Home Distiller

Hi, I've own one of those stills. I use it for distilling gin botanicals that have been soaking in clean alcohol and Its ideal for this purpose. No internal element - it goes on the stove. Bear in mind that its a simple still - and lots of flavours come across with the alcohol. You could use it for ...

Hi, I've never made a Birdwatchers, but I brew with white sugar (66kg) and molasses (5kg) and other stuff of course. This is much cheaper than using brown sugar but essentially the same thing. Molasses is a great yeast feedstock and relatively inexpensive which is why yeast manufacturers use it to g...

The http://www.nutritiondata.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow site is great but some care is required in applying the information you find there. The site is designed for humans, not yeast, and we aren’t quite the same. Humans can digest complex p...

There’s lots of talk about pH and a good proportion of it isn’t quite correct. You can find articles that talk about pH of 5.5 being optimal for yeast growth. Valid, but growth isn't the only important thing. A pH of less than pH 4.5 has better bacterial inhibition properties so is considered a bett...

There are a range of options to raise the pH (of things you intend to distil before drinking): Baking Soda (Sodium Bicarbonate). Advantages: Inexpensive and easy to locate. Food grade. Disadvantages: Fast acting and can cause the brew to foam over. Sodium > 500 ppm (just less than 1.8g per litre) is...

I buy yeast in 500g blocks and use 50g at a time. When I buy a block I split it up and put it in small sealed containers that I keep in the fridge. I use it in six months and I've never had any problems.

It can go a bit nasty.

When move the backset from the still back into the brewing barrel I add in the sugar for the next batch. The osmotic pressure from all that sugar makes it a pretty hostile place to live, but I don't wait too long before kicking off the next batch.

Gravy

I do sugar washes in a 200 litre barrel. Each batch contains: 60 kg White Sugar 2 l Molasses 120g Urea 80g DAP 100g Skim Milk Powder 60 mls Sunflower Oil For yeast I use 50g of L2226 (Lallemand). The lees from the previous batch are left in the barrel for the next batch and about 90 litres of dregs ...

Brewmaker1 - that is an interesting link. I think the point is that anything was better than the airlock, but the comparison between shaking, stirring and aeration isn't entirely balanced since the shaking and aerating were done 3 - 6 times a day but the stirring was continuous. Beyond the aerating ...

Thanks for the responses. My main interest is in the fermenation to dryness of high gravity washes with a result above 18% alcohol. I tend to make the mistake of assuming we are all trying to do the same thing, but we're not. In addition to my original post: Anyone wanting to find out more about aer...

Everyone knows that ethanol is produced by yeast during the anaerobic respiration of sugars. Everyone knows that anaerobic means without oxygen. Everyone just assumes that anaerobic respiration occurs because oxygen isn't available, but it isn't as simple as that: Saccharomyces cerevisiae (brewers y...

I just bought some Super Start for fermenting high gravity washes.

Three batches later and plenty of wasted sugar I'm going back to Uvaferm 43.

I have been using Uvaferm 43 (by Lallemand), but the shop I was getting it from moved. It seemed like a good time to try something different so I imported some Super Start because the alcohol tolerance was so impressive and the price so competitive. When I tried to do what I was doing with the Uvafe...

I have a 125 litre still and brew in a 200 litre barrel. Running larger equipment is more complicated than just scaling up a smaller still - three hours of labour to distill 25 litres of wash would cost me an entire weekend. To have a life, my system has been designed to operate largely unattended. ...

DAP is the nitrogen source of choice and is available in grades appropriate for human consumption. If you're looking for an organic alternative try (dead) brewers yeast. You can find reasonably priced stockfood grades that are at least intended for consumption by a living animal. There is lots of re...