ABV Does NOT need to be High!!!

[bellybuster]

Mr P, with all due respect, you need to start reading what people say prior to going off.
If you reread my post you'll see the word "I". was speaking for no one else but me.
Once again with all due respect your reply is exactly how these post fly off the handle and get out of control. Not once did I say Everyone should, nor did I say everyone can do it.

"Kinda like telling a doctor he should do open heart surgery before he does anything else." really? is it?
"Maybe a pilot should fly a jumbo transport before anything else? " and this relates to brewing/distilling how??

"It just seams to me people think what's best for them is always best for everyone. Not taking into account what the other persons abilities are."
key word "seems"

[CuWhistle]

Most of us simply hit the "view new posts" button and really don't pay attention to what heading it comes under.

Well there's your problem!!! Solution:- raise visual focal point 3 inches. "Board index < New to Distillation < Novice Distillers"

I have to again support PP and Jimdo64. Good advice for Novice level is to stay off the high board until you know how to dive. I think any frustrations expressed in this thread are more about location than content.

Even a poor all grain is better than a good extract beer.

You obviously haven't tried my failed attempts at AG!! At least my kit and kg brews are drinkable.

[Prairiepiss]

I wouldn't even suggest anyone start with malt extract, go all in and start right off with all grain.

No I think I read that right. You wouldn't even suggest anyone start with malt extract, go all in and start right off with all grain. I just paraphrased it to. Go big or go home.

Maybe I misunderstood your post?

[seabass]

This thread is definitely not useless to newbies. What we have at this point are a few differing opinions with good points behind them. IMO, any newbie that takes the time to look over this thread will have a better idea about how they want to start out. I think it will make it easier to decide whether they want to do a lot of research and dive in head first with a higher likelihood for mistakes, or start out slow and be more likely to have good results early on.

Nothing wrong with a discussion. I don't think the points were lost by introducing other points.

[bellybuster]

you're absolutely right "I" wouldn't suggest it. I'm not telling anyone not to, not saying it's wrong, nor am I saying that that is the only or correct route. If you were to ask me I'd say "if it were me, I'd start with all grain" for such and such reason.

With distilling, I would never recommend a 5 gallon pot either, I would recommend you find a keg, doesn't mean the pot is wrong

[Prairiepiss]

So what would you tell them if that scared them off? Or they said they don't want to go through all that?

[bellybuster]

simple answer

fine

then I would help to get them going in the direction they choose. Simple enough

To put it in to perspective with this thread, who the hell are we to say 10% mashes are wrong, they're not. Recommended for starting out??? Nope. But if you're gonna do it anyway, here's what to look out for.

[Prairiepiss]

then I would help to get them going in the direction they choose. Simple enough

If you don't give them another option. They can't choose a different direction?

Hey you know a 10% ABV mash sounds like a grand idea. Everyone should go out and buy a big bag of corn and try it. Why not? Sounds like a great way to set someone up for failure.

[Jimbo]

who the hell are we to say 10% mashes are wrong, they're not.

There's a few thousand whiskey distilleries that would disagree with that statement. Whiskeys are made from 8% mashes for a reason. Actually a few reasons.

[bellybuster]

I'll continue to say that turbo yeast is not wrong either, recommended? Nope

[seabass]

then I would help to get them going in the direction they choose. Simple enough

Hey you know a 10% ABV mash sounds like a grand idea. Everyone should go out and buy a big bag of corn and try it. Why not? Sounds like a great way to set someone up for failure.

Except no one is saying that. Just saying that its reasonable if you do what's necessary. And discussing what is necessary for good results will likely be enough to deter people who aren't up for the task.

[bellybuster]

"Hey you know a 10% ABV mash sounds like a grand idea. Everyone should go out and buy a big bag of corn and try it. Why not? Sounds like a great way to set someone up for failure. "

MrP, I challenge you to show where anyone said anything even remotely close to that. It's comments like that one that gets folks dander up.

Jimdo, I doubt the distilleries would say that statement is wrong. They would probably tell me it's not how they do it. Quite a few sites that I've been on state 8-10% as mash ABV, I can think of 1 at the moment Fingerlakes Distilling. A beautiful spot and worth going for the tour if you're ever there. I went in 2010 and they took excellent care of our group. (private tour with lots and lots......and lots of samples)
I'm sure I can dig up more if you like but really, who cares.

[bellybuster]

Jimdo, I'm not undermining what your intention was, I actually feel the same way somewhat. I do however agree with Seabass that to simply state not to do something is not necessarily the right approach. After all, these are grown adults (or so we believe) that are capable of making decisions. The ones looking for information thru research should be given all the info, not just what some feel is "the right way".
There's gonna be some that want to go all out and start right in with all grain, some won't. Some will try high ABV, some won't. Some of those higher ABV guys will be successful, some won't. Even if they fail, they weren't wrong trying.

My first and only experience with turbo yeast was with a wine, made absolute rocket fuel. Was perfect for a bunch of young guys I was living with at the time. We drank every drop and called it a success. Someone else may have thought it crap.

I'm drifting now

[Jimbo]

I dont want to get in an argument over symantics with you belly. I never used the word 'wrong' once in my OP. I simply listed some sound advice to help a novice be successful, and I listed why, several reasons. This isint North Korea, the readers are of course free to read it, disregard it and make 22% sugar washes with yeast scraped off the shrubberys in their front yard if they wish.

