The last "First" I posted was my first day without leaks. I put ferrules for a drain and a heating element onto a keg and finally didn't see water trickling out of it. Now that I have power, next up was a proof of concept water run. At full blast, the uninsulated keg took 12 gallons of cold water and started filling the garage with steam in just under 50 minutes. I let that run just steam for about 20 minutes while looking for leaks everywhere and then turned on the leibig to make sure all the steam would get knocked down. Worked like a champ. This was also good in letting me see how things went together.
Next up was my first vinegar/water run. I brought everything near a door and was able to position the spout outside and avoided filling the garage with vinegar steam. That worked too. Then the leibig did it’s thing and knocked that down well too. After the vinegar run, I rinsed/gently dried all the copper, the keg, the element, and the drain got a quick rinse too.
Ready for the sac run. I had some grain alcohol left from when I tried making a lemoncello a few years ago (it sucked), some of the lemoncello (I assume it still sucked, wasn't tasting it with what I know about gaskets now), and some cheap vodka that I watered down. Everything worked well. I knew the 20 gallon barrel of cooling water would be too small long term but it was nice to get a feel for how things could be laid out. Now there was a fully operational still in my garage.
The strip went well. I know I was leaving some on the table but I stripped down to 30%. Everything I stripped except for the 200 ml of fores I dumped fit in a 3 gallon carboy. At this point, I was convinced my soldering wasn’t leaking so I put two wraps of Reflectix around the keg, a double disk of Reflectix on the bottom, and cut another two Reflectix circles that can go on top. I put the All Bran low wines back in the still with a few gallons of water and heated it up slowly. I was able to dial in 3 drops/second with the heat controller. I did have some huffing though. The cooling water in the 55 gallon drum had formed an ice cap on it. I thought the water coming out would be hot enough to melt all the ice and warm up the reserves like it had in the stripping run. It didn’t really happen even when I reduced the flow of water through the leibig. The water was just too cold. Next time I run in these temperatures, I think I will try to remove 4 or 5 gallons of ice water and replace them with hot water. Anyhow it was a good lesson on the kind of stand I want to build for the keg, controlling the heat, collecting, and watching alcohol content.
The primary objective here is bourbon. On that path, the next first is my First UJSSM. In terms of fermenting and getting everything going, this went together easier than the All Bran. Experience helps. I’m going either need a better scale for measuring large quantities or I am going to have to start keeping things in 10 pound groups. The digital bathroom scale we have was a hassle. I think I shorted myself some sugar and I blame the scale. Anyhow the SG was 1.05. This also fermented well and has been stripped.
