Home Distiller

Hey butch, I'm still alive. I am sitting here at 1am doing a stripping run. Seems it is the only time I get to make some drinks. Getting to be holiday and hunting season so I need some. I still have not found anything I can cook my mash in yet, still lookin though. For now uncle jesse's sugar wash ...

I know there are people on here who know alot more than I do but I will give my 2 cents worth. First, I would find a 16g keg for the pot. The 8 gal is small and there will not get a whole lot of likker out of it. I make 35 gals of mash at a time and after running that through I will get about 3 gals...

Hey Butch, Sorry I did not see you on earlier I would have said hi.(I need to pay more attention) It is now 2am and I am on 34 pints and only dropped to 140p. Maybe I will give you a call tomorrow evening.

Antler, I got real lucky. Couple real good guys in my area. I owe them a bunch!..... What part of the world are you in Antler?

Welcome to the sight!

Welcome! There are some good folks on here and really helpful advice. Good luck!

I am sitting here 6 hrs into a spirit run. (20 pints 160p so far) I run my spirit runs real slow. So just thumbing through the threads. I am glad I took butch's advice on the 16g thumper. Like he stated, you can dump mash in the thumper also and double your stripping run, works great. Also noticed o...

Just want to let everyone know, it has been 9 months since I built it. So far it has worked great. Had some leaks and cured them. Made several gallons of great tasting drink. Had it to do over, with more money of course, I would have used tri clamps and weld in some sight glasses so I know how much ...

Hey butch, I'm still alive. I am sitting here at 1am doing a stripping run. Seems it is the only time I get to make some drinks. Getting to be holiday and hunting season so I need some. I still have not found anything I can cook my mash in yet, still lookin though. For now uncle jesse's sugar wash i...

cranky wrote:People have had that happen many times. Gallo jugs seem particularly susceptible as well as Jack Daniels bottles. always bottle warmer than it will ever reach or leave plenty of head room and the cap loose.

lesson well learned! thanks cranky

I did not get to read this whole thread, but I figured this one needed to be out there. A few days ago I finished a stripping run, let it breath under coffee filters for a day. My still is in a building outside the house that I do not heat all of the time. I took all of the jars into the house and l...

Thanks to everybody, Corene, good to see you back. I too have been workin my butt off. Anyway, I have been sniffing it while it airs out. Jar #1 is full of heads and does not smell good at all at 180 proof, but jar 26 at 80 proof smells great. I want to keep some of my first run and age it, maybe in...

Absolutely Bronc. I am willing to help all I can. Feel free to ask any questions you have. Without HD forums, I wouldent have been able to do it and Butch and SRD have been tremendes help so the least I can do is help a fellow newby all I can.

Well I did it. I got home about 7:30 off a 12 hr shift. Fired up the still and ran it all through again. I started with 5 gal of about 40%. I made my cuts in pint jars, I came up with 26 pints. I shut her down at 6am when she hit 30%. I know there is still a little alcohol in there, so I will keep w...

Well I did run some of a spirit run and had to shut her down and go to sleep. Let them air out and that's where I screwed up. I mixed them all together.what tasted real good has too much heads.so tonight after work in going to run it again and this time make my cuts with more patience

Ok a short update. I am at work so got to keep it short. Did some tweaking and ran 3 mashes through it. Had some minor leaks. Fixed them and now i have about 10 gal to strip. Plan on stripping them this week if everything goes right

Redwood, you are probably right. I only had 3 wires in my 220 cable and I used it for common and grounded the controller and keg together and went to ground from there. I am thinking the common is just a ground in that case.

Guys I have read all about the controls and who made what with making a box and using SS relays and what not. I thought I had it all figured out, then I read some more and got thoroughly confused. I know electronics but not near as much as alot of you guys. So I decided to throw something together a...

For anybody that is still following. I have been working a good bit and haven had time, but today I made time and did the first half of a stripping run. It is working great, I am running my cooling water off a 55g barrel and I need to tweek that a bit but I was getting a quart every 5 minutes and ta...

well, I did half my stripping run, going to finish tomorrow evening. I have to say, just tasting this off my fingers, it tastes real good, however, I will run the rest tomorrow and put it all together and run it again. I want to thank Butch and Dave for all of the help! These guys are great!

Butch and SRD have been great!! I owe them alot. Corene has been a big help also. Don't think I could have done it without all of you! thanks to everybody

Update, I did a test run with water, had a few leaks. I am using the home made gasket with teflon tape around it.I also think I had too much water in both boiler and thumper. So I did some changes, fixed solder joints put 5 gal water in boiler and 3 in thumper, and tried it again. Had some minor lea...

You know all this stuff has been out there awhile and more we don't know about yet. I think it is just the depth of the members and the diversities of their trades that combine to make this forum what it is. I come across things all the time at work and they immediately start me thinking . I wonder...

[/quote] I have some stuff at work and I will check on the name tomorrow. It is a soft PTFE packing we use in valves . It is 1/2 inch wide and 1/4 inch thick and VERY soft and pliable. It may work well to seal the irregularities in your flange. I gave some to another member here but haven't heard ba...

Here it is, just mocked up. need some adjusting and tweeking. I will solder this week, and add some caps for filling and packing in the condensor and drain valves in the bottom.. Corene you were right, those plates warped even with clamps but with a good gasket I think they will work. We bent them b...

Truckinbutch wrote:Lookin good , Coalminer .
I'd heed what Corene has to share . She's pretty canny with this stillin stuff .

Thanks Butch! I agree Corene seems to know her stuff!

Thank you Corene. I cut the plates out with a plasma cutter.Those plates will be drilled and bolts welded to the top of the keg. We (I say we because friends are helping) will be making 6 knurls for each keg to tighten down the plates by hand. That way it is removable for inspection and cleaning.I w...

Just some more porn to look at. I know I wasn't going to polish the copper but I started cleaning and couldent help myself. Used a wire brush on a drill. These are just mocked up, nothing is permanent yet. I plan to start welding Teusday. I need a few more fittings, plans change as I get more advice...

for the water inlets, I soldered pex to copper fittings, slapped a pex valve onto the end of the intake side to control the water flow

Some copper porn! This is more for noobs, building my Leibig condenser. When soldering, make sure it is clean, even if it is new, sand it down with some emery cloth,inside and out! make sure your flux is clean. you only get 1 chance, if you screw up, you got to start over from the beginning. There a...