Home Distiller

Sounds wonderful. Have you thought of adding some malt as well to help break down the banana starch. Maybe do a rest at 130-140F for an hour. Vienna malt might go well flavor wise.

This comes up every couple of years. We know silicone gaskets will degrade over time when used in the vapor path. There are arguments that silicone is inert and you will not suffer any negative outcomes. PTFE on the other hand is completely inert in an alcohol still so we know that it isn't possibl...

Why don't you just dry hop the beer?

If you make beer you know the hops that are boiled 1hr or more are your bittering hops, and are reduced down to bitter Alpha acids. I've made a lot of beer, and distilled a fair bit of it too. The beers I've distilled aren't super alpha acid bitter like i'd expect and was mentioned in other posts, b...

Terrible. My guy is 14, and I'm not sure how much longer hes got. Was my constant companion during my bachelor years. Not sure if I would've made it through them without him.

I gotta throw in with windy on this as well. charts be damned. you gotta cook corn. I have had 2 cracked corn failures with an infection at 1.05 by not exceeding 175* last year alone. So not only do you need to cook it to release the starch, you have got to kill the bugs too.The pasteurization temp...

I think you're on the right track of configuring your still to do the job you want it to. 94% seems pretty high for 4 plates though. Are you doing a temperature correction when proofing? I've only aged for a year at most. Since bourbon is usually aged at least 4 I've decided to aim for a higher proo...

By lowering the ph you make the the mash more hospitable to enzymes, helping the conversion as mentioned, and less hospitable to bacteria, giving the yeast an advantage in getting to the sugar first. I'm sure there are many thoughts on what flavors a sour mash contributes. One is that boiling alchoh...

I read through your packing post too @bushman. Very cool.

Thanks @yummyrum. Makes sense. Also, you talking about "teasing" out the scrubbers reminded me of one time I tried to pull two tangled scrubbers apart with bare hands. The taut wire of one sliced through my finger like hot butter. I'm more careful with them now.

It's just a packed column with a dephlemator on top, then a line arm.

I guess I'm wording everything wrong. I am not experiencing any flooding. I'm just trying to figure out the ideal tightness to pack the column. Even my "looser" pack seems very tight, especially the copper. I'm wondering why it doesn't act as a giant perf plate, and hold up all the liquid....

Yeah it's not a good thing. Here's one example.

https://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtop ... =2&t=81164

I saw another of the same basic thing while trying to find an answer to my question.

I'm just wondering why tight packing wouldn't cause simular problems as a plate with tiny holes the size of the minimal gaps I imagine are left between packing material. Even without any plate or support at the bottom.

I'm making a nuetral after not doing it for about a year. I tried packing the column looser this time (mixture of stainless and copper scrubbies). I got to 190, but im pretty sure it is running slower (like I said, I haven't done this in a while). This is the thing I don't understand, and I hope som...

I use a white gas camp stove when I go backpacking, thats pretty nice, but I've been tempted to get an alcohol stove to use instead.

I've only distilled finished beers like @still_stirring. I ran a Belgian blonde and a brown IPA. I actually really liked both. Kinda like a gin/whiskey hybrid. The hop notes were a bit too grassy and oxidized in the new make, but mellowed after aging. I'm planning on doing what you did next time an...

I've only distilled finished beers like @still_stirring. I ran a Belgian blonde and a brown IPA. I actually really liked both. Kinda like a gin/whiskey hybrid. The hop notes were a bit too grassy and oxidized in the new make, but mellowed after aging. I'm planning on doing what you did next time and...

Are you making a temperature correction when proofing? Proof for the big boys is reported at 60F. A change of 20 degrees makes a pretty big difference. Or are you adding a sweetener to the finished spirit? That will throw off your proof as well. Gas chromatography won't give you a more accurate proo...

Sebflo tl or bioglucanase gb are two commercial names for it.

@vernue I've only used rye in beer. I use a lot of wheat though, which I think is slightly less gummy than rye. However, I think adding the rye to hot water would be worse, as the flour will want to clump into cooked dough balls, which are hard to break up, and sink to the bottom even worse. It used...

I'd think, unless you sanitized everything and sealed it, even it did work, by the time you were able to pitch yeast it would have a ton of bacteria to contend with. I think I saw a similar post recently calling mashing a pain. I don't really understand why someone would be so averse to heating some...

@still_stirin I looked a the spec sheet of the B-Glucanase enzyme I've used and it is the more heat tolerant variety mentioned in the end of your quote. Says it is derived from Trichoderma longibrachiatum, and the optimum temperature is 140F "pH Profile Optimum pH for Bioglucanase GB is pH 5.0....

This is a sound approach. Throwing boiling water on top of your unmalted rye would leave you hating the predicament you got yourself in, much less potentially compromising the very best drop you can make. Beta-glucans are real and require structured handling to minimize their gumminess. Your glucan...

Yummyrum wrote: ↑Tue Feb 02, 2021 6:06 pm They are the same thing AFAIK

Thanks, That's what I was hoping.

An SSR is the wrong device. Don't confuse them. Not quite . SSR stands for Solid State Relay . However , manufacturers make two main types of Devices they call SSRs for use in AC circuits. One type is simply a “dumb” switch and needs to be turned on or off by an external controller .There devices h...

Congrats, you made it so strong you don't even have to distill it.

A lot of non alcoholic beer is made by vaccuum distilling it to remove the alcohol. Pretty sure it doesn't doesn't do much to improve the flavor, since its usually pretty bad. Certainly helps the hangover if you remove 95% of the alcohol though.

Id love to see the design on the coupler of your agitator build if you go that route. I looked at your other wood fired boiler post, and see the tangled web youre working with now. Im just gonna post on this thread again though. I had two ideas you might want to play with. First one is, what if you ...

How are you heating your steam? You could do that with an electric element. In my experience there isnt a huge difference in how the still runs between a direct immersed element and injecting steam created by one. Nice to have that lip along the top to stack a bead on. Should make filling those litt...