Home Distiller

on friday I was putting bicarb in 20 litres of low wines I have collected , they were in glass demijohns and I lifted one up off the floor to put it on a table and smashed it against the edge of the metal table , luckily its in a shed so it will air out eventually as it really stunk ,

so I now have 16 litres and one less demijohn ,

I know the feeling all too well.
Few years back I worked my ass of making neutralish spirits on a 5 gallon pot still on the stove (too cold to use reflux outside). 5 distillation runs and 3 activated carbon runs (lots and lots of time). I had FINALLY just filled a 5 gallon carboy with 160+ proof spirits and dropped it on a tile floor! All Apple Pie, Limoncello, Grand Marnie, Curaco, etc were cancelled for the year (was going to be holiday gifts to family).

I about cried. Besides the huge mess I cut myself and then got alcohol burned cleaning up. Man that was a hard lesson learned. Now I don't store in glass over 5 liters and make sure the demijohns have a handle and netting on the bottom half. LOL

cayars wrote: ↑Mon Jan 20, 2020 3:56 am I know the feeling all too well.
Few years back I worked my ass of making neutralish spirits on a 5 gallon pot still on the stove (too cold to use reflux outside). 5 distillation runs and 3 activated carbon runs (lots and lots of time). I had FINALLY just filled a 5 gallon carboy with 160+ proof spirits and dropped it on a tile floor! All Apple Pie, Limoncello, Grand Marnie, Curaco, etc were cancelled for the year (was going to be holiday gifts to family).

I about cried. Besides the huge mess I cut myself and then got alcohol burned cleaning up. Man that was a hard lesson learned. Now I don't store in glass over 5 liters and make sure the demijohns have a handle and netting on the bottom half. LOL

These stories are brutal! I was given three 15 gallon carboys (I think they were for shipping wine) and was in the middle of cleaning one in the bathtub when it shattered. It took me forever to clean up all the glass and I was so thankful that it wasn't full of anything useful!

The only time I lift full carboys now is onto or off a cart that I use to move them

My first all grain single malt whisky was using feed barley I had painstakingly malted myself. I took the malt to a local brewery to have it crushed the day before brew day to ensure it was as fresh as possible.

I calculated the strike water temperature, heated in up in my kettle and mashed in only to find that something went wrong and the mash temperature was way too low and my mash tun was too small. I drained off some liquid off and heated it up but there was not enough head room in my mash tun to hold enough hot liquor to raise the mash temperature enough.

So I took the entire mash and transferred it to my electric boiler (a converted catering urn) which was the only thing big enough to hold everything and heated the whole thing. Well, the mash was so thick, it stuck to the element and burned. The element then burned a hole through the element casing and dumped the liquor out onto the ground through the bottom of my boiler.

My mash was ruined and so was my boiler.

Farside wrote: ↑Mon Jan 20, 2020 12:54 pm My mash was ruined and so was my boiler.

That sucks dude. How big was the boiler?

cayars wrote: ↑Mon Jan 20, 2020 3:56 am I know the feeling all too well.
Few years back I worked my ass of making neutralish spirits on a 5 gallon pot still on the stove (too cold to use reflux outside). 5 distillation runs and 3 activated carbon runs (lots and lots of time). I had FINALLY just filled a 5 gallon carboy with 160+ proof spirits and dropped it on a tile floor! All Apple Pie, Limoncello, Grand Marnie, Curaco, etc were cancelled for the year (was going to be holiday gifts to family).

I about cried. Besides the huge mess I cut myself and then got alcohol burned cleaning up. Man that was a hard lesson learned. Now I don't store in glass over 5 liters and make sure the demijohns have a handle and netting on the bottom half. LOL

Ouch. I try to always keep my 5 gallon carboys in milk crates these days. Lots of protection and built in handles. I make about 30-50 gallons of wine a year, haven't broke one yet but I'm sure I will at some point.

cayars wrote: ↑Mon Jan 20, 2020 3:14 pm

Farside wrote: ↑Mon Jan 20, 2020 12:54 pm My mash was ruined and so was my boiler.

That sucks dude. How big was the boiler?

