My first run

[smokerscully1]

Well I distilled water all morning and then said to hell with it. I gotta sugar wash (thanks to Birdwatcher) that has cleared up nicely--about 18 liters after all racked off into boiler. Added about 4 tablespoons of baking soda as suggested by Dnderhead. Fired her up and kept notes. Got the first drop 45 minutes later--took the first 100mills and tossed it down the sink. Those foreshots smelled and felt just like acetone. Turned the heat on propane burner down--slow is better --right? Ive got a bunch of mason jars around 1 pint size and just started linning them up. I got 10 of them but the last one smells like wet cardboard--kinda. Except for the first and last there is no smell at all. The whole run came off pretty steady at 25 mils per minute. I haven't got a spirit hydrometer yet and I can't drink so I was just going by smell. Had a buddy come over to talk fishing and he had a sip outta middle jar--I mixed it 1/2 and 1/2 with water. He said it tasted like high end vodka--I don't put to much faith in that--that guy would drink anything.
I got roughly 4 liters of some kinda alochol here--don't know if it's fit to drink but I'm just going to use it to degrease bear skulls anyway. Does this sound about right for volumn? Have no idea how strong the wash was cause I didn't have a hydrometer when I made it. I now have a wine making hydrometer and the sg after fermentation was .990.
Dnder was right the alochol run went easier than plain ole water. 25mils per minute was about as low or slow as I could get it. Turn the propane down any lower and the burner would go out. The distilate came off ice cold and my condense was ice cold all the way down and even near the top where the cooling water comes off.
I'm pretty happy with my homemade pot still but I don't know if I made anything fit to drink or not.

[zymos]

--don't know if it's fit to drink but I'm just going to use it to degrease bear skulls anyway.

Hope you don't think I'm making fun of you, but I just loved reading that part!!

[punkin]

don't know if it's fit to drink but I'm just going to use it to degrease bear skulls anyway.

Fukin bear skulls...





If i had a sig, that'd be going in it.....



Sounds like it all went to plan, as you get to know how she all works you can turn the wick up a little at a time till you get to know your optimum runs without pulling tails through it.



Well done.



BearSkullsIndeedPunkin

[Butch50]

I haven't got a spirit hydrometer yet and I can't drink so I was just going by smell.

Can't drink? I really don't mean to offend, but if you can't drink what in the world are you doing making spirits? And if all you are going to do is degrease bear skulls then what difference does it make how good it tastes?

How many bear skulls do you have to deal with? Is that a big problem there? And I thought I had troubles.....

[punkin]

I haven't got a spirit hydrometer yet and I can't drink so I was just going by smell.

Can't drink? I really don't mean to offend, but if you can't drink what in the world are you doing making spirits? And if all you are going to do is degrease bear skulls then what difference does it make how good it tastes?

How many bear skulls do you have to deal with? Is that a big problem there? And I thought I had troubles.....

I've said it before, but i love growing vegies i don't eat, i cook food i don't like for others...ect ect...
Just makes it more of a challenge







JeezHeMightJustBeOnAntibioticsPunkin

[Butch50]

I've said it before, but i love growing vegies i don't eat, i cook food i don't like for others...ect ect...
Just makes it more of a challenge

I guess I just don't have that problem, never met a food or drink group I didn't like.

I would find it more than a challenge to brew anything that I wasn't at least going to try and drink, but it is a free world - or it should be a free world anyway.

Still I am curious about the bear heads and how many of them there are as it is a problem I am not familiar with, but sounds like there is a story in there worth hearing.

[punkin]

I guess I just don't have that problem, never met a food or drink group I didn't like.

Still I am curious about the bear heads and how many of them there are as it is a problem I am not familiar with, but sounds like there is a story in there worth hearing.

I took it to mean that he wasn't gunna use the first cleaning/shakedown run for drinking purposes, but had a nother use for it rather than turfing on the ants nest (probably fireants too)
Quite novel and i'm also looking forward to some yarns in the offtopic.