[Prairiepiss]

Wow. I'm done sory to go so far off topic.

[blind drunk]

The ones looking for information thru research should be given all the info, not just what some feel is "the right way".

Obviously this is true. However, every bit of information doesn't have to be in every damn thread, all the time. Nothing wrong with LIMITING an idea/process etc as a STARTING POINT. Why's that so hard to grasp and/or accept I'm pretty sure jimdo64 wasn't speaking ex cathedra.

This place can drive a person to drink.

[bellybuster]

precisely why I say it maybe should have been done as a locked tutorial instead of posted in the open forum where comments and discussion are supposed to be encouraged. Discussion almost always results in someone having a different opinion

Jimdo, indeed you never said wrong, my apologies.

I too have drifted off topic, my apologies for that too.

brew on, keep stillin and I too would recommend starting out with a lower ABV, I'll say 10% or under just to be an ass. But if you really want to go higher fill your boots, I'll do everything I can to help you out.

[blind drunk]

precisely why I say it maybe should have been done as a locked tutorial instead of posted in the open forum where comments and discussion are supposed to be encouraged. Discussion almost always results in someone having a different opinion

Even still, it's pretty easy to surmise the original intention of the post in question and all that followed, although interesting in its own right, missed the original point and I can't quite understand why.

[Jimbo]

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 61&t=38584



Thanks to everyone here for the spirited ( ) discussion. Only thing missing now is a way to get together easily for a round of beers.

Cheers!
-Jimbo

[SherrodBrown]

Interesting topic. Pure spirit is only for Gin..Not even vodka need 90 ABV to get pure. It gets really fine after 40.

The problem seem to correlate some with the extensive use of column stills. It will separate Heads and Tails in 2 halfs and as you go along you reflux much of the Heads ( volatiles ) into the bottom product. After awhile you should get ethanol in both but more contrated heads. Now volatiles tend to move down in the bottom product anyway and that would be the cause for such high purity in reflux stills.

From a pot still perspective you don't need high ABV at all. A normal proceedure is a standard double distill. First you raise ABV. The next could be a stripping run to say 42 ABV. If you wanna go up to 50 I guess you could trippel, Wash distill one more time and make no separation at all. Just collect all since you already have pure ethano from the previous run. With 100-120 proof one could mature some time for a homemade Bourbon. And Vodka would only taste as good as the fermentation worked oit well. Some of the oils would be there too and if not you can always manually put together some of the byproducts.

The beauty of Pot stills is the dr snuggles or dr baltazaar style experimentations.

[Sataroth]

Pretty old thread, but I can't understand your readings guys...
I have made AG with malted barley only with 5kg per 25l of water, so it's 1:5 ratio and got 11% sugars easily.
Maybe you are messing up theoretical ABV of let's say 10% with a plato gravity at 10% before fermentation?

So I have 11% for 1:5 ratio having ABV at 5-6% after fermentation easily, without any additional magic
So what's wrong?

[seabass]

I'm pretty sure everyone in this thread is referring to ABV of the wash after fermentation.

IMO, theoretical abv is worthless. All that matters is SG and FG. You should have an idea of what your FG will be based on your process, so it should be easy to approximate your finished abv.

[Sataroth]

That's what I have mentioned by "theoretical", reading OG, SG and knowing your yeasts

[seabass]

I figured you meant the abv number on the hydrometer.

[Sataroth]

There's no way to measure avb in a wort. Because any hydrometer which measures alcohol intended to mesure alcohol in a water, without any additional components, so measuring abv in a wort is kinda pointless...
I was talking about ABV you expect or took after distillation

[seabass]

Maybe I'm drunk, but I'm really not understanding what you're trying to say in your first post. Something about an 11% with an abv of 5-6%. That doesn't make any sense to me. How are you measuring your percentage of sugars at 11% and how is that relevant?

[Sataroth]

There are two measurement systems in a world.

SG measures water density against clean water. So 1.000 is a water without sugar in it. Not used in Europe where I'm living You should have some tables or formulas to transform 1.178 into sugar percentage.

Plato measure percentage of sugar in a water and looks like 10%, which means your liquid has 10% of sugar.

[seabass]

Ahh. Ok. I've never seen plato expressed as a percentage. It's usually degrees plato which is easily converted to SG. That explains it.

[Sataroth]

Heh, that's fun if you guys translating perscentages to SG to calculate percentage
Anyway, it's far more usable to use those plato tools, pretty sure you can order such with no issue
And there are pretty good refractometers from China for $40 or so with both scales on it Just an awesome tool, no need to cool down to measurement temmperature as a single drop of liquid cools down in a second

[seabass]

I think the issue is that you are the only one in this thread using %sugar. If you're talking about gravity or the amount of sugar in a wort, the standard is degrees plato or SG. The only % you'll see in relation to a wash around here is %ABV.

The point of this thread is to not get greedy with wash ABV so yeast aren't stressed. The 10% mentioned a bunch of times is wash ABV. If your enzymes are staying active and you have a high alcohol tolerant yeast, that 10%ABV wash means a 18.5deg plato or a 1.080 SG wort that finishes around 0 plato or 1.000SG. Maybe that clears things up a bit?

The recommendation is under 8%ABV which is around 15plato or 1.061SG fermenting out to 0deg or 1.000SG