5 gallons. Not a big and expensive one but gutted nonetheless lol.

The only time I've cracked a glass carboy, it was caused by a grain of sand on the glass table I was putting it on and it didn't shatter. Narrow escape, lesson learned.

Have around a dozen glass carboys, haven't broke one for many years (knock on wood). But one time I filled my boiler, lowered the column down onto the boiler and got it up and running. Everything was going great, filling jars and jamming out. But in the middle of the run bumped the tower and it wobbled on the boiler. I near shat myself, knocked over a couple collection jars trying to get the rig shut down. I had forgotten to lock the column down, sealed only by its weight, it was a good run but half of it ended up on the floor.

We live in earthquake country and I've recently been buying lots of baby T shirts and the like in charity shops to protect my burgeoning collection of glass aging likker jars.

I often get comments about how nice it is that I'm looking after the welfare of young children and I don't bother to enlighten them that the clothes are actually to look after the likker jars in my cellar

Most of my aging jars now have cotton material protecting them from their neighbouring jars.

A friend of mine recently filled a 12 gallon glass demijohn with grape juice and tried to carry it across the room. He dropped it of course, onto the concrete floor of course.

12 months later and the place still stinks of vinegar.

NZChris wrote: ↑Mon Jan 20, 2020 11:17 pm We live in earthquake country and I've recently been buying lots of baby T shirts and the like in charity shops to protect my burgeoning collection of glass aging likker jars.

I often get comments about how nice it is that I'm looking after the welfare of young children and I don't bother to enlighten them that the clothes are actually to look after the likker jars in my cellar

Most of my aging jars now have cotton material protecting them from their neighbouring jars.

Chris, have you thought or tried using bubble wrap or foam? Might be easier or cheaper. Don't know, just asking.
But I love the ingenuity of your approach! Baby Ts for jars is ingenious.

Got any pics? I wanna know if your licker is boy or girl. LOL
How often do you get quakes enough to cause damage?

I'd rather use my worn out track pants than buy plastic bubble wrap. I covered four jars with a pair last week.

It doesn't have to be a house destroying earthquake to rattle a shelf full of demijohns. A volcano not far from here killed a bunch of tourists a few weeks ago. We can't predict these types of events yet.

Used flavored beer as a test run, never again. I had to throw the all of the mash (thankfully just 1.5 liters) as all I got is the nasty smell, it became much stronger and imparted a bitter flavor (could be the hops extract they used to make it.)
Lesson learned is not to use something with artificial flavors.

UJSSM- apparently I didn’t rack the mash/wash clean enough and I burnt the corn bits somewhat. I did rack thru a screen but the mesh size must have been too open. I’ll try a smaller screen size next time.

Heart of hearts are fine, but the tailsy stuff is nasty.

Beer keg pot still
Propane heat source

SH

I'm working on some apple brandy from cider concentrate and decided I'd make a 1-gallon jug of hard cider to drink without distilling. It fermented dry and I tried it after a couple weeks, but I wasn't a fan of the taste - it just tasted like a sugar wash. I decided it might be better carbonated, so I added some priming sugar, put a lid on the jug, and stuck it in the closet. What could possibly go wrong?

Yesterday I went to check on a molasses wash I'd started the day before. I was struck by how appley it smelled. Then I noticed all the glass shards and how soggy the carpet was. Pieces of the jug, large and small, were distributed throughout the closet. The wall had more than a few nicks on it. Small shards embedded themselves in the door. The handle of the jug was sitting between two boxes on a shelf five feet above the floor, where the jug had been.

It could have been worse. The molasses wash was in a thin-walled 3-gallon PET carboy in the same closet, but it somehow avoided getting punctured by any shrapnel. Of course, that's not the worst that could happen: the jug could have exploded while I was handling it, puncturing me with shrapnel instead.

Did I mention I was a physics major? Didn't do anything to educate the stupid out of me.

Related: does anybody know a good way to get the smell of fermented crap out of a carpet?

