Home Distiller

Started mashing a 6 gal batch of corn,millet and barley malt. Its my first time working with millet and I'm pretty excited to see how it turns out. if its good i will be doing a much larger batch of it soon. Also racked 5 gals of apple grape wine into a secondary and tossed in some oak and apple wood. Busy morning, now its time to head off to work for the nite...

Made a Cornflake whiskey wash and ran Odin's Easy Gin through my still, leaving it to air before diluting it tomorrow.

Got a fitting for a heater welded into my pot still. Parts on order for the heater controller. Have to install 220 outlet in stilling area. Need to add a sub-panel to supply the outlet. Got most of the panel mounted, wiring tomorrow.

Stripped my Gen#4 UJSSM. I've scored another couple of fermenters, so I split the backset and corn into two washes for Gen#5.

The seashell I had put in the wash to stabilize the pH had lost 12g and was paper thin, so I threw in a couple of new ones.

Did the first stripper of a Corn Whiskey yesterday. 80% cracked corn (50 lbs) 20% 6 row (13 lbs). Its pretty corny. Second stripper tonight, then a spirit run soon as possible. Plan to keep much of it white for a change of pace from the oaked bourbon and whiskey stock. WIll age some tho to see how it compares to similar Bourbon recipe (65-70% corn)

Very nice Jim, I'm stripping about 11 gals of rye bread whisky today. Tossed a liter and a half or so of some rye/oats feints in for good measure. As its been heating up I've been getting some amazing smells, hints of apple, a bit surprising there. Now I'm trying to decide what my next batch will be. Rum, sweetfeed whisky or some single malt ag. Any suggestions? I've got supplies for any of the 3...

A gallon of Joe's ancient orange spiced mead
A gallon of Grapefruit honey wine (in that it also contained some sugar, not just honey as the sugar source)

Tested my Rye bread whisky, it's still a week or so away from finishing - it's just ticking over slowly in cool conditions.

I gotta say Frozenthunderbolt it is damn good stuff, especially for a sugarhead. I'm sure the type of bread does have something to do with it too though. Can't wait to get a spirit run done on mine...

midwest shinner wrote:I gotta say Frozenthunderbolt it is damn good stuff, especially for a sugarhead. I'm sure the type of bread does have something to do with it too though. Can't wait to get a spirit run done on mine...

That's good to hear! I can't wait to run it 1.5 run some nice toasted oak, maybe a little of the heart of hearts kept white.
I love rye bread so i'm intrigued as to how it will taste.

frozenthunderbolt wrote: maybe a little of the heart of hearts kept white.

I like to do that too. Pull some middle hearts from the strip, and compare it later to the aged spirit run and connect the dots. It can be enlightening. Fun stuff this.

I kept about a half gallon of the wash back to mix with the low wines before the spirit run too. I dunno bout your bread but mine had molasses in it which is what I'm attributing some of the fruity smells and tastes to. I'm not really sure what happened on this stripping run but 100% of the run has come over just the slightest bit cloudy or opaque . Not sure if its the temporary flour paste gasket i used mounting my riser to my keg or what but its definitely a first.i mean sometimes my late tails look like this but never the whole run... Good thing its still gonna get another pass thru the pot still or i might be worried a bit more. Any ideas what may have caused this though? it is a bit of a bummer though cause i won't be stealing a jar of hearts now cause of the slight cloudiness

My strippers are usually cloudy too, dunno about 100% of them, I think it comes late, but it doesnt matter. The spirit run will be clear as water ( and deceiving) so be careful with the cuts. Crystal clear cardboardy dogass is still cardboardy dogass.

Thanks Jim i certainly don't make my cuts by look, i was just using the late tails cloudiness as a comparison for how these low wines look. I make my cuts by taste and smell alone. Abv % isn't even a very good judge for what is gonna be the portion for consumption. I'm really guessing the cloudiness is due to a makeshift flour/oat bran gasket as its lightening up as the run goes on. Had to use it though as my old gasket had a crack that i noticed when putting the pot together today. Time to order a few new gaskets i suppose... All of the low wines being opaque just threw me off cause its never happened before and I'm not running the still THAT hard or doing anything different than usual, except for the bootleg gasket. Ahh well it will be fine

Oh I know you dont Mike, was just making a general comment.

Im running my second stipper of the corn whiskey. And picked a pile of hops. They're HUGE this year. Time to make a Homegrown IPA

Awesome hops pic Jim and i really think the issue with the cloudy likker was the oil used in making the bread used to make the wash. It would have gotten racked over cause it would have stayed on top of the wash(at least that's what i imagine) I've never had my tails come across with blobs of oil floating on top before either. I will take care when transferring it to the still for the spirit run though. Other than that it smells and tastes promising. Blending some banana rumdy tonite, talk about some fruity rum... I'm sure the lady will love this one. It will join the ranks of my coconut rum and sunshine tea as another that i can't make enou gh of

Spirit run done on the corn whiskey. Yield ended up being pretty low, it was hard to make cuts, very corny this stuff but there was some funk early and late so I stayed tight. Pulled only 1.1 gallons keep at 69% from 50 lbs of corn and 13 lbs barley. Thats 9.5 fifths at 80proof. 6.63 lbs grain per bottle. Horrible. Oh well, lots of feints to pour in my next bourbon run. This middle keep cut is really nice. Lots of corn jumps at ya. Gonna keep it white to age, plenty oaked bourbons and whiskeys in the coffers at the moment.

