What'd ya'll make today?

[dieselduo]

Ran a dry COB

[Hilltop]

Corn, wheat malt and ground oats

[Hilltop]

I've tried to upload a video all day, there is something wrong with the load attachment button on this forum.

[still_stirrin]

I've tried to upload a video all day, there is something wrong with the load attachment button on this forum.

I don’t think the attachment link works for videos. You need a hotlink to a hosted video sight, ie - youtube or vimeo to post a video.

There is a way to embed a video on a post, but I don’t know the secrets to that yet either. Perhaps Jesse at “Stillit” can chime in here with a suggestion. He’s got many videos embeded.
ss

[Hilltop]

You tube or others are easy you just bracket the link with you tube in the front. But that's a no go on my end, as you tube is owned by the enemy with your ip. But I never could figure out how to load straight from a tablet. Anyway I think I figured out the secret for success each time on my end. I now cook the oyster shell with my grain, about 6 cups and it's made one hell of a difference, My hydrometer is literally swimming around in a vortex in the drum. Ive also started adding 3 packs of bread yeast mixed with Distillers yeast to stretch what yeast I had left.

When I added the shell to the barrel after the cook and yeast I always had to come back and add more or pH up. Not now, it's frying like bacon.

[jonnys_spirit]

20# Munton pale 2 row Mashed in 6gal Apple cider - strike @ 163*F - sparge w/remaining cider.
13 Gallon Apple cider total.
1 Gallon honey
30# cored and sliced apples
Water topped up to 6 gallons for SG of 1.070.
Bagged apples and grain - fermenting on grain in strainer bags.
2x Brute 20's. One w/K1V1116 yeast, the other with D47.

I'll get two stripping runs out of this in my 13 gallon 3" potstill then a lovely spirit run topped up with some backset I've got sitting around festering..

Might split off a couple gallons and clear / age / bottle as is once fermented.

Also started a honey bear bourbon and purchased 100# of corn to experiment with.

Merry xmas to all!
-j

[nuntius01]

made my xmass rum. everyone loved it. 15 gallon mash and got to use my newly renoed fermentation fridge. man what a difference with constant temp on my abv.

[Skipper1953]

I did a stripping run on a batch of my take on a Chocolate bourbon.
I started with an 8 gallon charge in my 11 gallon boiler and ran it through my pot still head. When the temp reached 190°, I dialed back the heat. When it started dripping, I very slowly collected about 200 ml. I turned the heat up again and took off the rest of the run at about 2700 watts. I saved 200 ml out of the middle of the run and put it on the stir plate for a few hours. Over ice this afternoon it was really tasty. I could definitely taste the Chocolate Malt.

While doing the strip I collected the water from my condenser in an Igloo cooler for use in the next mash.

60% Corn (18 lbs)
20% Wheat (6 lbs)
10% Oats (3 lbs)
10% Chocolate Malt (3 lbs)
1 gallon backset
14 gallons water

The only malted grain was the chocolate Malt.
All grain was ground to a coarse meal.

Boiling water was added to the corn in the fermenter, a 20 gallon Bayou Classic stock pot. Added high temp enzyme at 180° and stirred in the other grains at around 160°. About 5 hours after the boiling water went in the pot I added the low temp enzyme at 140°. Covered the pot with an old sleeping bag and went to bed.

Sunday morning I was pleased to find the conversion went quite well and the starting gravity was a temp corrected 1.060. I added the baker's yeast slurry I'd saved from the previous run at 100° and it was off to the races.

My basement smells delicious.

[masonsjax]

Finally stripping my 20 gallons of strong desert wine today. It'll be good to have the brandy pipeline full again.

[sltm1]

Didn't make anything, but sampled some gin I've had in glas for 4 months. Couldn't stand it at 1st, but much better now. I added a couple of pieces of tangerine rind and will check it an a month or so.

[OtisT]

Today I made this new insulation box for my 55 gallon ferment barrel. It took me 4 episodes of Game Of Thrones to cut and tape this all together.

[Badmotivator]

Today I made this new insulation box for my 55 gallon ferment barrel. It took me 4 episodes of Game Of Thrones to cut and tape this all together.

Looks serious, Otis. What’s your game plan? Any thermal controls in there? Or just let the ferment keep itself warm until it’s done?

[Hilltop]

20# Munton pale 2 row Mashed in 6gal Apple cider - strike @ 163*F - sparge w/remaining cider.
13 Gallon Apple cider total.
1 Gallon honey
30# cored and sliced apples
Water topped up to 6 gallons for SG of 1.070.
Bagged apples and grain - fermenting on grain in strainer bags.
2x Brute 20's. One w/K1V1116 yeast, the other with D47.

