New Member from Northern Cali Saying Hey

[Rib Eye]

Hey everyone. This forum is amazing. The amount and quality of information contained here just blows me away. I'm looking forward to being a long time member, and hopefully someday soon I'll know enough to contribute a bit.

I'm a 38 year old special events technician and festival producer from Northern Cali, and I've been wanting to get into this art/sport for a long time. I finally started getting serious earlier this year, gathering notes and some books about home distillation, and over the last 2 weeks I've built a fractionating still, based mostly on John Stone's design from Making Gin & Vodka. I'll post a pic of my still so ya'll can see my little baby.

My overarching interest is a) the technical challenge of producing spirits for me and my friends, and b) learning how to make gin, and botanically-infused vodkas. I plan on starting with some of the Limoncello recipes from http://www.guntheranderson.com/liqueurs/flavors.htm, and working my way toward some of the Gin recipes from Kiwistiller on this forum. http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 24&start=0

Eventually, I'll try my hand at Rum and Whiskey, when I get the basic principals down pat.

I have some specific questions about improving my mash (I'm using John Stone's recipe, verbatim) and I also need some help on learning to accurately use a hydrometer for fine-tuning my mash. I'll post these questions in the appropriate places.

Right now, my still is churning out the first half of my High Wine, and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens from here. Thanks to all the great veterans here on the Forum for encouraging me along with your enthusiasm and great insight in this craft!

Cheers,
Rib Eye

[blanikdog]

Welcome Rib. Interesting flavour site there. Just gotta try the garlic likker.

Stay safe

[kaziel]

Nice, nice, nice . I'm gathering stuff to build this kind of still. Yours looks stunning . Could you tell me what kind of valve did you use? Did you have a lot of trouble with winding condensers coil? The main reason I'm in to building this still is temptation of getting flavorless vodka. Could you tell me something about that is your stuff without that aftertaste?