What'd ya'll make today?

[Frosteecat]

Whipped up a 5 gallon batch of hard cider in my new vintage crockery jug. Only problem was I forgot its a 4 gallon jug. Messy...

[Prairiepiss]

Hello, I was just wondering Mr P, are you going to make a special pot still dedicated to just Rum for your Rum your making? I had someone tell me it dirty's up everything. I'm not sure myself, I haven't ever made it. After he told me that I never made it due to that reason, he might have been full of sh#t though. Let us know how it turns out. I bet it will have a good taste

No I won't be building a dedicated rum still. I read that somewhere at one time. But so many members run rum and don't complain about it. But we will see. Not to worried about it. The fores and heads of the next run should do a pretty good job of cleaning him out.

[frozenthunderbolt]

Gave them the hydrosol treatment (well worth it, highly recommend making it a standard part of your flavored spirit process, for pot still runs).

Can you expand on this Hook? I thought that Hydrosols where steam extractions of plants - essentially essential oils, or are you just being flowery in your description of distillation!

Sorry, missed this one.

Hydrosol in this case is just diluting the feints (with any tails in them) below 30% (25-30%) ABV. Letting it sit for 24 hours. Then carefully draining off the liquid from below, leaving the top 50-100 mm layer behind. The drained off liquid is the still charge.

Reason for doing this is that diluting to that level allows the fusel oils to separate from the rest and float on the surface. So leaving that top layer behind leaves a lot of the fusel oils behind. Which makes for a lot cleaner product when you are using any tails feints in the charge.

Cheers Hook,

I have a 23l lab ware glass carboy with a neck that could take a spigot in the side at the bottom.
Sounds perfect for this kind of operation.
I'll have to see if one of the wooden spigots i got from my dad will fit and then collect 8-10 l of feints to dilute.
This would be good for all spirits baring rums i would guess?; given that people like Pugi go to some difficulty to collect the 'rum oils' to add flavor to subsequent batches.
I take it that the fusel oils are able to be visually differentiated from what is underneath?

[Frosteecat]

My 4 gallon Hard Cider ferment is going like gangbusters!! Almost afraid it's going to blow the airlock off it's bubbling so fast!!

[Odin]

Just finished a spirit run on a first gen 50/50 rye/spelt UJ combo. Got me over 2 liters of 96.5%. Just watered it down to about 40%. First impressions: great. The slightest bit of grain taste left. The way I like it.

Can't wait for Gen 2 to be ready. Spelt is an interesting grain. Maybe it is because it is made biologically, but the ferment (especially gen 2) took off like a turbo charged car on nytrogin (gin? really?).

Sippin' on some brandy/cognac I made over a year ago. Last 0.1 liter. Shit. I will pile up more stock from now on!

Odin.

[frozenthunderbolt]

Can't wait for Gen 2 to be ready. Spelt is an interesting grain. Maybe it is because it is made biologically, but the ferment (especially gen 2) took off like a turbo charged car on nytrogin (gin? really?).
Odin.

NoS - Nitrious oxide - laughing gas

[HookLine]

This would be good for all spirits baring rums i would guess?; given that people like Pugi go to some difficulty to collect the 'rum oils' to add flavor to subsequent batches.

Good question.

I take it that the fusel oils are able to be visually differentiated from what is underneath?

There is a very distinct slick on the surface. Same thing you see toward the end of some stripping runs.

Though no doubt some of the undesirable tail oils are left in solution and can't be removed this way. But still works very well.

[Marshwalker]

Ran a 1st gen. of corn, oats, and pearled barley last night....gonna start the second gen. ferment today...

[172degrees]

20 gallon batch of cornmeal and molasses sitting on jasmine flowers/vanilla beans/ and charred french oak

[FantsGrove]

well interesting night but after running 9gal of UJSM...scrambling to find another propane tank from a buddy's house finally finished and started the setup for gen 3...needless to say all your wits aren't about you at 3am and managed to topple a scorching hot keg of backings off the blocks and into a game of rolling hot potato ...luckily the sankey is only 2 inches or there might have been some scalding...all in all great run and finally done for the night...most people have the greased up hog chase but i say it doesn't compare to trying to catch a heated up keg rollin' around spewing backings

[zouthernborne]

Ran another batch of rum, kept the majority of it white and dumped the rest into the 1/2 gallon pickle jar with my aging rum.

[Brud]

Just did a spirit run on two batches of rum. One with molasses and one with brown sugar. Combined it is a very nice taste, having one now, actually three

[Marshwalker]

will be brewing the second generation of my coonass shindig cuncoction (COB whiskey) tonight... i let the first gen of cernter cuts air for a week... made a big difference!!! the jars on oak smell really good too... they are taking on a nice color and smell.. gonna give it some more time to age before tasting a sample... Gonna grill some redfish, fry some frog legs and drink some white donkey foot with coke while the wife makes some baked maccaroni, steamed broccolli and a strawberry cake!!!

[bentstick]

Damn Marsh that kinda sounds like when I talk to my son, we live in the north he moved just south of Lafayette and tells me the things he has been eating I get jealous, kind of like Cajun, Creole food.
My boys gf can make some awesome crawfish E'toufe and damn sweet tastin crawfish corn chowder! Can't wait to vist during Jan. duck shooting!

