Even when the reading told me not to. I bought a cheap amazon pot still, and thats what im blaming this on unless the good folks here say otherwise.1st run water - all was good
2nd run 50/50 vinegar water - still, crystal clear
3rd run 4 gallons of carlo rossi - clear and wine smelling. About 35%, all seemed good.
Tore it down and washed the still out, cleaned it with some of the sacrificial rin liquor and rinsed it out good and well
Then...
I did my first wash run, AG, 80% corn mash, 5% malted barley and 5% toasted oats. Struck with bakers yeast. Sg went from 1.050 down to 1.000 over 10 days OTG (Dont know ph, didnt check).
I racked off the grains and let the wash settle for a day. Cleared up nicely, but still had some cloud.
I light up the propane burner on the SST pot, and keep it as low as it will go for the first strip run. The fores looked good, nice, clean and clear.
Then it takes a turn. I start getting what looks like metal chunks in the distillate. Litterally looks like gold schlager with copper at first, then i start getting silver flakes.
My question is, can i blame this on a cheap still? I didnt get metal flakes in any of the cleaning runs. Did i do something else wrong? Pics of the wash pre-strip, pics of the inside of the lid as well as the wash post-strip.
Second question, is it safe to use the low wines i got in a spirit run? Got appx a gallon @35% off my first mash ever so i was excited considering it was an AG fermented on the grain with nothing but corn, malted barley and flaked toasted oats and i read that was a challenging way to start. I thought all went very well except for these metal chunks.