MyKindaPeopleRoundHerePunkin

[smokerscully1]

I do a little taxidermy work here--I've cleaned as many as 50 bear skulls in a year--as well as moose & deer and wolves and beaver. There are several ways to clean the meat off a skull but after you do you have to de-grease the bone before you can whiten it. The best thing to do this with is acetone. You think dealing with alochol is dangerous--try dealing with 40 volumn hydrogen peroxide or acetone. My nearest nieghbor is 2 miles away and nobody really wants me any closer than that to polite society. Cheap alochol will work in place of the acetone--not as fast but really much safer. My shop is attached to my house and some people are curious as to why I have fire extenguishers in every room.
I lost a house to fire once and it is not going to happen again--it's not for nothing that safety is stressed so much on this site.
One thing that will drive you to excessive drinking is dealing with Insurance company's. Ask me how I know.
I ran my 2nd sugar wash today--cranked the propane right up and took it off at about 65-75 mils per minute--I think I went pretty deep into the tails too. I collected in pint jars which hold about 500ml each. I collected about 150 mills as forshots and labeled them as such--no sense in throwing them away if I'm going to use it for a degreaser. I kept the first pint and I think it is good to use just as is also. The next 8 jars have no smell at all that I can detect but the next 8 jars have an increasing odor which others have described as wet cardboard and I concur.
I'm going to mix yesterday's and todays production together --add some more water and distill again.
There is a big difference in knowing how to do something and actually doing it. From all the reading I did I concluded that the art of distilling is in knowing where to make your cuts. I now know that for a fact. Trying to make cuts without a thermometer or a hydrometer I think would have to be done by taste. I'm not willing to do that but then again I'm not trying to bootleg booze nor do I intend to offer competition to Seagrams.
I buried my grandfather in 1956--he had a reputation as a good moonshiner--I'm just carrying on an old family tradition--fooling around in the shop on a cold winter's day.
I don't think I could or would have done this without all the help and information available on this site.

[punkin]

Good on ya S/S, another great story from yet another member.













TheSitesAllWarmAndCuddlyTodayPunkin

[Dnderhead]

around hear they just hung them up on side of barn birds would
pick off meat and sun would bleach them

[Butch50]

I have to admit that I am a little disappointed, was hoping to hear a story about how you live way back in the mountains and are surrounded by giant hungry man-eating bears and have to shoot your way out of the house every morning, killing dozens of bears left and right, and you were making the moonshine to attract other mountain men towards your log cabin so that they would shoot a few on the way in to drink and more on the way out to go home and you were going to use the excess moonshine to fill a moat around your cabin and set it on fire every now and then to bleach the bones of all the dead bears laying around that you and your mountain men buddies had killed and eaten.

Or something like that. Maybe I have been in town too long.

[punkin]

Good one Butch

[HookLine]

Ahh, Butch, that was wonderful.

around hear they just hung them up on side of barn birds would pick off meat and sun would bleach them

We used to bury our pig and buffalo heads in the banana patch. The worms picked em clean as in a few months, and it didn't do the nanas any harm either.

[Usge]

Where I grew up...if you wanted to make a turtle rattle or such, just put in on an anthill. Clean as a whistle in no time.

[alice]

Where I grew up...if you wanted to make a turtle rattle or such, just put in on an anthill. Clean as a whistle in no time.

Yep, did that with the head of a particularly disagreeable goat once. Seemed like a fitting end since he'd picked clean my happy plant patch..

[smokerscully1]

I'd hate to disapoint a man from Texas, Butch. I grew up in South Missiouri and we used to have a saying there--Texas is the father of all outlaws--But--Missiouri was their mother.
I have lived in the Canadian bush now for almost 40 years and the local Indians still call me a Yankee. The reality isn't as romantic as it sounds.
It's a 37 mile drive to my post office box and the nearest town where I can get brewing supplies is a 130. I haven't got a moat but I do have pretty good sized lake in the front yard. Got a fair number of bears hereabouts too but none have ever tried to eat me. Yet!
I had 2 washes that I stripped and then ran my spirit run this afternoon. I got about 10 liters of good strength alochol to use as a degreaser. I took one liter out of the middle and mixed it half and half with good spring water. I gotta few Indians playing poker in the living room right now and they seem to think it is pretty good hooch.