Dry cleaning fluid - White spirits
My go to for most things - you may need to throw some talc at it afterwards for the smell
On a side note carpet deodoriser usually contains a significant amount of sand - as it would in your garage, sand will soak stuff out of carpet too, dry fine river sand and a good vacuum cleaner is the go

My last wineos wash I forgot the oyster shell and didn't realize for a week

as someone who is just getting started it's very helpful to read and learn from all the previous mishaps.
Years in manufacturing I've learned a few things that apply well. Pause and think twice, get a second set of eyes involved.

I reapplied some silicon to the controller for my element after dropping knocking the controller off the box. As a verified genius I was running my first vinegar run to clean my newly built still and decided not to turn it off. Silicone sealant managed to contact the live wire, was adjusting the temperature at the controller and touched the still.

It was at that moment I realised that unset silicone is not an insulator as 240v coursed through me to the earthed
still

I've built a 40l boiler using a stainless steel hot water heater two months ago. Heater element - easy just replaced the old one. Drain - couldn't be easier - dome bottom - replaced the old valve and hooked up to a hose that emptied on the ground out side. I ferment in 20 l buckets and was getting ready to run my second generation rum. Poured in the first 20 l, went to get the second bucket and just before pouring in the second bucket .... heard the horrible sound of the boiler draining the last few liters of the first bucket outside onto the ground.

Forgot to close the drain valve.

HiroP wrote: ↑Mon Oct 12, 2020 2:58 pm I've built a 40l boiler using a stainless steel hot water heater two months ago. Heater element - easy just replaced the old one. Drain - couldn't be easier - dome bottom - replaced the old valve and hooked up to a hose that emptied on the ground out side. I ferment in 20 l buckets and was getting ready to run my second generation rum. Poured in the first 20 l, went to get the second bucket and just before pouring in the second bucket .... heard the horrible sound of the boiler draining the last few liters of the first bucket outside onto the ground.

Forgot to close the drain valve.

Glad I'm not the only one who's forgotten to close the valve. Twice on my milk can boiler, I've left the valve open after dumping backset, and began to dump in the next strip to hear the sound of the beer hitting the shop floor.

I think that many of us have forgotten to close that damned drain valve one , or many , times .

Truckinbutch wrote: ↑Mon Oct 12, 2020 7:10 pm I think that many of us have forgotten to close that damned drain valve one , or many , times .

That's why I have a floor squeegee in the garage. I spill shit. A lot.

Just ready to aerate an all molasses rum before pitchin’ when I got distracted. Pulled the trigger on the drill just before the mixer hit the surface. The first spatter shocked me and my hand accidentally squeezed the lock on the drill. I didn’t know that s*t could fly so far or stick to so many things. A number of harsh words was said.

Been covered in that sticky muck more than once and spread my fair share over the contents of my workshop/shed.
Its much nicer stuff to work with once its fermented......all the sticky is gone.

Yonder wrote: ↑Mon Oct 12, 2020 9:44 pm The first spatter shocked me and my hand accidentally squeezed the lock on the drill.

Sorry yonder
Sticky shit ain’t it

I'd posted this a few months back in a different subsection but this might be a better place for it

When positioning my lower element on an old Budweiser keg I went 10mm to low and broke the original weld seam. Never noticed until I filled it up to test and seen the leak. I'd researched enough but never seen anything about it and I was trying to keep the element close enough to the bottom.
Easy fix, cut out what I'd welded in and I fused the gaps with a Tig welder but for those without it might not be so simple

I looked up the nutritional values of okra and noticed that it is better than kale in almost all categories. So I used okra for nutrients in a sugar wash. I never thought about what might be the effect of the okra's slime factor although I certainly enjoy eating slimy boiled okra. Five okra pods were enough to slime up the whole 5 gal batch. I eventually got some alcohol out of it. Don't know if it tasted any good because it was run in a cleaning run. But it took forever to ferment, was impossible (for me at least) to check SG and pH. Experimentation tells me the slime seems to come from the pod not the seeds, so I might experiment again someday using just the seeds, just out of curiosity, but it will be a very small batch. Sometimes my curiosity gets the better of me.

rockcanyon wrote: ↑Wed Oct 14, 2020 8:04 am Sometimes my curiosity gets the better of me.