Home Distiller

Your country of residence make a difference on what equipment you'd purchase since residential electricity varies. And even then the age of your outlets makes a difference. I have 240v 3 wire because my house was wired in the 70s, wish I had 4 wire. And my circuit is 30 amps rather than 50.

Yep, this was operator error, not a defective still.

If your goal is whiskey, you mean christmas 2022? No way you'll have a decent aged product in 3 months. Use the PIDs for mash or fermenter temp control. You need power control not temp control for distillation. Search this site for SCR power controller.

Morebeer.com has lots of malted and nonmalted wheat varieties. Shipping is free on orders over $59. Free shippng excludes 55 lb bags, but is fine if you order five 10lb bags.

The lactobacillus will consume alcohol and lower your ABV so if fermented dry you'd like to run it soon. Not sure a week is a big deal, and it's what you can fit into your schedule so I wouldnt sweat it.

Oatey solder and flux will be fine for all your copper to copper connections. I used it to make the 5 gallon clawhammer still. For stainless to copper you'll want a liquid acid flux. Stabrite 8 is good solder for stainless to copper and stainless to stainless. I started with the 5 gallon clawhammer ...

One of the mods will likely tell you to start a new post with your question since the welcome forum is meant to be a brief introduction site. Post your grain bill and mashing protocol if you want meaningful advice. I assume you mash barrel has a lid?

A wee tinge in whiskey may be alright. Jameson uses barrels from regional breweries to age in for specialty bottles. In the PNW they age in Balebreaker breweries Topcutter IPA barrels. Topcutter is a hop bomb that I'm not a fan of. The Jameson aged version is fantastic with just subtle hop floral no...

Give them to a homebrewer or start making beer. Not much use for spirits.

Worked like a champ

Let me translate Salty: remove the signature line in your Tapatalk settings.

Agree with Larry, I'd save some honey whiskey (ie add to aged whiskey). And some for Bushman's blackberry liquer. And drambui..... oh heck set 4 quart jars aside. The rest could be for mead/wash.

For those in the states, the wax wrapping on babybel cheese is food grade and makes a great barrel wax. I thought it was made from beeswax but turns out its paraffin.

Time for a smaller gin still. The airstill works pretty well as a gin still, holds 4 litres with no exposed element, and are relatively inexpensive. An old pot, lid, and flour paste on a stovetop would work if you can mount your condenser. You don't need fine control to run a gin maceration if your ...

I vary between pot distillation (strip and spirit run) vs detuned bubble cap (3 plates most common) for whiskey. Still not convinced the flavor is worth 2 pot distillations vs one run on a few plates. But would not dream of trying my packed column, not enough flavor comes through. Sure in a pinch yo...

Highest liquor tax in the country didn't drive me to the hobby, but .....

I'd try rootbeer flavored shine... I got addicted to Barq's Root Beer when I lived in N'Awlins. A lot of people there made their own using this. z.jpg One recipe says 2 quarts water 1 tablespoon root beer concentrate 1 cup sugar (or sugar substitution in the recommended amount) I don't know if it w...

In chemistry an aliquot is a small sample of a larger solution used for analysis. I often take a 100 ml aliquot and place in a graduated cylinder to measure specific gravity.

Aliexpress will have more options than Amazon specific to distillation. Lots of prebuilt power controllers if you aren't up to making your own.

The length of tube above the product take off should be long enough that it fully contains the coiled section of your reflux condensor when it is in the fully raised position. This isn't universally true if your coil is exceptionally long, but is true for 90% of our builds.

I use a repurposed 40 gallon water softener reservoir and a pump for my coolant. It can get really hot (115 deg F) with a 10 gallon reflux run. 15 gallons is going to be too small. I'd go with a 55 gallon platic barrel if possible.

Agree with Zed, a good arrow for the quiver. I only use the airstill for gin. Got mine for 25 USD off Craig's list. Had to replace the themistors but they're cheap.

Ok Jonny, a raft to go fishing!

Yep, forget the boka. Make two 20 inch spools with triclamp ferrules on the ends from that pipe.. Then you can go pot, ccvm reflux, or use the spools to connect to your eventual 15g thumper! I had planned on a boka until i saw Dad300's CCVM threads. Happy with what I've got. Save the feints from you...

I'd go with bourbon whiskey because then I could also make beer. And if the Genie is gonna provide enough new oak barrels for my bourbon, I'll make a raft to get off the island!

Bushman wrote:I’ve had a lot of compliments on my blackberry liqueur recipe, you might want to try.
https://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtop ... 58&t=67443

Bushman, made your recipe last year and its fantastic. Blackberries on the dry side of the state are still 3 weeks away.

I'd guess you had a major puke into the thumper which transferred volume and then clogged the lyne arm resulting in the cap popping off. Then when fired back up you ran it dry (because your volume was much less than starting) and melted the solder. My guess is the boiler was overfilled, and too much...

Salty is right. Clawhammer tried to claim that packing the neck of their pot stills would increase proof, but thats marketing BS meant to upsale. You will get some passive reflux, but only until the packing and lyne arm come to temp. In a 2-4 hour run you'll get 15 min of reflux possibly. The copper...

That will be great for a dedicated vessel Geoff, and simple. The thump spear allows me to change between multiple sanke kegs of varying sizes, but i usually go with a half barrel keg.

I figured it was 2 tasting flights.