Home Distiller

gawd, another auzzie, the woods seem full of em now. ya'll becoming a significant minority or something in there parts. i'd complain but you folks got the best homespun sayings and often the best new ideas so.... WELCOME ABOARD!!! (and try to keep it simple for the rest of us, OK? 'esplain it slow i...

Why are the pictures broken/cannot be displayed? I have seen this on several threads. Most of these topics are I think are about 2 years old or more, still great to read. Would like to see the photos though.

haha, I'm not thinking about hundreds of pounds. Just enough for it to flow out a tube that is, after all, open to the atmosphere. And I would think much less than the pressure that is sometimes in it. The first time I took out the bung, after adding 10 gallons of very hot water to swell and seal it...

Hi LWTCS and goose eye, you are correct. I was overthinking it by a long shot. It took me about one minute to cut a length of 3/8 inch soft copper tubing and about one more minute to siphon off one gallon from a barrel. Always been adding to the barrels. Its the first time I ever took anything from ...

But I don't want to put a plain ole siphon hose in 125 proof alcohol. You are talking about plastic, right? Of course I could just bend a piece of soft copper tubing.

Goose Eye, been thinking on it some. A simple and cheap solution would be to pressuse up the barrel a little. I could use oxygen, nitrogen or CO2, as they are available to me. A bicycle tire pump would also work but I'd shy away from using my air compressor because I wouldn't want to be adding any p...

Really good tips Hack, thanks. So often it all comes down to a series of little things that make a job easy. The real tools are in your head. The next time I need a stiff mixture for a rope of dough, I'll follow your advice. I just always felt like I can't touch anything when working with it because...

goose eye, clever. made me laugh and laugh. I can get the booze into the barrels easy enough but how do you get it out without plastic? maybe a few feet of copper tubing? rolling it over aint gonna work for me as its mounted down pretty good cause of space and a bit afraid it might be unsafe otherwi...

Hi guerrila distilla, so nice to meet you. I've looked at your nice drawings for about an hour or so, off and on, but cannot quite get my head around them. Help me, OK? In drawing number 1, the mash input is regulated how? After you preheat and open the valve doesn’t everything in the preheater just...

He He, wish I had a dollar for ever dollar I wasted chasing crap that never panned out.

LWTCS wrote: But it would be a nice jesture if any of em ever offer to pony up with a 25lb sack of sugar ( ). Tell em your on line crew said to tighten up on the likker sharing etiquette. Thats what I'm talkin' bout. :D Tighten em up or cut em off. :lol: But I'm getting ahead of the curve now. Just...

Hi HookLine and Rad, I can't really rag on my friends, they just have other interests. The only common thread with any of them is that we are all small businessmen. One is a flooring contractor, another is a carpenter, another builds racecars and another builds houses. We are all in our 50s or early...

Dang martenskoop, i thought a shotgun condenser was "sawed off". Yours is a Gatling gun at 36 tubes x 11"! Good god man what are you trying to cool? You are certainly a man after my own heart. Guarantee you. I tend to overbuild but jiminy... I'm thinking you are my very best friend no...

Hi Mr. Hookline, I've always paid particular attention to your posts. As for my friends... well what can I say?... they aint like us. I think distilling is a manly art akin to cooking a spicey tender barbeque or fine tuning a 1969 350 4 barrel engine with real points that never saw a touch of modern...

Martenskoop, I am just like you in trying to cobble together a shotgun condenser because the simple little liebig that I have now is not knocking down the heat enough on my little continuous still http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=7686&start=30 . But I have the fermenting d...

Hi Eugene and Martenskoop, the trouble is my cheap ass is first in line already. I get a coffee cup full and they get a thimble about half full :P I traveled a lot in the last 6 months and that kinda broke my distilling routine. Now I'm back to it and scaled up a bit so hopefully I can set some back...

Hi Rad, I tried saving it but the consistancy seems to change with a very short amount of time and temperature. If refrigerated it thickens too much to get out of the bag. If left at room temp, it seems to break down and thin out. Donno why. I don't know if it is a gluten thing or what. But the whol...

I know, what could be easier than mixing flour and water together? Try using a Ziploc bag. Add equal measures of rye flour and water, seal the bag, and massage it a little to mix. Then cut a very small bit off of the corner. Now you can "pipe" it onto your surface and when done just throw ...

Feral, I can see that you and me can never be good friends. Neither one of us has enough left over to share with the other

Mr. Zymos, I have at least as much respect for barrel makers as I do for fine cabinetmakers. I am a metal worker by trade and know just enough about woodworking to be dangerous. But I can really appreciate fine woodworking. Cooperage is a skill I will leave alone. My closest friend is a master cabin...

Goose eye I always like reading your posts. You have a common sense and practical solution to everything. Why didn't I think about the toothpick?!! The new Gibbs barrel would not seal up because it had a tiny hole in the head. I dripped some wax on the hole and it is holding tight now. The toothpick...

Thanks LWTCS, great link to Punkin's method. Exactly what I was trying to accomplish. Never knew it had a name, "solara method". Absinthe, I think we all know that. That's the reason for topping off the small barrel from the bigger one. Goose eye, all good points, we all must be careful al...

As a hobby enthusiast and self-proclaimed cheap bastard, I am in a quandary. For the last few years I have made enough for me and a few select others but am having a hell of a time getting enough to age in oak. I am making UJSSM almost exclusively and keep adding to production (bigger everything... ...

I mounted my parrot to a small adjustable stand so I can easily set it for any size collection jar.

I bought a 10 gallon recently from Gibbs. Delivery was quite slow. They told me two weeks when I ordered and after three weeks I called them and again was told "about 2 week". I was in a hurry to fill it so i could wait and wait for it to work its magic. haha The Gibbs barrel is OK. I do n...

This is what I do. A bucket of water, aluminum mini blinds and a small aquarium pump. Basically it is just a swamp cooler.

Goose eye, you are correct on all points. As this is not a thread on China, but rather a discussion about electrocuting alcohol, I’ll refrain from delving into the greed/corruption/bribery that is practiced on both sides of the globe. In ten years I hope to retire in China, at least for a few years....

For quite some time I've used a swamp cooler type setup for my cooling water. I fashioned a mini blind above a 10 gallon or so tank and put a pump in it. Water pumps to the still and from there it goes over the mini blinds and back into the tank. A series of small holes in PVC pipe spreads water eve...

I agree that the very idea of making wine or sprits improved by shocking them is, well, shocking. So that of course made me interested enough to read this thread through. I was a little amused by the China bashing. Ignorance is always so funny. I am American and mostly I am proud of it. I have been ...

Hi Peter, The difference between the 1/2" tube and 1" tube is more than enough room for anything I'll pass through it since it is filtered very well before going into the holding tank. My goal is to run everything in about 6 or 7 hours, once a week. This still can strip out a ferment while...