What'd ya'll make today?

[Wozza]

Ouzo. From a recipe I cound somewhere on this site. Newbies corner I think. Made it in my micro oven top still. Macerated the botanicals for 2 days in 1.5L of neutral and then tipped it all into the saucepan, fitted the lid with some clips and a flour paste gasket and ran it real slow. Collected 2 x 400ml jars with no cuts. Came out around 60% so I diluted it to 43%.

Would it be any good? Bloody hell, yeah! I've drunk plenty of the commercial stuff but I'm no expert. But this tasted really good. And would it louche for that extra degree of authenticity? Dropped in some ice and a small splach of water and damn it...perfectly cloudy.

I thought it needed a touch more sweeteness and I had some sugar syrup in the fridge so I added a touch to the glass and...even better. So I'll work out exactly what I need to add per bottle and finish it off tonight. And the best thing? Nobody in the family likes the stuff. They take enough of my gin but this is all for me.

I can't see me running this on my pot still (which is only 20L anyway) but it will be a regular run on the mighty micro.

[NZChris]

Ha ha, I get it Wozza. It sounds like your first Ouzo experience is pretty close to the same as mine

[Wozza]

Ha ha, I get it Wozza. It sounds like your first Ouzo experience is pretty close to the same as mine

And 10% sugar syrup makes it really nice. Perhaps tending towards a Sambucca? Yeah, trying a glass with a little less and it's more...ouzo-ish. But gee, this is an easy recipe with great results. Should be in tbe T&T.

Loving it...

[Crabmanstyle]

Making a roasted barley (Thanks 8Ball) sugar wash based on UJSSM, word for word except barley instead of corn.and using what I think is a 5th gen backset from Odin's cornflake whiskey. First unroasted barley run was amazing so can't wait to see how the roast turns out.

[Windswept]

Did a junk run, 8 gallons of heads, tails and aging projects that didn’t work out. Mixed it all together and ran it on the pot. Started out at 88%, ran it down to 50% and dumped the rest. Later I’ll reflux it and keep just the best I can get. Probably use the heads from that for hand sanny.

[Deplorable]

Making a roasted barley (Thanks 8Ball) sugar wash based on UJSSM, word for word except barley instead of corn.and using what I think is a 5th gen backset from Odin's cornflake whiskey. First unroasted barley run was amazing so can't wait to see how the roast turns out.

Id like to hear how this turns out. I have a 50# bag of roasted barley I was gifted.

[seabass]

Finally got around to a 100% rye ferment. It's currently chugging along. It's Vienna style rye malt.

[Beerswimmer]

My wife placed an order for a 26 gallon milk can for my birthday! I'll be using propane until Xmas when I can order an electric setup for it.

[dec3223]

Put together my first sweet feed run. 7# sweet feed and 4# distillers malt. A little disappointed with the conversion of the sweet feed and ended up spiking it with 5# pure cane sugar OG 1.065. Was hoping for better with the distillers Malt. What should I try next time to get a better conversion?

[dieselduo]

Got a new Anvil foundry and breaking it in with a single malt. Makes for an easy mash

[Durhommer]

30 gallon of wineos wash

[Chill-Stillin]

Jaggery/panela rum. Tried the ShineOn butter treatment for the second time but I couldn't quite get that butter flavor to shine, gonna keep trying. I use only jaggery and bakers yeast in my rum no molasses but in the butter rum thread I believe someone got the butter flavor on some sort of whiskey run. In any case the wife and I love the end result. Thank you HD.

[NZChris]

In any case the wife and I love the end result.

Excellent result

[skinny_chef]

Productive Friday.
Made a kale wash for a sacrifice run, brewed an all grain beer then made a gumball head from the spent grains.
Went to the local farmers co-op and ordered a sack each of flaked corn and flaked barley.
Looking forward to my first run next week!

[Bph]

Been malting up a storm. Starting to get in a grove for sure. A also got 30 gallons of corn mash that I infected with the juice from this years "redneck kimchi." Its just fermeted cabbage and hot peppers from the garden. It smelled like ass last week and I had decide there was a good chance id throw it out but the smell comming from the airlock has changed from dick cheese to something more like all the others have. May end up running it after all.

[NZChris]

Citrus essence destined for Cointreau style liqueurs.

