What'd ya'll make today?

[rubberduck71]

Helped a buddy with a "new to him" rig for a rum run. ~11 gal of "shoofly wine" [wink, wink] through 4" column with 3 plates.

6 hrs to assemble, leak check, heat up, & complete. ~11x500 ml of 75-85% ABV + 2.3 L of tails.

Airing out for 2 days & then will help him make cuts.

[Deplorable]

I'm currently mashing another 23 gallon batch of 75/13/12 bourbon to fill a M4 badmo barrel.

[jonnys_spirit]

Spent the morning bottling wine that has been bulk aging from fall 2021 and 2022 harvests. Cab Sav, Petite Syrah, Mourvedre, and Barbera. Two cases of each plus two cases of a blend. 10 cases total. About eight more cases worth of cab sav and zin to bottle in the next month to prep for moving.

These wines will lay down for a rest in the cool cellar to drink between 4-8yrs from harvest.

Cheers!
-jonny

[Bradster68]

IMG_2666.jpeg

Spent the morning bottling wine that has been bulk aging from fall 2021 and 2022 harvests. Cab Sav, Petite Syrah, Mourvedre, and Barbera. Two cases of each plus two cases of a blend. 10 cases total. About eight more cases worth of cab sav and zin to bottle in the next month to prep for moving.

These wines will lay down for a rest in the cool cellar to drink between 4-8yrs from harvest.

Cheers!
-jonny

Looking good Johnny . By the sounds of things your gonna be busy for a while. You'll love living in the sticks. The unmaintained road I live on,no traffic. I'm at the very end so I never have a car drive by my place. I couldn't be happier

[GrumbleStill]

Ran a handful of mixed feints jars for neutral.

Had treated them with Bi-Carb a couple of weeks back.

They cleaned up quite nicely.

[NormandieStill]

Ran my last batch of apple cider from last years harvest. Around 160 litres fermented in a cider barrel with the natural yeast that came with the apples, run through the first pass for about 25 litres of low wines. This plus the 3 litres of feints from last years run should take me close to the brim of my boiler.

Ideally I'd have liked to leave the juice a little longer, but I thought I was starting to detect a hint of vinegar and didn't fancy trying to use 160 litres of apple cider vinegar!

Now I just need to find a full day where I can do the spirit run. Last year I ran the heads super slow and the full run took close to 12 hours.

[jonnys_spirit]

IMG_2666.jpeg

Spent the morning bottling wine that has been bulk aging from fall 2021 and 2022 harvests. Cab Sav, Petite Syrah, Mourvedre, and Barbera. Two cases of each plus two cases of a blend. 10 cases total. About eight more cases worth of cab sav and zin to bottle in the next month to prep for moving.

These wines will lay down for a rest in the cool cellar to drink between 4-8yrs from harvest.

Cheers!
-jonny

Looking good Johnny . By the sounds of things your gonna be busy for a while. You'll love living in the sticks. The unmaintained road I live on,no traffic. I'm at the very end so I never have a car drive by my place. I couldn't be happier

Yes Sir! Busy is an understatement. I've got about 14 gallons of feints separated out for Agave, Grape, Whiskey, Rum that I normally recycle into spirit runs but I may need to dive into a packed column situation and do an all feints in the next few weeks to turn that into less volume..

Cheers,
j

[Bradster68]

IMG_2666.jpeg

Spent the morning bottling wine that has been bulk aging from fall 2021 and 2022 harvests. Cab Sav, Petite Syrah, Mourvedre, and Barbera. Two cases of each plus two cases of a blend. 10 cases total. About eight more cases worth of cab sav and zin to bottle in the next month to prep for moving.

These wines will lay down for a rest in the cool cellar to drink between 4-8yrs from harvest.

Cheers!
-jonny

Looking good Johnny . By the sounds of things your gonna be busy for a while. You'll love living in the sticks. The unmaintained road I live on,no traffic. I'm at the very end so I never have a car drive by my place. I couldn't be happier

Yes Sir! Busy is an understatement. I've got about 14 gallons of feints separated out for Agave, Grape, Whiskey, Rum that I normally recycle into spirit runs but I may need to dive into a packed column situation and do an all feints in the next few weeks to turn that into less volume..

Cheers,
j

Well I guess a big move is one way to put a spark under someone's ass. The rewards will be well worth it I'm sure.