[Usge]

Put it on some toasted oak for a few days. Works a treat and easy.
And defintiely check out the flavor/aging section of the forum for all the tips, etc. I took some of my best tasting white dog run (about 144 proof) and watered it to 127, put it in a small fish bowl wiht some toasted oak cubes. Covered it with a coffee filter and rubberband. Within a few days it had already turned nice and brown. So, I took it off, filtered it through the coffee filter to catch all the particles. then watered it just a teech (to about 120) and bottled it up.

People LOVED it and commented on the oaky/maple/vanilla smell and flavors (although it was not very complex..the flavors got to it very quickly..only after a few days and it was quite good).

Front was very smoooth, then...KICK (the alcohol). It's like a mule...the front end you ain't gotta worry about....it's when you get around back you gotta watch out.

Might try some sage and/or sweetgrass flaverins for your poker friends. Lots of possiblities.

[punkin]

Where I grew up...if you wanted to make a turtle rattle or such, just put in on an anthill. Clean as a whistle in no time.

Yep, did that with the head of a particularly disagreeable goat once. Seemed like a fitting end since he'd picked clean my happy plant patch..

Had a Bull Terrier like that once.


He died.









ABullet'llDoThatPunkin

[punkin]

I gotta few Indians playing poker in the living room right now and they seem to think it is pretty good hooch.

For the second time this month, beer came out my nose.





You and me are gunna get on just fine smokerscully1.








JustWishYaHadAShorterNamePunkin

[Butch50]

I'd hate to disapoint a man from Texas, Butch. I grew up in South Missiouri and we used to have a saying there--Texas is the father of all outlaws--But--Missiouri was their mother.

And that's the truth - When I was young I used to run with a South Missouri boy - he was wilder than a pissed off tom cat on roller skates. He used to get us in all kinds of hooraws. Why once we got to meet the country sheriff up real close and way too personal, but somehow no charges got filed.

Sounds like you live in a place that could be called centrally remote How did you come to live there? How deep is the snow right now?

It also sounds like you are off to a jamming start on making fine drinks. I did some drinking with some Chippewas when I was in the Army - nice quiet folks when they were sober, turned into raging warriors when they had a drink or two, so keep your eyes open!

[smokerscully1]

Hey Butch--ole Army guy 'eh--I served with the 5th Infantry (mech) in '69
came up here fishing in 1972--met a girl--you know how it goes--decided to stay and been here ever since.
I live on the east shore of Lake Nipigon--we get lots of lake effect snow here--it's about usual with maybe 6 feet on the ground now--all last week it was -40 but has warmed up and will prolly start snowing again.
I put down another wash today--gonna try Pint's potato wash and I also put down a brown sugar and molasses wash--I can get molasses for 18 bucks a gallon here--I use it for bear bait anyway. Gonna try to make some rum. Talked to an ole Indian today and he said he could remember when Trading Post rum was that standard of currency here. He said it taste terrible--see if I can do better.
The Indians here are all Ojibiway--just put an O' in front of Chippewa-=-they call themselves Anishinabek

[Butch50]

Regular Army 71-74. Spent a couple of winters in Fairbanks - know about 40 below, not fun stuff. We had a cold spell where it was -50 or colder for nearly a month - then one day it "warmed up" to only -30. Felt like a damn heat wave. We were running around in shorts and tee shirts outside. There were more cases of frost bite on that one day than the whole winter. Coldest I have seen it was -63, and that was one bone chiller of a night. Couple of times went two months without seeing daylight, staying in the tunnels and all.

Sounds to me like you may have found your piece of heaven there, and sounds like you are going to be into this hobby in a big way.

[Old_Blue]

t's about usual with maybe 6 feet on the ground now--all last week it was -40 but has warmed up and will prolly start snowing again.

No offense, but y'all crazy. We had our first snow storm of the year two weeks ago, we got 1/2 inch

Come on down where the magnolias bloom.