Home Distiller

Oh man, that's pretty awesome, makes sense now. I love mead, make a few batches and year, but don't have anything that old. I pay a lot per gallon of honey so I definitely coitus not being myself to distill it. Several people have mentioned making honey likker and really loving it. I think Croatian ...

You wasted one of the most expensive washes you could make on a cleaning run?

Hmm.... so I should do my normal fermentations but use the old dunder in the spirit run and thumper?

What's your "old dunder"? Just dunder infected by whatevers in the air in your area and then given some time to get funky for a while? I've got about 5 gallons of funky stuff from last year. I took dunder and added oyster shells, sugar, fruit, dry malt extract, a bottle of lambic beer. Left it uncov...

Seems like lots of AZ folks joining lately.

If you're in to single malt, AZ grown and malted barley: https://sinaguamalt.com/

And these guys: http://www.grainrandd.com/

And also note that winco usually sells cornmeal and steel cut oats at a reasonable price.

Welcome!

Welcome!

Very cool, thanks for documenting this.

There's plenty to learn on here, welcome!

Mashing at a lower temperature should make a more fermentable mash, might help you get a lower final gravity and a higher yield. I add the malted grains at 148, so the mash will be like 145 and then I let the trmp drop over night and have had no problems. Maybe 10 or 15 mashes that way now? You don'...

It's on my list of stuff to experiment with but I haven't started yet. Still finishing up a chocolate bourbon run... To be more specific, my plan is to make a "Heavy Jamaican Korn Likker", try to follow something in line with the cousins process but with a corn whiskey base. I'm hoping somebody else...

I generally stay in the stillin shed and a read a book or pick at my guitar. I might go inside for a bio break or to get water etc... I'm mainly afraid of what might happen if my condenser malfunctions and fills my stillin shed with high proof alcohol vapor. Could it explode? I have no idea... and I...

astrotraveler wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 09, 2021 7:06 pm

Ah Ha! Thank you so much - I never saw anything about insulating the thumper! Makes perfect sense. I'm looking forward to running batch #2. thank you

No problem, good luck!

The more energy you're losing through the walls of the thumper the more volume/energy you have to add to complete your run.

Either it's not well enough insulated or its too small. I have a steam stripper system set up, the steam boiler is 8 gallons, the mash boiler is 16 gallons. I put about 11 gallons of mash in the mash boiler. If I don't insulate the mash boiler then it fills up and starts puking before I can collect ...

Welcome!

Ya, this area is for introductions. Spend a lot of time reading on the wiki and in the new distiller area, then ask questions.

You're in the right place though, I've been in here pretty regularly for about a year and I still learn new stuff by reading old posts.

That would be a really cool table though.

Sounds like you want to build a pot still. I don't believe there's any benefit to having a tall column on a pot still. If it were me, I would make it just tall enough to get whatever angle I wanted on the condenser. Whatever the desired condenser angle, surely the column wouldn't need to be 3 feet h...

I was just wondering about this after reading your cousins rum thread. After this current run is done I'm going to have a few pounds of this, a few pounds of that left over and a bunch of corn, was thinking about trying to make a "Heavy Jamaican Style Korn Likker" as an experiment. I need to pick up...

Welcome!

You might also consider a similarly sized stainless milk can from Amazon. You would have to make a hole in the lid and add a triclamp adapter but having a bigger opening makes them easier to clean.

Welcome!
Distilling is a fun extension of the beer brewing hobby for sure.

Started the final mash for filling my first 5 gallon barrel.

I've got two more stripping runs and two more spirit runs to go and I should be ready to fill that sucker!

You mentioned that you wanted to use the right amount of green corn malt to make sure you get to 1.06 instead of only 1.05 so I thought you might be a little confused. Nobody can tell you the diastatic power of the corn that you malted. It depends on how much protein the corn started out with, what ...

SG is really more dependent on grain to water ratio. The more stuff you've got dissolved in the same amount of water, the higher the SG. The enzymes just convert the starches to sugars. So the enzymes really determine the FG (final gravity) more than the SG(starting gravity). So if you want a higher...

Also, I feel your pain on the "one mash at a time" problem. I did finally get 2x12g fermenters so I can have 2 going all the time. That helps a little. A 40 gallon brute is on my wishlist for sure though.

I got this bourbon on the recommendation of the guy at the liquor store and I'm not really a big fan. I drink bushmills red label straight at room temperature no ice but this one so far the way I like it best is in hot chocolate. It is really oakey and sorta sour. IMG_20210101_202325984.jpg Ive not...

Lemoncello and sweet tea, lemoncello and soda.

HateBreed's 2020 album is pretty good.

Welcome ay!

I put my reflux column on my still and run them through that. I use it for flavored stuff. Lemoncello, apple pie etc... Done it twice so far and enjoyed the results. I toss the feints from that run though.