What'd ya'll make today?

[Beerbrewer]

Made cuts on my distilled birdwatchers, got 600mls of 53 cut to 780mls for 40% from 10ltrs of wash. Broke my damn alcometer, getting two next time.

[NZChris]

Finished off my mini pot still and new Liebig condenser and did a cleaning run. This setup will enable me to experiment with gins, herbs, etc., which wasn't practical with my Old Faithful.

[Jimbo]

Racked to secondary and dry hopped 2 different SMaSH beers (NZ Nelson Sauvin and Sorachi Ace hops), and kegged an IPA (AU Topaz hops). Sorry no hooch bidness today. Time to follow P's lead and enjoy some nice weather while we got it.

[Pesty]

Today is the spirit run using a 4' reflux packed column under the combo head. low and slow. Heat went on at 0930PST and here we are at 1411PST with 900 ml of 90% collected so far.

[frozenthunderbolt]

A humidor and 1/2 a doz cigarillios

[okie]

12 pounds malted barley 4 of which are peat smoked mashing away in my mash tun. I'm going to try making sour mash single malt.

[NZChris]

Stripping run of 1st gen UJSSM. Small wash to make backset for increasingly bigger washes.

Also made an adapter to give me the option of 750 watts from my two 1500 watt elements.

[Odin]

New batch of young style genever.

Odin.

[okie]

Measured the temp in my mash tun this morning. I let it set all night from about 9:00 PM till 8:00 AM this morning. It was 140 F. Did an iodine test and it looks perfect. Hydrometer said 7% @ 70 degrees adjusted down for temp. I feel good! da da da da daaaa!!

[NZChris]

First stripping run out of three of Birdwatchers. Ferment took six weeks and still wasn't quite finished, but it's going through the still ok and tastes fine.

First time I have had the luxury of 750 watts to choose from. Took a bit longer than using a simmerstat to average 1000 watts, but it's a nice steady stream.

Just started the next stripping run. The sun has gone down and it is starting to get cold out here in the brewery so I have set up a webcam so that I can keep an eye on it while I'm at the pub, or at home in front of the fire. As soon as I've got the headshots off I'm off to the pub for a while.

[NZChris]

Did the spirit run on the Birdwatchers, then put several years worth of various feints through to tidy up my brewery. There are some interesting jars there. I can smell plums and grapes, but no molasses. I'll have a taste in a week or two and decide what to do with them.

Gen #2 UJSSM is bubbling away nicely.

[Pa Shine]

Apple brandy on oak and vanilla, blueberry macerated likker, and apple pie all aging well for the 4th of July party. A lil something for everyone

[Black Eye]

Buccaneer Bobs rum wash. Hoping its drinkable for beach camping in August.

[jarheadshiner]

Drained my panela rum that I had macerating in quart jars with a mixed fruit medley of peaches, pineapple, mango, and strawberries. Gonna throw some sugar on the fruit and see what kind of yummy syrup it produces. Also have a thirty gallon ferment of sweet feed that I need to strip. 1st generation because I forgot to add the backset that I had in the freezer from about 15 gens when I started this back up. Oh well. I'll dump it in the next one. Hope I can get it done in 2 strips.

[Pesty]

12 pounds malted barley 4 of which are peat smoked mashing away in my mash tun. I'm going to try making sour mash single malt.

I went for 10 lbs of barley (4 of peated and 6 of pale ale) for my new single malt. Ferment racked off and clearing right now.

[magnetic_tarantula]

Finished the last little bit of Wheated "Bourbon" to finish out that 5 gallon barrel. A labor of love......i'll be pissed if it tastes like dirty ass after sitting in wood for some time!! But it won't because I made quality cuts.

[steve2md]

"Rum-Quila" Agave nectar base with dark brown sugar to make up the difference in gravity. ran it off last night, airing out now. Smells great, taste is a bit tart.

[NZChris]

Stripping run of Gen #2 UJ

The clam shell I had put in the wort was 4 grams lighter.

