Yet another Maneiac

[leblancr]

Hi,

I thought I'd better introduce myself before I get to a point where I have questions.

Must be the snowy weather getting us stir crazy here in Maine. I've seen a couple others recently. I've been lurking off and on for a few years, and think I'm finally ready to take the plunge. I'm debating making my own pot-still or buying one of the inexpensive ones on e-bay. I'm going to start collecting pieces over the next couple weeks, if I decide to build, and I'm sure I'll have tons of questions once I've started. I probably won't be working beyond a 5 gallon batch for some time as we don't have a good place to work besides right in the kitchen. No basement, no garage.

I'm primarily interested in something like a sour mash or bourbon-like whiskey, but also want to experiment with rum, vodka or tequila. I've seen a lot of great sounding recipe's here, and am anxious to play a little. Also, I've been a home brewer for a few years, and have several gallons of horrible homemade wines and beers that I want to distill out as well, so don't be surprised if my questions bounce all around the place.

Thanks for all the help this forum has already been, and thanks in advance for any help in the future.

[Ayay]

Hi leblancr, Whoa...starting stillin and thinking about bourbon don't happen in the same sentence!

Get the stillin right, find the right cuts, you'll be enjoying some of it there an then. Ageing and flavoring is a long apprentisship to be taken up as the years go by

[likkerluvver]

Welcome! - From a neighbour on your eastern border

Piece of advice: Do your research THOROUGHLY before you buy from eBay. The rigs for sale there are usually mediocre at best, and downright dangerous at worst.

I'd advise doing a lot of research here first. There are some very reputable sales on line (as well as the crap stuff there too). Checkout these if you're not going to build it yourself:

http://www.brewhaus.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

http://www.milehidistilling.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

There are other good sellers with good equipment for sale.

Happy stillin'

[Bushman]

Building it yourself is not as hard as you might think and gives personal satisfaction while gaining knowledge about distilling. Sounds like you like whiskey so you are probably looking at a pot still which shouldn't be as difficult to build as some of the others depending on the design you choose. Lots of different designs here and also a lot of tutorials on how to (makes for some great reading) But if you do decide to buy, you were given good advise earlier about where to buy. Ebay has a few stills that are for sale that I think you will not be happy with once you get your feet wet in this hobby

[leblancr]

Thanks to all. Ayay, I had guessed it would be a while before I tried bourbon, but I had seen other posts where people wanted to know where someones interests lay before giving advice, so I thought I'd hit em all. I've read Uncle Jesse's thread on his sour mash a dozen times or so, and will probably start there unless someone else can advise a recipe better suited to a beginner. I figure I can do batches between now and snow off, and have a pretty good base going by spring time .

I guess I'm going to build my own. I have a couple lengths of 1/2" and 3/4" copper kicking around, and I thought I'd start with a 3/4" riser then tee it off and taper down at a 45 degree angle then reduce to 1/2" going into a 2' long cooling jacket (1/2" inside wrapped with copper wire around it then covered with 3/4"). I'm going to mount that on top of a 20 quart SS pan with a pressure plug. Does that sound adequate for sizing? I have read a lot of threads here, and think I've got the safety concerns covered (soldering, etc), but the sizes seem to be all over the place from 3" down. I'm going to be doing two or three gallons at a time until I figure out if I like what I'm doing. Then I'll probably look into some more elaborate designs if (when) I go to a bigger volume.

Thanks again.

[Bushman]

3/4" is a little small coming out of the boiler, I have a 2" column coming out of a keg. You have a 5 gal boiler so I would probably not go smaller than 1", there are a lot of small pot stills that have plans here at this site. I can't find the picture of RAD's small pot still but you might want to PM him and he can give you the link if you can't find it!

[leblancr]

Very good to know. I'm going to get fittings at lunch time, so I'll look for a 1" riser then.

Also, the wife has asked if I can use an enamaled stock pot (I have 3 or 4 older ones we inherited, all 30+ quart) for the boiler. She can't stand that I'm going to put holes in a brand new SS pot cover. (HaHa. Little does she know where my heart lies for future projects.) Plus, the covers on those would be easier to secure than the SS one I have, so I can be convinced if there is no safety or process concerns. And, they have a bow on top rather than being flat.