[zouthernborne]

Finishing off a strip run on some Birdwatcher's, about to clean the pot and get ready for spirit run.

[Marshwalker]

Damn Marsh that kinda sounds like when I talk to my son, we live in the north he moved just south of Lafayette and tells me the things he has been eating I get jealous, kind of like Cajun, Creole food.
My boys gf can make some awesome crawfish E'toufe and damn sweet tastin crawfish corn chowder! Can't wait to vist during Jan. duck shooting!

We are definitly rich with good cooks down here!! But one thing ive learned about these southern women, a good bit of um are crazy as hell.... They rather fight than eat I think my wife eats a bit of gun powder every morning for breakfast!!

[sinkinskiff]

cooked off bout 3 gallons of uj today . Marsh the frog legs sound good but I done picked up some softshell crabs for the fourth and got some yellowfin marinating for the grill.BTW are you still lookin for a keg?

[frozenthunderbolt]

I turned up some stoppers out of Manuka for a set of bottles ive got.
Got the ID using verniers then translated that to my calipers and set 1mm wider. Turned em down and left rough. Toasted dark and now most fit just nicely.
I got sick of corks (natural not composite) deteriorating in the bottles.

[rtalbigr]

Went to the Farmer's Co-op this morning and purchased 300 lbs steam rolled barley, 300 lbs wheat, and 200 lbs whole oats. I will start with a wheat/oat whiskey. I have malted red wheat (DP 190) and some distiller's malt (DP220) for my conversion. Then I plan on a single grain barley converting w/2-row. From there who knows, probable a wheat/barley/oat combination.

Big R

[Marshwalker]

Cooked off the 3rd generation of my Shindig last night... while doing that, made 2 gallons of Amerretto and started 2 quarts of blueberry panty dropper.. got the 4th generation of the coonass shindig started this morning.... mead has another 2 weeks before I rack it over.. can't wait!!!!

[Frosteecat]

Where's that Amaretto recipe man?!

[whiskeytripping]

I have been saving up some low wines, it was a mix of the sweet feed whiskey, and a UJSSM that had a 25% grain bill of rye , I bought the rye at a brew shop (malted) and rye is definitely a acquired taste, now malted barley is fine at that percentage, but rye is rather on the strong side for me. Next time I will keep it around 8%. Now on the sweet feed, I wasn't too impressed with it either coming off the still (and no I did not use the pelleted sweet feed all grain only)

Now with that all said, I took the low wines from those runs, watered them down with a sweet feed wash that had been sitting a month after bubbling out. And it came out still a little on the harsh side, I put it on charred oak sticks made from Jack Daniels barrels, at 120P. Now I bet in a couple of years it will come out pretty nice. Let's wish me luck

[Bro-sephus]

Gonna run me a batch of fermented candy wash tonight when I get back to my little house out in the woods! Stuff smells amazing, can't wait to see what it tastes like coming off the still!

Brewing up a couple pounds of swedish fish, a pound of salt water taffy, some old marshmallows and some brown sugar (just in case it wasn't enuf...)

[Frosteecat]

Candy wash?! Wow....that's gonna be powerful stuff huh??

I just put up some donut peaches and have two Kirschwassers going; one sweet Bings and one tart Monticellos (I think).


Still waiting to run a 2.0 UJSSM and a 5 gallon three types
of fancy rice Koji ferment.

[Bro-sephus]

What did you do for the kirschwasser? Did you ferment the fruit then macerate more in it or is it ujssm or a neutral?

Looks delicious!!!

[Frosteecat]

Taken from another thread:

Yay!! I'm very glad she liked it. I'm a fan of that too... Here's the recipe as well as I can remember:
Take a 1/2 gallon "handle" bottle, empty and clean (I used a vodka bottle with a wide neck and handle).
Get enough Bing cherries to fill it dry... @2.5 lbs.
Alternate about 2 inches cherries (stemmed and scored with a paring knife, but not pitted...leave em in) with 1/2 inch sugar in layers to the top (add or subtract sugar for sweetness level). I used about 1/3 brown sugar to 2/3 white.
I added a couple tablespoon of pectic acid to help break down the fruit...maybe a 1/4-1/2 cup of lemon juice as a substitute...?
Let sit for a couple days until sugar is turned to fluid. I turned and shook mine at least daily.
I also used about 1/4 cup of "charged/used" oak chips in the mix for a subtle flavor (optional).
When sugar is all juice (@3-5 days), I added 40% ABV shine (better to use high proof diluted down than 40% off a run) to top.
Keep your hands off as long as you can...but that batch is only about a month old.

I've seen people go through many complex steps and this way is very simple, flavorful, smooth and popular!
The key seems to be the pectic acid to draw the juices out..add sugar discreetly cause you can always add more.

[Marshwalker]

Where's that Amaretto recipe man?!

I'll send it to ya bubba!!

[Frosteecat]

Thanks padnah!

[Bro-sephus]

Finally made that old candy wash into shine! Tastes alot like really floral goldschlaegger, the cinnamon in the salt water taffy (couldn't have been more than 4 pieces of that flavor) carried through quite nice.

This is for all ya'll old timers out there stillin in the dead of night!

[mowarren]

I started another ujsm and a dwwg 5 gal each. This ujsm I used lees from applewine wow it's foaming like crazy not sure how long it will take to finish.