I'll get two stripping runs out of this in my 13 gallon 3" potstill then a lovely spirit run topped up with some backset I've got sitting around festering..

Might split off a couple gallons and clear / age / bottle as is once fermented.

Also started a honey bear bourbon and purchased 100# of corn to experiment with.

Merry xmas to all!
-j

Why the different yeast Jonny?

[OtisT]

Today I made this new insulation box for my 55 gallon ferment barrel. It took me 4 episodes of Game Of Thrones to cut and tape this all together.

Looks serious, Otis. What’s your game plan? Any thermal controls in there? Or just let the ferment keep itself warm until it’s done?

Mainly I will use it alone to maintain the temp of my ferment when it is sealed up. I will be making 30 gal ferments in the 55 gal barrel. I also plan to make a 16” tall platform with a shelve underneath to put this on, so I can siphon off w/o having to move the barrel.

My last 15 gallon ferment box was made of the same material and construction, and I used a 15w bulb on the rare occasion when I needed to warm up my ferment. All but two of my past ferments have finished w/o the need for any additional heat. The same bulb will heat this, though slower, and if needed I’ll simply throw in a higher wattage bulb.

[still_stirrin]

...I used a 15w bulb on the rare occasion when I needed to warm up my ferment....

Now days, the incandescent bulbs are getting replaced with LEDs. Some hardware stores don’t even stock traditional incandescents anymore. And it seems like an LED would be futile...they’re designed to operate without producing much, if any heat.

A 15W (peanut) bulb seems awefully small, but if it worked for your 15 gallon ferment...what the heck!
ss

[Hilltop]

You can still get the clear incandescent bulbs at tractor supply.

[OtisT]

...I used a 15w bulb on the rare occasion when I needed to warm up my ferment....

A 15W (peanut) bulb seems awefully small, but if it worked for your 15 gallon ferment...what the heck!
ss

I believe it is a frig bulb, so most hardware stores should still carry them.

It is small, but with really efficient insulation and an airtight seal you don’t need much power to bring the temp up because not much energy is lost. The nice thing about those inefficient incandescent bulbs is that most of the power used is converted to heat.

I figure with double the volume, it will take twice the time for the same results. I also have a 25 watt bulb I could use if I want to speed things up. That’s little 15W bugger gets hotter than shit in the box, so I’m likely to just wait it out with 15 W unless I really screw up and undershoot my target temp by a long ways.

The pic is in front of a quart jar, for size reference. That’s red stuff is “liquid tape” to cover the leads to prevent an accidental shock.

[Badmotivator]

...I used a 15w bulb on the rare occasion when I needed to warm up my ferment....

A 15W (peanut) bulb seems awefully small, but if it worked for your 15 gallon ferment...what the heck!
ss

I believe it is a frig bulb, so most hardware stores should still carry them.

It is small, but with really efficient insulation and an airtight seal you don’t need much power to bring the temp up because not much energy is lost. The nice thing about those inefficient incandescent bulbs is that most of the power used is converted to heat.

I figure with double the volume, it will take twice the time for the same results. I also have a 25 watt bulb I could use if I want to speed things up. That’s little 15W bugger gets hotter than shit in the box, so I’m likely to just wait it out with 15 W unless I really screw up and undershoot my target temp by a long ways.

The pic is in front of a quart jar, for size reference. That’s red stuff is “liquid tape” to cover the leads to prevent an accidental shock.

Hold on a moment, folks. If the box is closed, every watt that you put in turns to heat eventually. It doesn’t matter whether you spend 15 W on an incandescent bulb, a fluorescent bulb, or an LED bulb. A watt is a watt.

[Oldvine Zin]

those LED replacement bulbs still put out a lot of heat through the massive heat sinks that are built in

OVZ

[jonnys_spirit]

20# Munton pale 2 row Mashed in 6gal Apple cider - strike @ 163*F - sparge w/remaining cider.
13 Gallon Apple cider total.
1 Gallon honey
30# cored and sliced apples
Water topped up to 6 gallons for SG of 1.070.
Bagged apples and grain - fermenting on grain in strainer bags.
2x Brute 20's. One w/K1V1116 yeast, the other with D47.

I'll get two stripping runs out of this in my 13 gallon 3" potstill then a lovely spirit run topped up with some backset I've got sitting around festering..

Might split off a couple gallons and clear / age / bottle as is once fermented.

Also started a honey bear bourbon and purchased 100# of corn to experiment with.

Merry xmas to all!
-j

Why the different yeast Jonny?

