G'Day from OZ

[Tassie Tiger]

Hi to all from the Tassie Tiger country. I'm not new to brewing but am new to the site, mind you I have not brewed for 10 or 11 years but with the price of scotch nearly $40+ Aus & a carton of beer (24x375ml) topping around $50 Aus I have decided to get back into it. In the past I've used a Euro 5 I think it was, reflux still. Just bottled some Rye wiskey that I had barrel oak chip aged for 11 years in 5 liter demijohns & thought I have to get back into it. I also have a home made keg system with a s'steel home made reflux tower that works great but still needs flavouring & I'm keen to try pot stilling. A friend told me about this site so here I am. I now have a boiling water urn with about 25 liter capacity & a s'steel mixing bowl for a lid that I'm about to fit the euro tower minus the mesh in the 1 foot tower too. As well as making my own beer a few months ago I started making my own fruit wine & decided to try running any reject wines through the pot, when I get time to finish making it. End result I'm hoping to make some fruit Brandy's,Schnapps from the apple wines etc. I'm a big fan Canadian Rye or CC & am looking for easy to make recipe's that I can experiment with from this site but there's is so much info on this site that it will be the rest of the year before I get through it all. Any one out there that can give me any advice or short cuts to forums on Rye would be much appreciated. ps never really been a big fan of Jack or southern comfort or JB. Probably drank too much of it as a little tacker & turned me off them.
Will keep all informed of progress on wine to Brandy experiments, Tassie Tiger.

[Bushman]

Welcome to the forum, a lot has changed in design since you were last involved. Enjoy catching up shouldn't take to long to get back up to speed. As far as rye's go we got a few good recipes in the Tried & True Recipe Section.

[badbird]

Welcome TT.
Maybe a nice pot head and condenser for the keg would be the go, the urn sounds a little bit on the small side;)

bb

[Tassie Tiger]

Thanks for the advice about putting pot head on the keg badbird, that will be the next move I think. It was just that I had an urn that was doing nothing, a large mixing bowl that cost me 2 bucks & a 1 foot euro tower that I could strip the mesh out of & try out potting with. The original capacity if the euro was 4.7 liter so you can see why I decided to increase the capacity with the urn. Even considered putting that tower onto the keg but decided to try walking before attempting to run a marathon.
Thanks Bushman, I'll see what I can find in there. Was that one of the locked sections that I'm hoping I can get into now I've joined the club so to speak ?
It's 10-30 am Tues here so I'll get back to work & do some Rye recipe hunting tonight. Cheers

[badbird]

TT, there is not much locked here. Tried & True Recipe Section.

bb

[thecroweater]

Welcome here TT the urns are not a great choice for a bunch of reasons. A pot still is a great place to start for sure but forget the urns, beer kegs are a popular choice and what I started with

[Tassie Tiger]

Thanks badbird, I found Uncle Jesses Easy Rye recipe to try out but the Brew shops here do not have any Malted Rye in stock so I have to wait until they resupply. Could I just take the ceramic marbles out of my reflux tower I use on top of a Keg & use it on the keg as a hi-tower pot head. It's about 1 meter high(3 feet) is that too high to use as a pot head or would it just be a " try it & see thing" ?

[Tokoroa_Shiner]

11 Years in a barrel. Yum. Should be good.

[googe]

Welcome.mate, I think you need to share that stuff, wouldn't be right other wise

[Tassie Tiger]

Googe do you mean the methodoligy or the contents ?
It was just a 25 liter sugar & water wash with Turbo 48 yeast that I left 5 or 6 weeks until yeast sediment dropped & it cleared. Then at a rate of 4.7 liters at a time in the reflux unit I would end up with about 600 ml each 4 to 5 hour batch. Then after carbon treatment I would place the lot in a 5 liter glass demijohn that was about 1/4 filled with American Barrel Oak chips. I then decided to let it barrel age until I came up with a less time consuming way of doing a 25 liter batch.
10 to 11 years later I ended up with a Keg with a 1800 watt hot water cylinder element in the bottom and a 1 meter reflux tower filled with glass marbles and a 1/2 meter condenser tube coming down from the top of the tower all stainless steel. Made a wash and ran it though, BINGO it worked in about 6 or 7 hrs.
So I cut & blended the 90+% alc that had been aging for 11 years. Mostly blended it to rye wisky but if a mixer like dry ginger ale was added to the taste test glass it was drinkable but lacked true flavour. Was more like a very dark vodka.
I THEN DECIDED TO TRY POTTING, SO HERE i AM.
What I would like to know is if I was to remove the glass marbles from the tower have I just converted it to a POT still head ?
Will the flavour of my home made wine carry through into the finished product ?
Or should I just make another pot head for the keg ? ( hope it does not take me another 11 years to make this one)
Any one out there that's tried this method some feed back would be great !

