Finally got my spirit run done. Been working on this since the end of January. Three stripping runs for one spirit run and I ended up with 10 gallons at 125 proof. I was lucky and found 4 gallons of low wines that I had forgot about so that meant one less stripping run. It is all made from my DME and cane sugar recipe.
Going to do some oak aging experiments with it. Toasted and charred vs just charred. I want more color and flavor than what I got from my 400F toasted sticks with no char.
I was able to try out my new components that lets me run 2, 3 inch bubble plates. Typically I would just do pot still mode with some copper mesh and no reflux. Then made my own 2” sieve plates and it was too slow, so I broke down and bought some 3 inch bubble plates and a couple sight glasses. Man she definitely pumps out the distillate. Now I think I have first hand experience on what column flooding is. I was trying to get my head temp higher so I cranked the heat. I could see vapor flow coming through the downcomer on my second plate and the first plate was pretty dry.
I was running a boiler charge of low wines and could only take my 5500W heater to 60% or it would flood. I did do one stripping run with the some components and was able to rip her at 75% and hold 187F head temp. Now I really see the value of a plate still doing a one and done for bourbons and whiskey.
On edit: Oh, and I finalized my plans for my malt kiln. It will have the capacity to do one bushel of any type of grain. Now I have to get off my wallet and buy all the materials. Picked up a 50 pound sack of corn from a local farmer this morning. A week ago I picked up a couple sacks of barley from a feed store. The feed store people didn’t know if it was 2-row or 6-row so I called the company that makes it and found out that they planted some fields of malting barley so I am hoping to score some of that in July.