[Bradster68]

Stripping and filtering one of my HBB ferments. Would of liked to go a few more days but building inspector coming soon. Gotta look respectable
Seems very smooth off the spout, even for stripping.
I'll be collecting around 15 gallon of low wines before I do my spirit run.

[Infectedsoapbubbles]

I was given over 50lbs of fruit snack bars, made with organic apple sauce and natural flavors. Turning that into a mash. Should know in a few weeks if it turns out to anything good.

[MooseMan]

Nice score!

[FuzzNFroth]

I finished up two different batches of Sweet Vermouth. The first one I have been making for years with good results. The second one is new to me, makes more and uses less botanicals. The one I usually make is based on white wine and sherry with a laundry list of botanicals, then fortified with brandy and Pineau des Charentes. The wine, Pineau des Charentes and brandy I use are homemade. The new one uses Avera and Campari as a base with a smaller list of botanicals and is fortified with red wine, brandy and port (again homemade) . Both are settling overnight and will be filtered tomorrow.

[tombombadil]

Brewed up a partial mash Franziskaner kit since I had an empty keg slot since Xmas. It's in my 6 gal Torpedo Keg pressure fermenter.

Did a sugarhead on the 'spent' grains to make a small batch of whiskey!

I have a just over a liter of product oaking on this same process from the Blue Moon clone I did back in Aug '23. Great way to get 2 uses out of a beer kit!!!

I also brew quite a bit of beer, and usually just dump the grains out back for the deer. Do you get decent flavor out of the 2nd use of grains using them this way?

I bet you get some tasty deer that way!

[NormandieStill]

19 pots of Seville orange marmalade. No alcohol at all.

And afterwards it occurred to me that I should have kept back one or two orange peels to dry for testing in gin.

[goatman]

I just finally did my first cleaning distillation. My alembic's premiere It's been a rocky road, every time I thought I was ready there was a new thing that I hadn't considered which prevented me from doing it. But now I finally got the setup right and did it at last! I'm ready to start distilling something proper soon

[higgins]

I threw together a bourbon mash today - same as the last one I made at 69% corn, 22% rye, 9% malted barley - but using Angel Yellow label no-cook method instead of cooking/htl/mashing/ga.

I put all the grain (milled to cornmeal consistency) in the fermenter (36 lb), added 9 gal 130F water, and mixed it up with a power mixer. I mixed in the remaining 9 gal water at ~55F and hit 93F. Added 75 grams YLAY, mixed it up, wrapped in a blanket. It took me about an hour total (grain was already measured and milled).

I'll run it using the same processes as for the previous bourbon so the only difference should be the mashing process. I plan to reserve 3.5 gal beer, strip 11 gallons, steam strip 10 gallons with grain, then run the mix thru my flute (three 4" sieve plates).

[Dougmatt]

Squeezed 25 gallons of CROW today…. Remembered why I hate squeezing grain…. Ughh. There gotta be a better way.

[Dougmatt]

Dropped a cork into my strip collection vessel…. Hoping it doesn’t impart any crazy flavors because I can’t get it out.

This might help but I’ve not needed to try it yet.

Cheers!
-jonny

Thanks Jonny. Will try something like that once I empty the Carboy.

I finally got around to trying this. Works like a charm! Pulled that cork right out of the carboy! Thanks for the suggestion Jonny!

[NormandieStill]

I "mashed" by third and final batch of HBB on YLAY. The first 2 are selling in the shed and I'll do some stripping runs in a week or so. The plan is to strip the clear beer as normal and then steam strip the grains from all 3 batches in 2 runs.

Also had a clear out of my office to reorganize the ridiculous pile of grains and distilling / fermenting stuff.

[ckdistills]

I finished a long running persimmon brandy project today. Hachiya persimmons ripen until they are so soft you can pull the stem out of the fruit. I harvested 65 lbs last year, fermented those last winter with 15 lbs of inverted sugar and netted 3 gallons of low wines. That's marginal volume in my pot still so decided to wait for another harvest. Harvested 75 lbs this year and fermented them with only two lbs of sugar. Resulted in 1 gallon of low wines, holding back 2+ gallons of wine for the spirit run.

Spirit run today and just finished cuts (will revisit those tomorrow, may be two more jars I want to include). It's my first brandy and I'm really pleased with how much persimmon flavor came through in the distillate. It's good!