To the poor yield, the cracked corn was largely still whole chunks when I squeezed it out. From now on Im gonna mount up a drill on the corn mill and give this stuff a better grind. This is ridiculous. Lots of work to go pouring heaps of unspent corn in the garden. But I did get much better yields with the corn heavy bourbons tho, so, Shit, I dunno. Next.

Nice looking hops there Jimbo. The cones are twice the length of mine.

Ran a mini-pot of Bombay Sapphire East gin. It louched when I diluted it to 45%, but adding a few mls of 75% Birdwatchers cleared it. No Iris flowering at this end of the planet so coloring will have to wait till spring (if the Missus doesn't demolish it before then).

Gen #5 UJSSM is bubbling away nicely now that it has 40w under it. A wifi thermometer to keep an eye on temps would be handy in winter.

Cider is primed and should be ready to drink next week.

Nuking this year's grappa with Jack Daniel's chips, some vanilla pod and a dried cranberry.

Off topic.... I caught the biggest fish, a 5 1/2lb snapper, watching the rain pissing down on our village all afternoon while we were basking in sunshine and supping on rum in a glass-still harbor.

Just home from holidays. Hungary, Croatia, great time.

I wanted to start up another All Rye UJ and had some old backset stored in the freezer. Or so I thought ...

Nowhere to be found.

So it is a first sweet wash in a long, long time for me. No problemo. Good for a great rye vodka I am sure. I will probably start making whiskey and genever out of it from generation 3 or 4 onwards ...

Odin.

hey everyone...
tried my luck with a sweetfeed /COB brew...and damn am I surprised.... smooth as silk....very nice indeed...
Came out at about 55%, and I'm happy with that. I'd love to get it up higher... Any thoughts on how?
Adding more sugar is the obvious.... any other ideas? looking forward to replies...

Grappa-Gringo wrote:hey everyone...
tried my luck with a sweetfeed /COB brew...and damn am I surprised.... smooth as silk....very nice indeed...
Came out at about 55%, and I'm happy with that. I'd love to get it up higher... Any thoughts on how?
Adding more sugar is the obvious.... any other ideas? looking forward to replies...

Dont add more sugar - it'll turn out crappier.

1. Dilute to 40% and distill again.
or
2. Strip one batch and then add that spirit to another charge of wash and do a 1.5 run and make your cuts on the output of that.

Just finished the label for my latest corn whiskey AG mentioned below. I was shooting for an old school corn likker, moonshine. Before they used sugar. I tried to reflect that in the old school pinup for the label too.

Very nice work on the label Jim, it looks great. I am running a spirit run on about 3 gals of rye bread whisky low wines, watered below 40% with some saved wash for extra flavor. Running it in my small copper alembic. Can't wait to see how it turns out, so far so good. Thanks to Odin for the recipe.

midwest shinner wrote:Very nice work on the label Jim, it looks great. I am running a spirit run on about 3 gals of rye bread whisky low wines, watered below 40% with some saved wash for extra flavor. Running it in my small copper alembic. Can't wait to see how it turns out, so far so good. Thanks to Odin for the recipe.

nice. cant wait to try a nice Odini recipe Bring some to our apple harvest next month, we'll get all ikkered up and climb them apple trees haha

Hell yeah ill bring some with Jim, I've made a few things since we last got together.And buzzed apple picking sounds good, its been a while since I've had a good injury... I did decide not to do the spirit run today, its still 90+°F in the garage and that's before firing up the burner. Standing at the stove cooking up a batch of smoked honey single malt in the A/C sounds much nicer right now, so that's what i will do instead. It will still be run by the time we meet up Jim. But I've run something once a week(at least) for the past number of months, so i don't think skipping a week will set me back too much. Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Been a while due to domestic intranquility C'est la vie. Things calm now also just retired so much more time to brew!!! YEAH. Cooked up 10 gallons gen VIII SF bubbling nicely. Used the last of the feed...might try AG bill next. Good to be brewing again

Started a faux wheat whisky, partial mash. Only a 6.5 gal batch, but kinda made it to use up some ingredients that have been sitting around a while. Cooked up 3.75lbs wheat bran flakes, .75lbs corn flakes, 1lb rolled oats with some rye whisky backset and mashed in 5lbs wheat malt. S.G was abut 1.040 so inverted 5lbs sugar in a few cups of water with a pinch of citric acid and added that to get the abv% potential up to about 10.2%. Pitched some coopers brewing yeast. we will see how it goes...

midwest shinner wrote:Started a faux wheat whisky, partial mash. Only a 6.5 gal batch, but kinda made it to use up some ingredients that have been sitting around a while. Cooked up 3.75lbs wheat bran flakes, .75lbs corn flakes, 1lb rolled oats with some rye whisky backset and mashed in 5lbs wheat malt. S.G was abut 1.040 so inverted 5lbs sugar in a few cups of water with a pinch of citric acid and added that to get the abv% potential up to about 10.2%. Pitched some coopers brewing yeast. we will see how it goes...

What's wrong with 1.040 Mike? Looks like that wheat malt did a good job convertin your cereal grains.

On my way to the bulk store to pick up more raw sugar so I can put the last of this blackstrap to bed. Might have to find me some harvest ingredients for a attempt at a harvest whiskey recipe while I'm feeling ambitious. The brewing equipment is lookin lonely.

Welcome back Black Eye, where the hell you been hiding?