Home Distiller

I want to thank you Husker for sharing this part of your private life with all your extended distilling family... you have touched my life in ways I can't find words for... thank you, and bless you.

Slow and Steady

Be that as it may, the exposure of selling is a bitch... sitting at home making a little for yourself isn't nearly as visible.

S&S

Wow! chocholate... I havn't ever gotten that... It would be interesting to have a Dunder-Sniff-Off where we all got together with our dunder samplings and compared aroma.

sniff hmmm notes of Pineapple with a hint of old sock

S&S

Bob, I have made some very disappointing rum in my time, but I found that most of the procedures you mentioned in your first post improved my crappy rum... not the 15% ABV ferment or dunder infused ferments though... I can't make those work. I get a very strong Molasses taste from my high wines (fir...

That bad boy is going to weigh in at over 400 pounds... I think we better bring a bunch of very long straws!

S&S

Wow... you can do some serious fermenting with those!

S&S

Are those 30 gallon fermentors?

S&S

This is a thing that has always perplexed me. :crazy: If I put my all grain white dog whiskey into a barrel, the grain and vanila flavors are enhanced and I get whiskey. If I put my distilled rum into that same barrel the floral rummy notes are developed and I get Rum. If I put a fruit distilate int...

Welcome, Ridge Runner, from the Blue Ridge Mountains. The only problem I have with 'outdoor locations' and other natural settings is the path that ends up leading to yours.

S&S

some even sampled

Yeah, that looks like a hobby on steroids.

S&S

I do my dunder pit just like Larry. I keep a cork in the jug and pull it from time to time to release/equalize presure. The mold grows slow in the winter and fast in the summer. I add aged dunder to my ferment 24 hours before introducing the yeast. Then I add aged dunder to my low wines for my spiri...

High % ABV Alcohol is a solvent for plasticizers so your distilate shouldn't touch any plastic at all. Not even the famous 'Solo Cup'. I don't think you want plasticizers inside you or any of your friends.

S&S

I don't think there will be many folks who have done a Maple sap/sugar ferment because it is such an expensive commodity. I sure would like to taste a Maple Mash distilate. Just to see how the maple comes across. I have put a little maple surup into my aging Whiskey and love what that does for the t...

I get the same result (average from my stripping run) from my pot still if the ABV in the mash is around 10%. If I were to chart the ABV of my pot still distilate from heads to hearts to tails it would be a decending curve. It would start well above the 40% mean average and end well below the averag...

Videos.... I didn't know he had videos. I do have a picture of him with his 'Bandito Hankerchif' (protecting his secret identity) nailed to the wall of my stillin shed.

S&S

Thing is Larry is my hero, his design builds have broken all the barriers... so I think we should give him some slack.

S&S

Damn... I was yearnin for some learnin... I was already sortin through my copper bits and bobs to prep for my next build... The Mighty Mystral Column.

Oh well

S&S

Larry, what is a Mistral column? I'm not familiar with that term.

Slow & Steady

Hey Larry, My daughter is always on the internet and I mean always, infact, she was invited and accepted to be one of the site moderators on the site she is always on. Bottom line is Dad gets bumped. As I keep all my 'wet work' on the QT it's not like I can say Get Off the internet so Daddy can post...

UPDATE! The Rum has been a year and six months in the barrel and the nose and flavor are amazing. Very much worth the wait. All my rum is going to go into this very same barrel. I want to see how many years it will contine to turn out a great rum.

S&S

I have used a buch of systems to cool over the years and I have settled on this one because it is near fail safe. It works really well... the condensor sets up a gradient so you dont get huffing and the reservoir sets up a gradient to give your condenser the coolest water available. I reuse the wate...

I have tried it, but it is so permeable that whiskey and wine take on much more flavor than with white oak. It can overwhelm the other flavors present. That being said... I do like what it does if I do an extended aging after removing the Toasted Red Oak (about a year and a half). I think of the Toa...

Rum is made by fermenting Sugar Cane products, like Molasses, Brown Sugar, Pressed Sugar Cane juice, the product of the ferment is then distilled. Whiskey is a grain mash (ie starch to sugar) ferment then distill and aged on oak. Vodka can be made from many different grains and fermentable sugars......

Generally, my 5 gallon casks have aged my bourbon first then moved on to Brandy, Rum, and Single Malt for their "previously used barrel aging" assignments. I taste the new oak in the bourbon and must admit that it is not my preference, however, the second aging which can run much longer (y...

Yep, I aged a 240 gallon batch of golden delicious hard apple cider for 19 years in closed barrels, it had a little vinegar smell to it after that amount of time but the brandy was sublime. The vinegar fraction comes over way, way late in the tails around 98 degrees C. 19 years isn't a recommendatio...

Yes, I think it would be worth trying... freeze concentrating then distilation of the concentrate to make proper cuts.

S&S

If it were my new still I would run those heads hearts and tails (low wines) to flush your new still as a high (%ABV) alchohol run. Then I would toss it... breaks my heart, but yeah... I'd toss them.

They make a good cleaner for glass and such.

S&S

RyanS... I have enjoyed the confection "Chocholate with Orange" for years. A liqueur flavored "chocholate orange" sounds like a worthwhile effort!

S&S

If I was going to add to my crushed apple mash I would lean towards apple cider or unfiltered apple juice. Sugar and water will increase the alcohol not the flavor. Most of the apple washes I have made over my life were made of pure apple cider and the wild yeast that came on the apples that made th...