It's my first distillation using heads and tails from my Bokakob as fuel. It won't be the last

[Beerswimmer]

Started 2 rum ferments with dark brown sugar and half the water. In a few days I'll add the molasses and top off with water. I grew up the Hornindal yeast this time, but still want to be careful with it. I have had kviek fail in molasses on a few occasions.

[Deplorable]

Cleaned up a mess from last night.
Yesterday I did a 5 gallon 1.5 run of KSSF. I drained the backset into a (cheap)36qt SS stock pot, and put a lid on it to cool, and forgot about it. Went out to the garage this morning to start blending cut jars, and the pot of backset had sprung a pinhole leak in the side and lost about a quart of liquid that actually etched the cement floor! I neutralized the spot with baking soda and cleaned up the mess, found the pin hole in the side of the pot, and repaired it with silver solder.
Got my cuts blended, and was planning to strip 20 more gallons of SF to free up the fermenter for a single malt project, but it's not quite finished yet, so, I'll put that off. Put a Qt jar of frozen strawberries into some (almost) neutral 150P for some SPD, and now I'm wetting some oak before adding it to another jar of SF to stash away.

[Beerswimmer]

I pulled a half gallon of bourbon to finish on some Shiraz soaked staves, also some rums. The bourbon has been in a 5g Balcones barrel since 18 Oct last year and is nearly red!

[dieselduo]

That looks tasty

[Durhommer]

Corn likker mash

Corn likker mash

[seabass]

Doing the stripping runs on fermented on grain 100% Rimrock rye from mecca grade. This is my first attempt at fermenting all grain in a keg and just attaching the thumper connection and steam stripping. No straining or even transferring. I'll update with how terrible the cleanup is. This stuff tastes amazing right off of the still. Even the heads didn't really have any burn and tasted like malty rye bread.

[Beerswimmer]

Got my 26 gallon milk can delivered today! It's big and very well made, can't wait to fill it!
https://imgur.com/a/U12A5dJ

[Grappa-Gringo]

After close to 2 years of not distilling, I set up the "old lady" and did a vinegar wash to clean it out and check for leakage. 100% clean and no leakage. Cleaned her out, and started with about 6 gallons of old fermented grape juice and ran it hard and fast! (a cheap version of grappa without doing all the stems/skins and mess) Came out to 3 litres (sorry metric up here) of just over 40%-- happy happy (10 gallon keg-pot still)
Second batch in a 5 gallon keg-pot still was a sugar wash that I had sitting for just as log as the grape juice- again, fast and hard and this one was 3 litres of 50%.... even more happy! Took some of the second batch and made a bottle of Apple Pie moonshine..... and a happy wife!!!
Next weekend (weather permitting)… will do the other half of my stored up "juice"....

[tombombadil]

Finally started batch 3 of high rye bourbon. I was on vacation for a couple weeks so im a little behind. Oh well. Im on a dry month (doing carnivore challenge!) so that should make up the difference.

[v-child]

I made the first run (other than cleaning) on my new 10 gallon SS barrel. The 2" MNPT to 2" threaded perfectly into the bung and I used PFTE tape to seal the threads. Came away with almost a gallon of average 50-55% from seven gallon of BW wash.

[Deplorable]

I ran a stripping run on the last 18 gallons of wash from a 50# bag of SF, cleaned the still, sanitized the fermenter, turned all the grain into the compost pile, ground 40# of malt, and added it to the fermenter, and filled my boiler with strike water for tomorrow mornings mash session. After dinner, I need to make a gallon of mash to cultivate some yeast for the next 3 ferments.

SWMBO thinks I've lost my mind on this barrel filling project.

[The Baker]

That looks nice, v-child.

Geoff

[v-child]

Thanks, Geoff. I ran another batch of BW yesterday with even better results. It's a keeper for sure.
Jim

[BourbonStreet]

I had a batch of UJSSM wash from the spring. It had MAJOR lacto infection, but smelled OK. I ran it, and it tasted a bit funky the first day. I blended it the next day, and it was pretty good. I put some in my “Solera” on JD chips that has dozens of runs in it. It’s like a good golden rum! I just started two more ferments and added some oyster shell to regulate pH. I even threw in a bit of molasses for nutrients. It’s bubbling happily now.