[HDNB]

if you are using reflux, it is a reflux column. with or with out the marbles. if you are not useing forced reflux, then it's a potstill. with or without marbles.

i think you should perhaps mail out a few samples of the 11yr old. just so we can make sure it's safe for you.

[Tassie Tiger]

G'day HDNB. The 17 or 18 bottles I ended up with went fast. Every visitor that tried it took a bottle with them & I'm most likely going to test taste for scientific purposes of course the second last bottle tonight.
You lost me there, re the difference between the two.
Do you think I should put a higher wattage element in the keg ?
I've only used it with sugar & water wash in it, maybe I should try a home made wine in it for a taste test.
25 liters takes 50 minutes to start to flow & I ditch the first 100 mls or so that flows out. I believe I can put up to 40 liters in it so did consider fitting a second element to speed up this process.
If I got it right even if I make or buy a pot head it may not be a true pot still but a reflux still with a pot head.
Maybe I need to make a second unit with two smaller wattage elements to create more heat & hence more pressure any way.
I thought the reflex action was caused by the condensation caught in the marbles or mesh flowing back down the tower into the keg.
Food for thought, or further research. Thanks for sharing thoughts with me, CHEERS

[HDNB]

further research will help for sure. you used that "P" word...you should never have pressure in your still. ever.
if you can heat 25L in 50 min to production, you have lots of heat. if you run too fast it will just smear everything together and you product will be crap.
reflux stills have a condensor to cool the vapour so it condenses and runs back inside the column to be redistilled. usually with packing...sometimes marbles, copper or SS scrubbies, lava rock raching rings or bits of copper pipe or structured packing material. sometimes they have a product "cooler" or condensor for take off.

pot stills have a condensor to cool the vapour for take off. packing does not do much of, or anything in them. a really tall potstill may have "passive reflux" as some vapour cools and falls back for redistillation, however if you are not "forcing" the reflux...then its a potstill. and there is no need for packing.

hope that helps.

cranky's spoonfeeding thread has a lot of similar information for your persual. it will help you make a better drop.

[Tassie Tiger]

Thanks HDNB,
Spent quite a few hours yesterday afternoon reading through Cranky's thread & most of the attached links.
Still have a few attachments to click on yet & will do that tonight when I get home from work, that's after I make up the Blackberry wine I was going to do yesterday arvo.
Now it seems I have some thinking to do about what type of Pot head to make & if to go with a further attached coil condenser ( Thumper ) etc etc .

[rad14701]

Greetings, Tassie Tiger...

Can you post pictures of your rig so we can determine whether or not it is actually a reflux column and not just a packed column pot still...??? Once you've completed what we consider mandatory research you should also be able to determine and inform us as to which type you actually have... I'm leaning towards a pot still with structured packing in the pot column...

Good luck, stay safe, and enjoy the journey...

EDIT: I just researched it and the Euro 5 is an old Cooling Management reflux design... Actually, they made both pot and reflux models... A poor design at that... The packed column is far too short to produce high proof spirits... Not to mention that the cross tubes at each end of the column being a piss poor design choice... Many have been built but that doesn't make them any better than a glorified pot still...

[Tassie Tiger]

G'day rad, Ran the still at the weekend with around 37 litres of sugar/water wash in the 50 litre keg. Wash was 9% alc.
Got 1.5 litres of 91% Head, the 3rd 500ml Jar was a combination of Head & Heart I think.
2 litres of nice tasting 90% Heart, 2.5 litres of 89% yummy Heart.
Then the taste went down hill to a bitey burnt taste & percentage dropped fast to 86% so turned it off & shut it down.
Didn't want to drink the crappy Tail flavour I was getting.
Took some photos of the whole unit while working & the tower section as well.
So I will spend some time working out how to post those Photos this weekend. ( I'm not real computer savy)
So hopefully I will be able to then get some feed back & advise on adapting or fitting pot head to unit.
CHEERS to all, TT

[JayD]

Tassie Tiger...mmm been extinct now for some time... Hello I'm from Tasmania as well. G'Day.

[rad14701]

Totally your choice but I run deep into the tails and save the feints for an all feints run, diluted to a 30% - 40% boiler charge... My feints runs consist of heads and tails... Foreshots get used for alcohol stove fuel...

