Home Distiller

Not one person answering your question was being tough or bullying you. There is a New Distiller's Reading Lounge that answers pretty much every question you could have. You have another option too, The link at the top of the page, HD Google Search, click it and type in what you want to search. It w...

It sitting around aging in glass until you ran it again probably helped it mature too. It always takes 3-6 weeks of aging for fresh run likker to reach its best flavor profile when white, or raw. Good to know the flavors still carry over at higher purity. I plan to try some panella soon.

I use the pickle buckets from my local Deli. To get the smell out I bought wal-mart's cheapest coffee I could find. In a 5 gallon bucket it took a few cups of coffee. Left the coffee in for a few weeks, shook the buckets daily to move the coffee around. This is all done with the lid on of course. Af...

The folks around here are more than happy to help with questions that aren't easily answered. They do however like for us new guys ( I am one) to put forth some effort to research first. They aren't being rude, or hostile, just trying to get you used to doing research. In time you will see why. Ever...

PJ, I'm new too, but to give you an idea of how long it takes to ferment out a sugar wash, I did a batch of Wineo's sugar wash. Took off fast, rapid fire bubbles in my air lock. As the wash cooled, it slowed. My house stays 67 in winter, It slowly bubbled once every 20-30 seconds for 2 weeks. On the...

Awesome thread. You should be working in a distillery or brewery. Naaa, that would take the fun out of something you love, trust me, I worked for Stroh's Brewing Co. for 6 years in the brewing dept. still don't know much more than the basics of brewing, but I can pump the hell outta some molasses an...

This thread made me chuckle. Just to point out for the guys wanting to build one of these. They are junk. I've seen them in use long ago and they are really just a backwoods bargain basement hunk of crap meant to be used for one season. Here is why you would not want to build one. In order for this ...

I like Red Star DADY it is a very aggressive yeast. Takes off fast. It tolerates temps to 90 so says the website supporting the brand. It does well at low temps too, I currently have 2 6.5 gallon batches of Wineo's Sugar wash and they are at 68 degree's and it is chuggin away. Distillers Active Dry ...

Nice build! Was going to say, if you wanted a cheap alternative for a sacrificial run, instead of using your wash. Go buy the absolute cheapest fifth, liter or half gallon of vodka you can find. Around here a fifth is about $5, dump it in your boiler and fill with enough water to cover your element ...

Would need to know start SG and ending SG, then you could figure out total alcohol content of wash. Had we known that, we could figure it out to some degree of perfection. That said, with that amount of Sugar, in 2 batches, if you got your wash to 20% and ran your still collecting roughly 80-90% the...

Just throwing two cent in on an old thread. You could just use a cheap white pillow case from walmart, try and find all cotton. Don't get a high quality one, they are too high thread count, they drain slow. Put the center of the pillow case down in ya bucket. Dump in mash and lift up. should drain o...

I'm interested in trying adding some soda's to make some smaller sample washes. I'm thinkin Dr. Pepper would do well in a mash, I just wonder if any of the other ingredients will harm anything, like the sodium and preservatives. The Mrs. bakes bread and salt doesn't harm the yeast in it so I'm guess...

Thanks guys! I'm not here to ruffle feathers. Lord knows there are enough people out there that frown on enough things. Can't believe I lived to see the day they are legalizin them left handed cigarettes but home distillery isn't acceptable, oh well, I digress. Thanks for the im's, you make a fella ...

I was tryin to give folks an idea of an easy way to malt some corn in larger quantities. Malting is a time consuming process. I have been reading a lot of different posts on here about people running 15, 30, 100 gallon runs. If you are going to malt enough corn for that, you arent gonna get it done ...

I'm here for the hobby alone. My family history has roots that go way back. I guess when your raised around it you tend to speak in the present tense. I haven't been in the woods in decades. Health issue's keep me from doing that, but, a small setup running personal quantities is all I'm here for. I...

Take ya some corn, put it in a burlap sack. Stick it in a bucket and cover with water for 3 days. Take it out and lay it out on a big canvas tarp or a sheet or whatever ya got, just put your tarp on the ground and spread your corn about 3 inches thick and cover with another wet sheet or wet burlap s...

Ty for the greeting. I look forward to learning some new things, helping out others and sharing some info. It's nice to see all the renewed interest in the craft. I'm guessin a lot of it has to do with the programs on tv covering the subject. Ya ask me, those shows are gonna cause a lot of headaches...

I'm from North Carolina and I come from a long line of Distiller's. I'll share a few recipe's in time, but, to be honest, the secret to making good hooch isn't so much in the ingredients as it is in knowing your equipment, how it works, the sounds it makes and how to manage your temp's. We still fir...

I'd stick with brewers yeast, the liquid form ya get at the local brewer supply co. Ask for the ones that can withstand high alcohol concentration, they brew longer which gives higher alcohol content. Wild yeasts are unpredictable, they can also bring in bacteria and cause some serious issues with f...