first run sucked

[joe]

I am new at this but wanted to learn as a part time hobby. I got some corn and a little info from good old youtube and then built a still. I heated my corn and water at 150 deg F for an hour then added sugar and yeast once it cooled to 90deg and let it ferment for a weekin a bucket with an airlock. Then I distilled it, I heated the mash up to 175 to 180 for like 4 hr and got nothing, my buddy increased the temp to 210 and we started getting liquid out of the worm. It was comimg out in spurts and very cloudy, also tasted like shit. I have a 4gal stock pot with a stainless bowl as a cap with my copper line coming out of the top going into a 5 gal bucket of ice and coming out the bottom of the bucket and draining in to a collection vessel. i have my still sealed up and no leaks so I don't know why it turned out so bad. I am going to keep at it and hope to get it right soon, any help would be great, thanks.

[Usge]

joe...you've come to the right place for correct/accurate information. It's a common misconception that you can "hold" the temp of a potstill at the boiling point of ethanol...perpetuated by moonshine shows, and 2nd hand information, etc. It's simply not true. And the reason is.....you are not boiling "pure ethanol". You are boiling a 'mixture' of things (primarily water). And the boiling point of a "mixture"...happens a bit differently as the temp it start to vaporize falls somewhere inbtween the boiling point of the individual parts that make it up. So...your potstill is going to start boiling at a temp somewhere between the boiling point of the lowest and highest temp components of your mixture. (for us that would be primarily water and ethanol) The lower the abv you start with in your pot...the higher the temp will be before it starts to boil/vaporize and the lower the proof will be. The higher abv you start with in your pot...the lower the boiling point will be, and the higher proof it will come off. Take a look at the abv/temp relationship chart on the main theory section of the parent site. And as well, you can read about it in the new distillers reading lounge..under various topics (ie., why can't I control the temps on my potstill... ..do I need a therm on my potstill, etc).

The still is not "magic"..and does not create alc out of thin air. The alc is created in your ferment (which btw we'll get to in a min). So, what you start with in your pot (or what you fill it with) is all the alc there is. The still "concentrates" it..if you will...by extracting it at varying levels of purity by removing it from the water based on differing boiling points. It is this "difference" in boiling point...that allows it to start to vaporize first. But, it does not do so cleanly (remember, it's a mixture). So, in short...what you experienced should have been expected for a very low abv wash...ie., it's not going to start coming off/over till closer to the boiling point of water. It's just your expectations and understanding about how this was supposed to work were way off. Why was it cloudy? Probably cause it was puking over from really high heat and a foamy wash (possibly from unfermented raw sugar). Did you taste your wash after it fermented to see if it was still sweet? Or measure the gravity of it with a hydrometer to get a reading on where it was?

That brings me to your corn "mash". There's 2 primary ways to do things here for corn. You can use store bought sugar to make a "wash" that uses grain for flavoring ...which btw ...doesn't necessarily require cooking. Or you can create the sugars to be fermented from grains through a process of "mashing"...which requires cooking the grains to release the starches in them, and then converting those starches to sugars through the use of enzymes in "malt" (or malted grains). You can also make a mash first..then sweeten it with sugar. But, if you are going to use sugar...you need to dissolve it first. And cooking corn doesn't make a mash. It just gives you cooked corn. Without mashing with crushed malt between 140-150F for an hour or so...you didn't create anything that could be fermented. So, the primary source for fermentable sugars to create alc that you used was just the sugar that you added...which you said you just threw in at the end after it cooled down..which probably didn't dissolve it well and ultimately didn't make much alc. The term mash and wash get used sometimes interchangeably...but the important difference to understand is where the sugars come from. One is simply added. The other comes from the grains themselves through mashing/conversion.

Now from there, you put a really low abv "wash" that might still have some unfermented sugars into a teakettle...and finally get around to wicking the heat to it enough to reach the mixtures boiling point. And it foams up from the sugar that's not finished in it...and starts puking in spurts out the other end. The results speak for themselves...but I don't want you to be discouraged. Congrats! You actually completed your first run and you are not a virgin anymore......and you learned something!! No shame in that. There's a lot to go through (as you can see). And you've come to the right place. For recipe's (important because this is how you "create" your alc for distilling)....go to the proven recipe forum and pick one. A lot of people find UJSSM (Uncle Jessie's Simple Sour Mash) to be a good starting place. It doesn't require any cooking. It's a sugar based wash that makes a good amount of alc easily. And will introduce you to the concept of backmashing or sourmashing to add flavor to subsequent runs.

Another place...would be as I said..to start at the new distillers reading lounge...and read there as well as the main theory section on the parent site. Try and put your own experience into context with what you read. I think you'll come away with a lot. And of course feel free to ask questions along the way. I hope that at least gets you headed in the right direction. Congrats on busting your cherry. And good luck to you!!

Usge

[jholmz]

"F"ing youtube strikes again. welcome joe forget all you saw on utube. looks like usge is gettin you straigt

[NcMoonLight]

Between Utube/Moonshiners/"Expert shiners makin likker from a cast iron pot im pretty sure there is alot of poison being made these days. Just know that now you have a entire site full of ACCURATE information and not just a bunch of junk that someone has made up from the 15 mins of moonshiners he watched or what he heard from a friend of a friend of a friend of a cousin.

[UtahViking]

*applause * usge that was excellent info. I to.am.a newbie and found that really helpful

[condo33]

Enjoy the adventure Joe!

[joe]

Awsome, Thanks Usge and everyone else. I'm gonna seriously re-evaluate how I go about this and hopefully I will have it down and be able to experiment with different ingredients and flavors in a few months.