[JayD]

Have you got any copper in the vapor path? and do you insulate the column ? as your still is S/S you need copper in there to help remove the sulphides, insulation I have found on a reflux still makes it as stable as they come. I run my still similar to rad however I run my still down to20% then shut her down. I load up on a feint run at max 40% as this is considered by most as the safe abv to distill at. Tails tails n tails...i do not venture to deep into tail when I do my cuts, but I do know others tread where some may fear to tread...headaches suck...period! hope this gives you something to think about?

[TheMechwarrior]

Welcome from another Tasmanian

[Tassie Tiger]

G'day All, Have not logged on for a while but I have been busy with my Reflux. I have about 15 litres of around 89% in second round of Carbon then I'll add most of it to Oak Chip age before cut & blending. I've taken photos of my Rig to post & show you RAD so I may even post them tonight. Hi to the other two Tassie Guys, we should have a tasting session.
CHEERS to all, TT

[Mikey-moo]

What recipes are you using now Tassie?

[Tassie Tiger]

G'day Mikey-moo, The recipe I'm using for the last 3 Batches for reflux is just Sugar, water & Alcotec Turbo 48 yeast. Had about 120 litres that was with this recipe so used it up at a rate of 35 litres per run in a 50 litre Keg. Thought I'd use that to free up the ferment drums to try a few of the recipes that I've found on this site. I'm keen to try out Uncle Jesse's Rye Wisky recipe but my local brew shop has had problems with supply of malted Rye or just Rye in general so I'm now just waiting on their re-stock to arrive.
I Have a basic Rum recipe from Kings book that I will try next while I'm waiting on the Rye to arrive. Even though I'm not a real Rum drinker but it's going to be a trial run with the marble packing removed out of my Reflux tower & coolant water passing only through the Lyne arm condenser. If it doesn't work then I'll have to build a pot head for my Keg.
I'll post this then try to download the photos of my RIG.
CHEERS TT

[Tassie Tiger]

After heaps of jumping around the site I found RADS instructions for downloading photos but being a computer illiterate for any more than basic tasks I may have to ask my 15 year old nephew for some help to download them. Just asked my sister for some help, she's the computer guru at my business but the office phone rang so she had to run off to answer that. Here gos my first attempt.

[Tassie Tiger]

At last we got it to work, now I'd better get to work myself.
It took me about Hour & a half but it's there now RAD.
CHEERS TT

[Mikey-moo]

Great pictures TT

Definitely a CM reflux still then and quite an old design but as you're already proving it gets the job done. Doubtless there will be people here able to give you better advice than I but if I were you I would:

1) get rid of that plastic collecting jug - glass would be much safer.
2) stop using Turbo yeast/carbon and try some of the Tried and True recipes from here.

Also - cold water in via the green hose for good results but better still to separate product cooling from reflux cooling if possible...

[rad14701]

Looking good, Tassie Tiger... However, although I'm no CM expert it appears that your coolant flow could use some modification... Many here run separate coolant circuits to the product and reflux condensers... And as for routing, cold in the bottom of the liebig and out the top, and cold in the top of the reflux condenser and out the bottom, with a rise in the hose to keep the reflux condenser full at all times... There are some great topics here on modifications to your type of still...

[HDNB]

i use a similar rig, external jacketed CM with separate valves for product condensor and reflux condensor... but i rarely use the reflux.
if you smooth out the rough edges on how you drive her, i think the biggest strides in improving quality will be made in a quality ferment in the 8% range (maybe 10 for rum) and a better choice for yeast, like baker's yeast from the grocer.
(comments for rum and whiskey...i'm not going for high ABV neutral so i'll stay quiet on that subject)
looks like a nice system you got going for yourownself.

[Tassie Tiger]

Hi all, I had a large detailed reply with all the details of running the Rig, records, etc & when I pressed submit this morning my internet connection had dropped out & I lost nearly 2hrs of 1 finger typing around 7am this morning, Not happy !
Will give it another go tonight when I get home & do some more sample tasting as you do on Friday nights, this time I will check the connection before pressing the submit button though.
Many thanks to Sublime, Rad & HDNB for prompt feedback advise & help.
CHEERS TT

[googe]

Hey mate, cool looking still!, like the others said it's an old design but will work!. Easiest way to deal with the coolant lines on something like that is split the feed line, have one feed going to the rc with a cheap $5 gate valve from bunnings, and the other feed going to the base of the liebig. A needle valve is better but alot moreeexpensive, I've always used gate valves and they work fine!. You could also have the output lines from the pc and liebig go into one line via a tee or y connection, helps keep things tidy. Good luck.