[Kentucky shinner]

Welcome, sounds like your about ready to have some fun. I think you will find this place to be very helpfull.
KS

[Smokehouse Shiner]

Welcome leblancr. That's hard to spell, I'm just gonna call you L. Don't use an enameled pot for a boiler. Hot ethanol vapor will eat right through that enamel. One of the first rigs I built years ago was made from one. I did quite a few runs on it till I realized it was breaking down. That was before recources like this site were available to us ole boys and we just had to wing it and see what worked. Enameled pots don't work. I still have that pot stuck back somewhere and you can still see the liquid level and headspace in the enamel...... Teehee ole Rad would blow a head gasket if he saw all the violations on that outfit.......

[Ayay]

Hehe SS!

leblancr You will have to use stainless or copper. Before stainless was invented it was only copper, pure tin, and maybe pottery and glass but they can break and that's a catastrophy.

Find a big stainless bowl to use for a lid on your stainless pot, or even another pot. It will take some searching to get the right size but they are cheap and your wife won't mind when you cut it. A bowl will give your boiler more headspace; that is you can fill the pot to the top and still have some space in the bowl part.

To seal the join use flour paste and some kind of clamps, or go the whole way and get it tig welded!

[leblancr]

IT WORKS!!! Now I have to tell someone, so you're the unlucky audience.

Thanks to all the input. I ended up with a 1" riser 18" tall, Teed off with a thermometer facing forward, then dropped to 3/4" through an elbow and tapered about 30 degrees down for 8" then reduced to 1/2" inside the 24" cooling jacket.

I boiled off 2 gallons of water with a pint of vinegar as a cleanser, then did another run of just plain water rinse. I ran it on the kitchen electric stove.

I have been doing home brew for several years, and a couple years ago I tried a recipe for what I call "Trash Can Brandy" because it reminded me of something a college kid would make in a trash can. It's really more like a wine, except you could taste the alcohol bite more than in wine. I experimented with different kinds of fruit that sounded good. I made many really tasty batches, but I also had many that were horrible. So I have (had) about 8 gallons of the bad stuff kicking around.

Last night I tried reducing the worst tasting batch. I had almost 3 gallons. I started everything up and it started producing after 15 minutes. I tossed the first 6 ounces then started collecting. It was coming off at 70% ABV at the start. I tried the taste test, but couldn't really taste much flavor beside alcohol. I reduced the heat to medium high and production slowed a little, but continued nicely. It was running about 192-193 degrees for quite a while. I checked the ABV and tasted it every cup generated and collected until it hit 40% ABV. That filled a 1.75ML bottle and when mixed was still 60% (120 proof). I continued to run it until I hit 20% and saved that for a future tail run when I do the rest of the bad stuff. I noticed that the flavor really started to turn bad at about 30% ABV, when the temp hit 201 degrees. I ended up with almost a full 750ml bottle of tails.

Tonight I'm going to experiment with it and see what flavor it has if I cut it with water. I don't know about running it again, we'll see.

I think I may have still run it too fast, because it only took 45 minutes. I never got a drip, it was a constant stream coming off. I'll cut the temp back more next batch.

I also started a batch of Uncle Jesse's Sour Mash on Tuesday that was percolating nicely last night, so I'll get to play with that this weekend.

The only real problem I had was keeping my cooling water cool. I filled a 40 quart canner with cold tap water. 1/2 way through the spirit run, the water was luke warm to the touch. I scooped out a couple quarts and tossed in enough ice cubes to bring the water level back up. That was all melted and the water was much warmer to the touch as the spirit run was finishing. I scooped out a couple gallons and replaced with cold tap water and had to do that again partway through the tail. Someone had posted that they were putting 2 liter bottles full of ice in their bath and it was working for them, so I've got a bunch of bottles in the freezer for my runs this weekend. Hopefully that will take care of it. But, it wasn't that much of a hassle to swap out the water.

Thanks again.

[rad14701]

Congratulations on a successful maiden run, leblancr... Nothing beats the feeling of getting that first run under your belt...

As for the coolant temperature, don't be overly concerned about it because it only needs to be cool enough to knock down 100% of the vapor... It is not at all uncommon for steam to be rising off the top of a worm bucket (flake stand) during a pot still run... And when I run my combo rig I can still knock down 100% of the vapor even with the exiting coolant measuring up to 120F although I generally run a bit more coolant flow to keep it lower for improved reflux performance...

You're officially an outlaw now...

[Rum Bum]

Welcome fellow Mainiac, it's good to see others from the best state in America!

RB

[Bayou-Ruler]

welcome to the forums.