Home Distiller

Going by the gravity, the hydrometer usually has a potential alcohol listed by the gravity reading or use an online calc to figure the alcohol potential for the gravity.
5 gallons of wash at 10% alcohol would be a half gallon of 100% alcohol, or 3/4 gallon run off at 75%.

Got myself a 10 gallon bourbon barrel, #3 char. Made by East Coast Woodbarrels, looked em up & they seem pretty new, no real reviews to be found. Haven't filled it with water for swelling & leak testing yet, still have a ways to go for enough bourbon to fill it. Went through 60 lb corn, 20 l...

jb-texshine wrote:Apple pie!

Did this last year, this year mixing it up a bit & giving apple pie, honey whiskey & irish cream.
My nephew who doesn't drink but likes old movies is getting 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari' & 'Modern Times'.

LEDs aren't quite there yet for hydroponics, great for veg, not so much for flower. Tried 20 x 600w LED panels to replace 20 x 1000w HPS lighting & although things looked great through veg the end result was disappointing with the LEDs used all the way through.

If the turbo package is used following the directions the resulting alcohol makes Everclear look like great stuff. It probably is much better if the recommended amount of water is at least doubled, I have some fermenting now, but made a 10 gallon batch from the packet made for a 5 gallon batch &...

Around here the turbo yeasts are considered suitable for making fuel & solvent, but not so suitable for making a decent drop for drinking. Fermenting a wash to 6 - 8% is more common, max 10% or you may start getting off flavors in the finished product. When I started off with the turbo yeast I w...

Welcome, & hello from the Valley!

You'll love the element in the keg, I also started off with a 5 gallon pot on the induction plate. It worked, but left much to be desired as I discovered after making the switch to a strong element & controller.

A refractometer is similar to a hydrometer for specific gravity, it reads the sugar content so used on a wash rather than a distilled spirit. It can give a number on a finished wash, but some math has to be done to account for alcohol in the wash. Advantage of a refractometer is the wash doesn't hav...

I also made the mistake of doing the math on the amount of blackberries required to make a bottle of brandy. About 52 pounds per bottle :wtf: Thats a lot of blackberries but it is a labor of love :D They seem pretty dense to me, how many pounds does a bucket of them weigh? I mean, that's still a bo...

Have 2 x 24 gallon batches of 100% corn (liquid enzymes) fermented, cleared & ready to go in the new 25 gallon boiler. Did the water/vinegar followed with a few gallons of feints for cleaning runs to get it prepped & can't wait to see how the stripping goes :ebiggrin: . I can finally drain &...

Going to try my first single malt scotch, I could only source out 20 lbs of thomas fawcett peated malt that arrived on the weekend & have it mashing along with 35 lbs of 2 row for a ~ 25 gallon batch right now. Heated 16 gallons of water to 150° & poured it on the grain in the cooler, droppe...

I've used flaked maize before, easy to work with in some ways & tough in others. Being flaked it has already been gelled up, so you don't need the long cook at higher temps to make it gel, on the flip side squeezing it out to recover the liquid is tougher (& probably more messy) than with cr...

I don't post often but read constantly, it was like someone hid my favorite book

The mop wringer, I use it for pressing fruit & straining grain, seems like anything within 5 feet or so gets messy.

Looks like it'll be a helluva fun weekend over there! I kinda regret being a dumb youngun at times like this, the US border is 15 minutes from me but I can't cross it... I'd love to be able to taste something from the more experienced guys, & have them try a drop of mine for some honest critique...

Made some maple whiskey last night. 1 gallon of maple syrup with 4 gallons water & pitched bakers, left it for 2 weeks to finish & ran in potstill mode. Did some preliminary cuts & looks like I'll get about 1.5 liters of good stuff, want to taste test again before blending though, heads ...

Sorry to hear this, my condolences to his family & friends.

The backset? Not good for the garden, it seems to be a pretty good plant killer in the spot I've been dumping it.

If they are shavings like the wine store stuff I saw (small shavings like after sharpening a pencil) I wouldn't go with them. I'm really not sure how other oaks might be, pretty much everything I've read about aging spirit is all the American White. I have been checking the wine & homebrew store...

For fast fermenting & a smoother drop, try a wash with a lower gravity. When this one is done get an extra fermenter & do double the batch shooting for 8 or 9%. It will be twice the stilling but same overall yield, then compare with some of the current batch & decide for yourself if high...

Shavings will color it up & impart some flavor, but more of a woody flavor rather than the vanilla/caramel, etc. notes oak is supposed to impart (from my understanding). I have trouble finding white oak here in BC, I usually try to buy locally & searching around the lower mainland I wasn't f...

That should work, although the pot looks pre wired to the board, since the voltage pass through only requires one of the hot wires from 220V & there are 4 terminals I would think there should be a spot for ground. Nothing for instructions with it? If you have a multimeter you could check if any ...

If using an SSR for the controller there are spots for ground on the SSR.

Edit: the lower point in between the hot leads on the controller are for ground.

The descriptive word won't come to me right now, but lead builds up in the body. The lead leached out from the solder may not be enough to affect anything after each still run, but the tiny amounts of lead leached from all those still runs go into every bottle, & as they are ingested those micro...

Usually about a 3/4 charge is fine, a gallon or a bit over should be OK in there.

The tasting experience, looking through the bottom of the bottle?

My blackberry must has to be about as done as it's gonna get, Gonna see if I can run that this evening.

Doing a smoked ham for Easter... I also have a nice ham for tonight, but now I want a smoker... I should grab one for home smoked barley too! Got a new 35 gallon igloo cooler for no boil mashing & an OBKrusher grain mill last week, milled & mashed up 35# corn with 10# rauch malt & 5# ry...

Doing some stripping runs yesterday evening. Dump boiler, fill boiler, attach column, fire the element, wash some collection cups & buckets during heat up, run & repeat. Until the 4th strip run, where I dumped the boiler, attached the column, fired the element, started washing & realized...

1. SEBstar HTL, SEBAmyl-GL 2. Hamilton Hops & Grapes 3. Boil water, pour on milled corn in insulated cooler. Stir it up with a drill & paint mixer to break up clumps, then add SEBstar HTL and stir regularly keeping the lid closed as much as possible to hold the temp for a few hours. Insert i...

Doing a smoked ham for Easter... I also have a nice ham for tonight, but now I want a smoker... I should grab one for home smoked barley too! Got a new 35 gallon igloo cooler for no boil mashing & an OBKrusher grain mill last week, milled & mashed up 35# corn with 10# rauch malt & 5# ry...