[Odin]

Was it there for extra calcium?

[NZChris]

After reading a lot of posts about pH problems, I decided to experiment with using shells for their calcium carbonate as a buffer before I get into trouble. No problems so far. Gen #3 is going berserk compared to 1&2.

[NZChris]

Stole the heart out of my UJSSM gen#1+2 stripping run and nuked it with Jim Beam chips and vanilla bean. It's sitting out on the BBQ table ready for a frosty night.

I figure that gets rid of much of the non-sour mash startup product I made while building up backset, and now I can get on with collecting some quality sour mash low wines.

[ThrownOlive]

Yesterday, I ran off 3gallons of diluted low wines and bad cuts of ujsm through the glute(first spirit run). Definitely still learning how to drive it but I got 3 quarts of really nice hearts and another gallon of feints that are gonna get the baking soda treatment. Hoping to get another batch of limoncello going. It's great with stripped down ujsm, the little bit of sweetness from the corn is a nice change I think.

[Black Eye]

Wifes away so the boys will play. JUst set a fire under my boiler. Rums a comin... just a few hours to go

[drinkingdog]

Just getting in from a long day at work and I sit down and pour me a Windsor and diet Mt dew. How pitiful is that. We are working to fix that you can bet your ass. For now that is it. It is better than nothing for sure. If you guys feel sorry for me pm me and I will give you my address so that you can send some of the stuff that didn't make the grade for you. I'm sure that it will beat what I'm drinking tonight.

[Jimbo]

dearest downtrodden drinkingdog. No worries mate, any drink is better than none, and it will only make you appreciate yours all the more. All is well.

[Cardinalbags]

I did back to back 80L batches of Birdwatchers and stripped them last weekend. Today i ran the approximately 40L of 45% low wines.

This is the first run on the combined Boka/ VM still that I built since I did the cleaning and sac akcohol runs. When i Did the sac run, i kept pouring the alcohol back in through the top of the condenser. That allowed me to really experiment on the heat settings and pull rates versus quality.

It paid off today. I was able to dial the still in with deadly accuracy.

Fores and heads were compressed into the first 1.5 L using the boka head. Pulled hearts at about 2.75-3litres per hour. The temp probe at the VM takeoff didnt vary one bit for the entire hearts run. Pulled 12 litres of some excellent hearts plus another 3L of hearts with some early tails that showed up.

For the hell of it I ran the VM as long as it would produce and collected about 1.5 to 2L of awful crap that is now in the waste jar.

I tested the ABV of what was left in the boiler, and the alcoholometer was showing about 2%.

I blended together the best of the hearts to make the wifes gin with. I tested the ABV of this jug and it was 96.5% the other two jugs that comprised the rest of the good hearts were 96% and 95.5% respectively. I am happy to achieve azeotrope with this setup.

Many thanks to all those out there that posted the articles that I used to form the basis for my still design. My wife thanks you all too. She very much likes the new Gin over the store bought stuff.

Here's to good hooch and no headaches folks.

[frozenthunderbolt]

Started some of Odin's Rye bread whisky 2x 25L so i can do a 1.5 run with it

[NZChris]

Limoncello from Birdwatchers. Lemons are only just getting ripe here and I had to scour the tree to find enough for a small batch. I should have a solera system going so that I have less chance of running out and longer ageing.

Re-nuked my gen #1&2 corn likker.

Tasted my jars from my multi-year multi-feints spirit run. No decisions made yet. There is already a hint of wormwood and fennel in some of the jars, so I could use some as a home for the green faerie.

[Sackett]

Actualy friday,, put down a sugar wash to clean my "Tinker Maid" flute. Used the doughnut shop sugat i mentioned in another thread, Went right to bubbling ,,stirred it today,,already much dryer than when put down,, but still bubblin away

[Jimbo]

haha Donut hooch, I remember that. Youre gonna have the boys come a knockin when they smell that donut hooch LOL Let us know how it turns out.

cheers.