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I tried this last week. 😋 Delicious, thanks very much for the recipe. I wasn't sure where to get fresh lemon verbena, so I got dried lemon verbena. I went just a bit light on it because I wanted it to stay yellow, definitely rounds the lemon flavor nicely. Next time I'll probably add a bit more... A...

I posted on this thread a while back about lots of people having puking issues. I had great success with DME whiskey, a little effort to avoid pukes and no problem at all. I tried LME, doing strip right now. I just wanted to update because it is puking like crazy, had to turn it way down to stop it....

Barrels used for cherries or olives can be sometimes easily found. Can't remember how much I paid years ago for seventy or eighty litre olive barrels but some of those prices seem high. Geoff Ya, they are high, even in Canadian dollars. There are lots of used DEF (diesel emissions fluid) barrels ar...

Success will come more easily with the large batch method. Around here, barrels are about $20. Wow, that is cheap. I had been looking around, but even the 50L I got was $50. It was a shipping barrel used for health food products. The guy had his garage filled with them, apparently from working at a...

Jake, bigger is better. There's a lot of work for little return with a 50l fermenter. Here's the way I heard it - Use a BIB bag to strain your mash into 5 gal buckets. A BIB fits in a boil basket that usually comes with stock pots. Put something heavy on it to let it squeeze itself or get a mop buc...

I found this thread pretty recently... Anyone still around who does this? Have a look at Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead . It's one of recipe found in the Tried and True Recipes section. It uses the principle of this thread for the corn and eventually add other grains at a lo...

I found this thread pretty recently... Anyone still around who does this? I have been making whiskey from malt extract. It comes out tastey but at a price (like $100/ 40l wash). I've read through this, but my set up is smaller. I could do a 40l wash with what I have. Has anyone tried just popping a ...

It's funny, I have always inverted, mostly from recommendations from the Stillit Chanel. That channel used to be informitive. Now it is entertaining, but too much marketing. Not sure I can trust all that is said there given Still Spirits sponsorship since to get good results from their equipment the...

“To Friar John Cor, by order of the King (James IV of Scotland), to make aqua vitae VIII bolls of malt.”* Historians are broadly in agreement that by specifically referring to ‘aqua vitae’ and the reference to malt (barley) in order to make it, Friar John Cor or one of his fellow friars must have be...

By the time you need to do your next cleaning run you will probably have plenty of foreshots, heads and tails to use. I've never had to ferment something to clean a modification or another still. Even better point, thanks. I do have a bunch of feints kicking around, could have diluted that. I was t...

The one pack of turbo that I used (which was used for various cleaning runs) stated that for the highest abv you needed to actively cool the ferment. Interesting, I never heard of that but it does make some sense. Yeast can generate its own heat, if it is really working that hard... I am using Stil...

I could separate out half the wash and try to save it, but why bother, it will taste bad (can't say I have tried, but I trust what I have read, and also know from experience high ABV sugar wash will taste harsh, or hot, even with a good yeast and balanced nutrition). I haven't tried it either, but ...

I just did the sugar wash calculator, it says this will be 18.4%, so maybe not so far out of the ballpark as far as max abv. What I have read is 8 - 10% is best, anything over 14% probably will taste hot or harsh, unless maybe if the sugar is gradually added. By slowly adding more sugar as the yeast...

I don't sample sacrificial runs because they can contain toxins and are run hard out for the purpose of removing crud and toxins with no regard to the taste of anything that might get condensed, (if I turn the water on). I suggest that you only sacrifice enough to clean the still, then run the rest...

OK let me start off by saying I have been doing T&T recipes and all malt extract since the beginning, about a year for me, not a lot of time, so only a few of each of the recipes I have tried. I know turbo yeast is going to come out horrible, but I see a lot of old timers say everyone has done i...

Your wash will wait while you run some vinegar through. Yes, the first run is a throw away, like for sure. The vinegar then sacrificial runs are to clear off any manufacturing residue, and get rid of anything harmful that could leach in to your product. It is well worth it to just do it. Also it wil...

Just put together the cheapest fastest sugar wash you can, distil that and dispose or use as hand sanitizer. It's probably toxic and rubbing it on your hands might be a bad idea. Get rid of it so that nobody can accidentally, or deliberately, drink it or use it. I store mine in a tin in the backyar...

Aside from wrapping the lid gasket, those triclamp gaskets are also probably silicone. Best to replace them with ptfe triclamp gaskets. I suppose you could just wrap them with Teflon tape... I bought some ptfe gaskets on ebay, they were kind of expensive for gaskets, but it beats risking leaching ch...

I am relatively new as well, but I also have a T500. As others have said, do stripping runs first, then a spirit run. What I do for stripping runs is take the packing out, start off with the water running fast and toss out the first 50 - 100ml that comes out. Then I turn the water down to make it ru...

Sorry to resurrect such an old thread. It felt like cheating using flavorings, seems lots of people do it. I do enjoy neutral with Still Spirits blue jewel, I find it close to Sapphire. I like their bourbon flavoring (the top shelf one, comes in a box). Liqurquick makes jakbitter schnapps essence th...

I tried my own malt extract whiskey at 40%, but it just does not taste strong at all. I seem to prefer 55% abv, which still doesn't bite as hard as even a 12 yr old commercial bottle (I don't claim to pull the same flavors and still love Scotch). I thought at first my hydrometer was out, so I tested...

So, I did another batch of this. I got a new 50l barrel to ferment in, so I did a double batch all at once. I'm thinking next time, I will do 2 double batches and strip them both in to 1 spirit run to get a full boiler charge without adding water. I made a few changes, and so far the difference is i...

i'm not too sure about the lemon & limes, are they just to lower the PH? i suppose this depends on the original PH of your water. then you are adding acidic stuff like dunder and using trub. my washes end up about ph 4.2-4.5 with all the above, which is not ideal i put oyster shells in the ferm...

Ya, skiming and clearing is more for preserving a strain, or mix of strains so you get consistent results. You are right that in distilling, you don't need to worry as much about contamination. It will matter if you are trying to store yeast for a later batch, you don't want anything else growing in...

I was wondering if anyone had advice about starting the dunder pit, and getting it infected. I had a few thoughts, I could save some malt whiskey backset, throw a little molasses in there and let that go sour over a month or so. I could make a small batch without dunder, do the stripping run, then ...

I've been interested in this recipe for a while now, but wasn't so sure I was in to maintaining an infected dunder pit, since whiskey is more my thing. Recently I have re developed a taste for dark rum. I was thinking I could do several strips in a row, like maybe 5, then freeze my dunder pit until ...

Well, that works well! I racked a load and then reloaded the fermenter with PH balanced (5.8) water and disolved sugar @28C , plus a bit of Calcium Carbonate to help maintain the PH and within an hour it took off hard and fast again. What does it save? Not much in terms of money, but it is a very f...

Birch bark shine. I don't have a recipe, but they "made" some on Moonshiners. I think it was Mike and Jerry... I put the air quotes because who knows if they are really making anything, or just running distilled water for TV lol... Anyway, look through your on demand catalog of 2019 season...

I haven't had time to check in in awhile, but it looks like a lot of people have had issues with puking. Mine did not puke at all, though I think I might not have been all that worried if I got a little wash in my stripping run. I did 2 dme washes using golden light dme. For both I did a protein res...

I did a wash like this using golden light DME, the results were fantastic, still enjoying it now but need to start more soon. LME should produce similar results. Definitely use gluco enzymes, or a yeast pack that includes them like Liker Quick Whiskey Pure. You should be able to ferment it out dry w...