I was thinking of fabricating one of these condensers as I have a lot of copper sheet that I found on craigslist. I could use it as a wine preheater. It would be much easier to clean than a traditional worm. It would be easier to make concentric cylinders instead of cones. condenser.jpg Very cool, ...

I don't even take the still head off between stripping runs, refilling through a valve at the top of the pot.

Your life doesn't sound much different to mine up until I started distilling. The biggest difference I can think of is that I didn't have the internet feeding me mis-information while I was researching what to do. I had to go to university libraries and hunt for actual research.

I just told a lie. My first rum ferment was airlocked and the wash hit the ceiling while we were away for the weekend.

I don't recall having any dramas when making my first rum over four decades ago without the 'help' of the internet.

Also i only realized i wasnt even in the ballpark on yeast until reading other recipes. And yeah thats why i didnt attempt another gravity reading after extra sugar. If you want to know just how screwed up my head was at the moment, changing jars on a spirit run and why you can now see i have a lei...

Still didnt take fg yet because i dont know what it would mean after an og, a ferment, and more sugar added. I’ll watch to see if gravity changes over next couple days. FG and OG won't mean anything to any of us 'experts' now that you have added sugar. The best check now is tasting it. If it's stil...

A number one screw up. There was probably nothing wrong with it and it was finished. Your Brix refractometer is the wrong tool for the job. A hydrometer is more useful, but even then, you still have to allow for non-sugars that affect both refractometer and SG readings. The difference from OG to FG...

You don't say what type of still you have, what it is made out of, or how you heat it.

Cleaning between brandy runs isn't needed and citric acid strips valuable patina off copper.

For neutrals, I run until my low wines collection is just below 40%. Some stop earlier, like 50%, then add water to get below 40%.

Have you done vinegar and sacrificial alcohol runs?

If using a couple of separate solar panels, you could mount them on stands to give yourself some power control. Point them both at the rising sun in the morning, then turn one away enough to prevent smearing when it starts producing. Once producing, you would only have to turn the panels maybe once ...

If you are running a simple pot still, passing clouds will interfere with production, but that doesn't cause smearing, it just takes longer and is a PITA if you are in a hurry to get it done and go to the pub. We use 12V water heater elements directly connected to second hand solar panels to heat ho...

Solar is at least three worthwhile topics.

A heliostat can aim a mirror.

Panels can be used with batteries and converters, plus they can be connected directly to elements without all the expensive stuff needed to store and convert.