My name is, uh, Oatmeal. I live in the desert southwest. Everything I learnt about distilling was from my reading here- thanks to everyone for a remarkable resource!
I don't drink a bunch, but lean whiskey. Been liking the red breast 12, suntory toki, and Law's 4 grain bourbon. Only thing I dont really drink is vodka.
My interest in distilling has mostly been driven by easy access to still head and condenser construction materials. My first distilling experience was probably when I was 14 or so and built some sort of worm and distilled a Coors light...
This is my third pass through this site learning about distilling. The first time I stumbled on home distiller 8 or 9 years ago I read a bunch I didn't understand, convinced my boss to give me a keg he had laying around and built a pot head based on [url=https://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17101] samohon's design [/url]. Got one spirit run of all bran in and didn't pick it up again for a bit.
A while later, I came up with 42" of 3" copper, and built a version of rad's concentric vent reflux column. I didn't want to diminish the column length, so I built the condenser in 2". Packed with lava it was pretty straightforward to get close to azeo. After running it the last time I decided that the reduction from 3" to 2" was accelerating the vapor enough that it was easy to overcome running too fast, so too slow for what a 3" column should be able to produce.
I built a boka head with a 16" piece of 3" Dwv I cut out of a system and baked the poop out of for a year or two in the yard with a csst condenser from scrap out of the truck. This worked real good, much faster!
Things started down hill from there, and I found a 3" sight tower, and then came up with a whole 2 bath house of copper dwv and started thinking about a whole variety of builds.like a ccvm, flute, and stove top gin rig.
This was about the time I realized all the reading, wishing and building in the world wouldn't put a drop in the cellar if'n I didn't start stilling and make all the mistakes of doing it wrong. Ran some sweet feed pure whiskey style, then in the pot. Did a single malt wheat (got poor conversion, but delicious whiskey owing to too rough a crack I reckon). A gumballhead on the wheat and a cereal gumballhead (allbran and cornflakes) on some spent barley. Got some booner's waiting to be stripped, and then on to rum. If I don't run out of steam, a single malt barley, and some honey bear. Looking to get enough in the cellar I can age a while!
Lusting after a flute, but after reading built a short column with 12" of packing and just finishing up a plate to go under it. Moving from the pot head to boka head in pot mode. Just need a pc for the boka. Got enough to build to keep me busy a spell!
A few threads (of many) I've enjoyed:
[url=https://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtop ... 87&t=78276] dephlag preferential condensing[/url]
[url=https://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtop ... 17&t=29940] Mr. P's bubble bumper [/url]
[url=https://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtop ... 17&t=66074] neutral spirit - plates vs packing[/url]
[url=https://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtop ... =1&t=65762] whiskey in a fractioning column[/url]
Edited to add pics.
[attachment=0]20210716_210745_copy_768x1365.jpg[/attachment][attachment=1]20210731_112718_copy_768x1365.jpg[/attachment][attachment=2]20180414_140103_copy_600x1067.jpg[/attachment][attachment=3]20210731_095442_copy_600x1067.jpg[/attachment][attachment=4]20210521_221121_copy_600x957.jpg[/attachment]
Oatmeal
Moderator: Site Moderator