I had a selection of different wine yeasts and both of these are good for meads - I wanted to increase the complexity of the ferments as I will be running these and blending the low wines so different yeasts will add some slightly different profiles - it's just a little experiment too. I'm doing the same on an extended run of several honey bear bourbon mashes... Different lager and ale yeasts for each run... We'll see but I'm pretty certain it'll turn out ok

Cheers!
-j

[ron71157]

After the fact

Used the forum recipe for botanicals:

Gin botanicals for 20L turbo-sugar wash/ Reflux column
juniper berry - flat Tbsp
coriander - flat tsp
cloves - ½ dozen
anise - ½ tsp
fennell - flat tsp
cardamom - ½ tsp
lemon - 1" rind
lime - 1" rind
cassia / cinnamon stick - 3/4" fragment

Starter was WPOS ended up with 5 gallons @ 10% ABV threw in all of my feints from 4 years of cooking.

Used two tea balls to contain the botanicals. 4.5mm fit nicely at the top of my 2" column and just dropped the lime and lemon peel on top. Garnered 104 OZ at 88%.
reduced 4oz down to 60% which is my sweetspot. Letting the rest rest @ 88
Excellent result with my gin quite fragrant and tasty. I'll call it a success.

Give it a try..

Some Kinda Fun

[Scorpster]

Made first 23L batch of Odin Rye Bread Whiskey last night, bubbling nicely this morning. Have 23L of Sweetfeed finishing in a secondary and a full 60L primary of SF. Have 23L of Birdwatchers nice and clear, ready for my first reflux run...soon. Have about 9L of rum low wines and 4L rum feints ready for spirit run tomorrow if it's raining. Also this week got my internal 3000W element with controller setup and tested, so adding that to the 1800W induction cooktop should lessen my still time by a fair amount. Can easily fit in a strip run after SWMBO goes to bed, hopefully a spirit run on Fri or Sat evenings. Glad stilling is fairly quiet!

[rgreen2002]

All Molly Rum!!!

It's nice to be back in the game!

[Kareltje]

The final 6th run of a series of stripping runs of a medlar mass I got from a friend. It was solid to the bottom of the 30 l fermenter, so I scooped the mass into my thumper and in fact steam distilled it. Of 30 L I got 8 2/3 L or 10 %ABV low wines. Smelling very good.
I am very happy with it!

[RedwoodHillBilly]

Using up old malts today. 100 Lbs corn, 10 Lbs white wheat malt, 10 Lbs 2 row barley malt in 40 Gal H20, 5 gal backset. We'll see how it comes out. I have 2 Gal of feints for the stripping run. It just seemed to be time to clear out some of the old stuff.

[jonnys_spirit]

My runs of HBB continue.. I've got about 4 gallons of low wines waiting for some buddies. Started two mashes today - 46#'s of HBB grains into about 24 gallons of water or so. Split among two batches. Think I have enough for about two more of these runs so am building that stock up. Right now I can't decide whether to to put together a neutral column or a larger boiler first. I do want to get a small alembic for some gins and sambucca's and similar.. Maybe 2.5 gallon?

Cheers!
-j

[OtisT]

It was such a nice day here today that I decided to air out some of my jar experiments. Oh what difference a day of airing makes.

Airing out some experiments

A variety of barrel strength whiskies, rums, and brandies on various woods.

Otis

[RedwoodHillBilly]

It was such a nice day here today that I decided to air out some of my jar experiments. Oh what difference a day of airing makes.
Otis

Or a week. It does really make a difference when making cuts. Just my $0.02 worth.

Looking good, I hope that it tastes as good as it looks.

[OtisT]

It was such a nice day here today that I decided to air out some of my jar experiments. Oh what difference a day of airing makes.
Otis

Or a week. It does really make a difference when making cuts. Just my $0.02 worth.

Looking good, I hope that it tastes as good as it looks.

Yes, I agree. This is not the first time I have given them some air. That includes at least a few days of airing before cuts were made. I like to open these jars up for a day or two every month, and they almost always smell better after the airing.
I have not tasted any of these in at least two months. Most range from 2 months to 10 months old. Some may be good, and many are likely crap. As mentioned, these are Experiments. A few past experiments have found their way proofed down and into bottles, while the not-so-good are simply put away to age a bit more and sometimes I mess with the wood too.

Otis

[RedwoodHillBilly]

I hear you on experiments. I have 5 gal of "experiments" that I treated with NaOh and ran though 4 plates to strip them. They are now sitting in a carboy with sodium carbonate waiting for the time to run them in my CCVM to make a "neutral".