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Sounds like some yummy liquor. My plum brandy from last year is about a year old. It has been sitting in my oak barrel aging nicely.

NJen thanks for doing the research. I might try to get my hands on some of those chemicals. I have a friend who works in a lab. It would be interesting to send a sample into a lab and have them tell me some legit levels. I just wasn't satisfied with the blue/yellow flame test. I was getting yellow a...

Well, that kit is probably cheaper than a new wife, but the latter might solve a multitude of issues!! Lol yeah definitely. I haven't got a price quote for the test yet. Plus I would like more info from the company or people that have used the test. I want to make sure the price reasonable and it g...

Yeah I get that. I am pretty positive that my recent and best spirits have very little methanol in them. I think I had my initial greedy stage where I wanted to keep and hoard as much drinkable alcohol that I could. Now that I have a decent stock to age. I now only want to produce and save the very ...

I will have to look into it more. I thought that it gave you a specific color range kind of like a pH test strip that indicated a percentage of methanol by volume.

Hello Folks, Hope y'all have had a good start to the new year. I have had the urge to test my stored alcohol to see the actual level of Methanol in it. I have a gallon of heads I would like to test as well just for the sake of science. I looked for a reputable test on line and I found this: https://...

Hello All, Happy Holidays. I wanted to give another update. I will make this a short one. I took all the heads and tails from the run above and diluted it down to 35%. I ended up with an 8 gallon feints run. I ran it pretty slow. The first gallon came off the still between 82 - 80% ABV. The smell wa...

Here is an update on my plum brandy project. I had a few days off last weekend. The weather was cold but decent. I decided to combine all the heads, hearts, and tails from the last spirit run with 5 gallons of the same plum wine from this year. I added water until I got a full 15 gallon charge. This...

I will give that a try. It would save me a ton of time.

So it has been a couple weeks since my cut and blend situation. I have a 2.5 gallon jar that has everything combined from the middle jar down to the jar where things got cloudy and had a oil film on the surface. We will call that the lower half. The lower half is very mellow and nice tasting. It tas...

Well the cutting didn't quite go as planned. I started towards the tail end at jar #54. Jars 55, 56, and 57 had the oily film on top. Jar 54 tasted good. Then I work my way up the line until I got to the mid point of the jars. I have two big 2.5 gallon glass jars. I poured all of the last half of th...

Those are the kind of comments and advice I was looking for. It is 24 hours later and I grabbed jars 36 & 37 and have them a good sniff. They smelled very light compared to yesterday. I chose those two jars because they were both 70% ABV and I wanted to add them to a partial gallon of the same p...

Thanks still_stirrin I knew as I hit the submit button that someone would be on to roast me. I don't expect you to make cuts for me. I was more looking for some theoretical advice. Like with plum brandy you probably want to: "stir clear of the first 10 jars because they have the most methanol&q...

Hello All, I have read several good posts on this site about making brandy cuts. I have a post on here about a plum brandy that I am currently finishing up. I just did a 14 gallon spirit run of 40% low wines. I have a 2" pot still with a 40 inch tall column. I removed all the packing for this r...

Hello Stillers, I was perusing through Craigslist looking for something that I don't need. I came across a guy selling the big blue 55 gallon drums with the fully removable lid. The drum had contained corn syrup and was rinsed real good after use. He wanted $20 for the drum. Up to this point I had d...

Good info Cranky. Sounds like you recommend no packing. I don't think my plum logs have seasoned enough. I would guess that they have only sat through the summer. They might need another 6 months to a year. I will set some aside for a future project. I think this will be quite the run experience. I ...

Hello All, I was very fortunate this year. A friend called me over to pick his heavy laden plum tree. He has what I believe are mirabelle plums. They are sweat, juicy, and a beautiful golden yellow. I made some wine out of them last year and it was extremely good. This year I made 13 gallons of wine...

I have been playing with mine quite a bit. I wouldn't say they are 100% accurate but they are pretty dang close. I have been using both of the tiny ones and they read the same as each other. When it come to my regular sized alcometer vs. the mini ones, there seems to be a sweet spot of accuracy whic...

Otis, Try this link. I had hard time finding it. I try to stay away from plastic as much a possible. I have a glass tube called a wine thief but it can be messy and difficult to use. I need to buy one of the glass alcometer tubes with the wider base. https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%...

Hello All, I was able to find and buy a miniature alcometer off of eBay. It took several weeks to arrive so I had forgot I even ordered it. It showed up today and boy is it tiny. I tested out a range of different ABVs and to my surprise, it is pretty accurate. I am going to use it to test 250 - 500 ...

Tomb,

I believe my analog meters are way off. I would like to know just how many watts I am using during various runs or parts of the runs.

Do you find your digital meter pretty accurate?

Thanks,

Jb

Hello All, It is Christmas day and I am doing one of my last spirit runs for 2018. It is a spirit run that I split in half. It is the same low wines diluted to 40% ABV split in half but ran at two different speeds. The first half I ran super fast. The first run was collected at about a pint every 5 ...

I am going to do a spirit run this weekend. I am going to do this run real slow. I will be very educational. It will be the second half of 20 gallons of low wines. I kept 2.5 gallons from the first half that is aging in oak. It was ran fast. My assumption is that I think I will like the first half b...

Jog6, How slow did you slow your last run down to? I have another 10 gallons ready for next Sunday's spirit run. I will slow it down to about 10 minutes a pint. I am curious to see which one tastes better. The low wines are identical so the only difference will be run collection rate. All my jars ar...

Yeah thanks Cranky. I am trying not to over think it too much. I am pretty please with how my still operates. I am trying to understand what's going on during the run. The ABV is now dropping steadily and the temp is rising. Does that indicate tails is now starting or heads is actually ending? I wil...

Hello All, Spirit Run Sunday is in full effect. I am running 10 gallons of 40% ABV UJSSM. I collected my 500 ml of foreshots and 3 quarts of heads at about 1 quart per hour. That was SLOW. I turned up the power to around 1080 watts. I am now collecting into pint jars at a rate of one pint every 5.5 ...

I have been trying to think of a good signature for my profile. I want it to funny because it is a joke. I think I have it: I have searched the forum and I have read my self stupid. I know you can't run your still by ABV, temperature, or through advice. You must use taste, smell, and sometimes even ...

NZ, That is how I've been trying to do the math. I have 13 gallons of 66% ABV stripped product. Don't all jump me at once guys but I used a calc in the parent site to figure out how much water to dilute down to 40% ABV for my spirit run. I could have did the math but it just seemed pretty efficient ...

I am still completely a noobs but I do have several spirit runs under my belt for the year. Finding all these new calcs are pretty cool. At this point, I am merely just using this calc to find out how many jars I need to have outside and to plan my day accordingly. It is winter and snowing here. Las...

Hello, I have a question for you folks. I have been playing with the calculators on the parent site. When I input all my info into the Calc it generates a ton of good info. It calculates main run and tails. What I don't quite get is why it doesn't calculate the heads part of the run? I am assuming t...