[Bradster68]

I finished a long running persimmon brandy project today. Hachiya persimmons ripen until they are so soft you can pull the stem out of the fruit. I harvested 65 lbs last year, fermented those last winter with 15 lbs of inverted sugar and netted 3 gallons of low wines. That's marginal volume in my pot still so decided to wait for another harvest. Harvested 75 lbs this year and fermented them with only two lbs of sugar. Resulted in 1 gallon of low wines, holding back 2+ gallons of wine for the spirit run.

Spirit run today and just finished cuts (will revisit those tomorrow, may be two more jars I want to include). It's my first brandy and I'm really pleased with how much persimmon flavor came through in the distillate. It's good!

That sounds super yummy.
Been wondering if the "ck" stands for Chatham Kent?

[ckdistills]

That sounds super yummy.
Been wondering if the "ck" stands for Chatham Kent?

Had to look that up - looks like a nice spot! But no, I'm in Northern California. Cheers!

[Bradster68]

That sounds super yummy.
Been wondering if the "ck" stands for Chatham Kent?

Had to look that up - looks like a nice spot! But no, I'm in Northern California. Cheers!

Meh. It's not that nice. I moved north 10 years ago. Much nicer.

[Tedd squirrels]

Hello everyone and happy cooking! Today I will put another mash of rye semi-sugar hopped mash for meat distillation of royal vodkas of Russia of the 18th century. The process has been worked out to the point of automation.

[MooseMan]

Doing a run today with 4 gal of Cereal feints and 6gal of oats/rice/corn mash that I setup with YLAY before Xmas!

It's surprisingly clean off the spout, I was expecting something different with the yellow label yeast but it's just clean, smooth white dog.

[Dougmatt]

Trying out a rum spicing recipe from bearded and bored today. He used buccaneer bob’s essence, but I’m skipping that. Here’s his recipe:

1tsp vanilla extract or 2-inch piece of vanilla bean
3 allspice berries
1 whole clove
1/8tsp ground cardamom or 1/2 cardamom pod
1/2 cinnamon stick
1/8tsp nutmeg
2 -1inch wide strip of orange peel, no pith
1/8tsp black pepper
3/4inch cube fresh ginger, bruised
1-2 Tbsp Dark Cane Syrup or Molasses - optional

Haven’t decided about the added moly, but have some grandma’s jic

[Konsekvens]

20 liter neutral spirit run.
Soon to be gin and panty dropper.

[The Booze Pipe]

Just finished a spirit run ona pot stilled all-grain corn. My first all corn all-grain actually. It’s looking very promising!

[The Booze Pipe]

IMG_2666.jpeg

Spent the morning bottling wine that has been bulk aging from fall 2021 and 2022 harvests. Cab Sav, Petite Syrah, Mourvedre, and Barbera. Two cases of each plus two cases of a blend. 10 cases total. About eight more cases worth of cab sav and zin to bottle in the next month to prep for moving.

These wines will lay down for a rest in the cool cellar to drink between 4-8yrs from harvest.

Cheers!
-jonny

I would love to try the petite Syrah

[higgins]

Mixed up a new gin today.

My wife had a recent opportunity to sample some Isle of Harris gin, and she loved it. So she requested that I attempt to make a gin like IoH. It is made in the Outer Hebrides islands off the NW coast of Scotland, and their signature botanical is sugar kelp harvested from the North Atlantic. The gin is 45% ABV and they are very clear about the botanicals they use (but not the amounts): Juniper, Coriander, Angelica, Licorice root, Cassia bark, Bitter Orange peel, Cubeb, and Sugar kelp. They also specify that the sugar kelp is removed prior to distillation. All of these are available online - I used Amazon.

IoH gin is not widely distributed in the US, but they have a store finder on their website. The closest location to me that carries it is about 100 miles away. Fortunately my granddaughter was visiting friends near there and brought one back for us.

My process for this 'cloning':
1. Make a gin with the 4 base ingredients (I'm including Orris root), trying to find the right levels of juniper and coriander.
2. Compare, adjust amounts, repeat
3. Then make a gin with the base amounts and with the remaining botanicals using an estimated amount for each
4. Compare, adjust amounts, repeat

I've already done steps 1 & 2.
Today I put together version 1 of the target gin.