Home Distiller

I have a bunch of medium toast oak cubes bought from my local brew shop. They seem to be about the same size from most places. Anyways, I'm seeing people say they aged for 1 week or 2 weeks, but they don't seem to mention how many cubes per volume of liquid. Currently I'm aging my latest batch in 1...

I have a bunch of medium toast oak cubes bought from my local brew shop. They seem to be about the same size from most places. Anyways, I'm seeing people say they aged for 1 week or 2 weeks, but they don't seem to mention how many cubes per volume of liquid. Currently I'm aging my latest batch in 1....

We showed it to a smart man and he didn't believe it , neither . Watch Pintoshine's YouTube video . Fine grind your corn and start your mixer . Light the fire and slowly pour in the meal/flour and add 4 teaspoons of the high temp enzyme . Bring it up to 190 and hold that for an hour and a half . Ke...

Wow if it works that's amazing. I'm just more than a little skeptical of how 4 teaspoons could convert 50# of grain starches. Doesn't seem physically possible to me. Pure amalase couldn't come close to converting that much and I thought this was just that. Also why do you want to use the alpha? Thos...

Often times at the feed store the staff is genuinely trying to help you . Innocent customer service that increases their chance of advancement within the store . Their intent is to direct you to a product that better fits your needs for the critters you are feeding . On the other hand ; you watch a...

Ran a spirit run of 3 combined low wines from a mostly rye wash, a rye/popcorn wash, and a pretty standard bourbon wash two nights ago. Last night was sorting through my cuts and blending between them. Still learning about this aspect but I think I did OK this time around. I ended up keeping just un...

What do you consider "a bit high"? In many places you can get malted barley or rye for about $1/lb if you buy in the 55lb bags. That can last some people a really long time, or at least a couple months for myself. Another option is that you can buy unmalted grains for even less and malt t...

What do you consider "a bit high"? In many places you can get malted barley or rye for about $1/lb if you buy in the 55lb bags. That can last some people a really long time, or at least a couple months for myself. Another option is that you can buy unmalted grains for even less and malt th...

Badmotivator wrote: Which better describes what you're seeing?

It's just a bit of a puff that doesn't condense. I can slow things down to not get it coming out. My point was that I want to be able to run my strips a little faster for now with this setup until I swap in a big condenser on there.

I feel that you are failing to drive your still . You have to be in tune with it and constantly balance heat input with coolant flow to maintain a temperature gradient along the length of your condenser . Cold at the output and hot at the input . Play with that for a bit and get back to us . Yeah I...

I have a short 18" pot still heading going to a 2 foot condenser. I know I could build something better but want to squeeze out as much as I can from what I'm working with. On stripping runs I really need to run things slow or else I get way too much vapour coming out the end. I was thinking of...

I'd do wheat +1. But when you mash the unmalted wheat, do a temperature rest at 120-125*F. It'll help reduce the long protein molecules and aid in conversion when you get the mash temperature up to 140-148*F for saccrification. Start your corn separately and gelatinize at 190*F for a couple of hour...

Going to the feed store anyways and figured I would pickup a 50lb bag of either while I'm picking up a bag of cracked corn. I plan to mash with a decent amount of malted barley.

NCmechanic wrote:What is most of y'all's pitch rate per gallon of wash

Since yeast multiples I just usually use a small amount around 24 hours before I need it to make a starter. I always have a very vigorous ferment going in less than 12 hours that way.

UPDATE! I was so excited to try the feedback here that I was dying to try another similar run. I was mainly using what I had on hand and decided to try doing more with less corn. Mashbill 4lb rye malt 4lb barley malt (pilsner) Diastatic rating 100. 10lb cracked corn 8 gallons total Method, ran my el...

Been brewing beer/mead for a couple of decades now. My first batch in the new Russian still will be rum, but I was curious what the practicalities would be of simply draining off the top 5 gallons of fermented liquor and tossing in another 5 gallons of fresh cooled sugar water and aerating for a fe...

Just a question and some thoughts. You used cracked corn, was it a coarse crack or a fine crack? The finer the corn the easier it is to cook and release the starches. Many folks here that do corn a lot use high temp enzymes to help keep it viscous during the cook. Personally I bring my water to a f...

Just re-read your last paragraph.. Are you adding sugar to this at the end of your fermentation? I would recommend against this. If you're going to all the trouble of making an all grain batch, why would you add sugar at the end? Other option is that you're separating the grains and making a piggyb...

My first thought is that by bringing the corn up to only 165F at the most, and for not long, you just didn't gelatinize the corn's starch sufficiently. All of the advice I've ever read about corn, and my experience bears it out, is that corn needs to be pretty near boiled, and cracked corn needs th...

I'm just getting back into distilling after a bit of a break for a few years. I had a lot of experience making all grain beers a few decades ago so I'm fully comfortable working with grains. I'm not worried about the grain bill, just working with what I had today. More interested in how I could've m...

All around a pig's ass is pork . Humans are just another animal that eats , or drinks , corn . There is no such thing as human corn and animal corn . Different corn varieties have different aspects that impart different flavors to whatever is being prepared . I grew up around corn fields.. they're ...

yakattack wrote:If you are using popping corn. Pop it. You will make your mashing procedure so much easier. It's already cooked to expose the starch. Grin and mash to dough in temps.

That can certainly work I've read but it's easier for me to not have so much volume of solids in my 15 gallon fermenter.

Now everyone knows that Julian is a rum drinker...it never leaves his hand. Rum and coke, imagine that. But since you're trying to make a bourbon, certainly popcorn is acceptable, although expensive. And the kernels are smaller than field corn. But you could also use sweet corn, i.e. - "roasti...

Thanks! I will be looking for some super cheapo popping corn and jump on it when the opportunity arises. Seems like a worthy experiment. I think the animal feed variety of corn means it's not as washed as human corn and isn't as pretty with more bits of sticks and leaves n things as added prizes. A...

For my last mash I didn't have access to any cracked corn so I went to my local bulk food store about bought 12lbs of popcorn (cost me around $14 so it wasted cheap). I started running it through my hand mill and the first few lbs just about killed me. After that I pulled out the magic bullet and it...

Wow, lots of science/engineer types here. Steve, I'm working on my Complex analysis right now...damn branch cuts. Howdy and welcome to all of you. I have the degree, but I'm certainly not the science/engineer "type". I just like fiddling around with things just to see if I can. Distilling...

Believe me that there's a vast range of electricity use between different households in Canada. Some people still heat their house 100% electric. Many people have 2 fridges in their basement from the 60's that use more electricity than the rest of their house even though they don't even realize it. ...

I'm a Mathematician officially. But most of my skills in my career in the past 10 years have been put towards software design and development.

I paid $65 or so for 8 feet of 2" last year around this time. But the tube price is less than half of the total cost when you add in all the fittings.

At least one length of 8 foot is good for making 2-3 stills out of.

My pumpkin wine that I started in early November turned out ok. It started out fermenting fast, but then slowed down quite abit. I was hoping it would be ready for Christmas but that didn't happen. Wasn't quite ready until about 2 weeks ago. It tastes alright. Nothing I would be handing out at a win...