Home Distiller

Dnderhead wrote:I see this often,,when you ferment it does not produce anything different than wine or beer ,
then when you distill that does not create any thing,its just concentrates the alcohol .you are making
it about 10 times stronger,so if you drank 1/10 the amount you whould be drinking about the same
thing as a beer/wine.where people git into trouble is they tend to drink more hard stuff than beer/wine
as it is easier to drink a shot than a glass full.this is especially true of the "fruity tooty" stuff that is popular to day.

We won't be taking shots of this, that would be a waste Quality over quantity. I am a homebrewer and craft beer lover. I appreciate it all and am excited to be able to produce it all.

Geez...!!! Can't smell... Can't taste... You would have had a hard life growing up in my neighborhood... You'd have been eating road kill sandwiches and washing them down with skunky beer - or worse... I often wonder how we ever survived when I think back on our misspent youth...

In all seriousness, you're gonna have a tough time in this hobby without those two important senses... Sure hope the other three senses are working up to par...

rad14701 wrote:Geez...!!! Can't smell... Can't taste... You would have had a hard life growing up in my neighborhood... You'd have been eating road kill sandwiches and washing them down with skunky beer - or worse... I often wonder how we ever survived when I think back on our misspent youth...

In all seriousness, you're gonna have a tough time in this hobby without those two important senses... Sure hope the other three senses are working up to par...

I can taste I cannot smell which yes I know has a lot to do with taste. But this is also why I love hot and spicy food, full bodied beers etc. I don't drink the cheap stuff as it's carbonated water.

Do you have someone around that has a sniffer that works? Someone who you can trust to tell you if your spirits smell ok or smell like nail polish remover? Hate to see you make something that tastes good to you but the smell repulses everyone else.

Prairiepiss wrote:Do you have someone around that has a sniffer that works? Someone who you can trust to tell you if your spirits smell ok or smell like nail polish remover? Hate to see you make something that tastes good to you but the smell repulses everyone else.

I've got a friend who lives very closeby who is a fellow homebrewer who I am sure will be up to the task

Somewhere in this thread a really good joke is hidden!

Odin wrote:Somewhere in this thread a really good joke is hidden!

Give us a clue!

On a side note I'm going to purchase an inline carbon cartridge. It came with the little attachment to fit one but didn't come with the cartridge itself. It says they're good for one run of 25 liters of spirit, and since this is only 4 liters I expect it to last a bit longer. I was thinking to save the filter wait until I do the last run to bring it to around 80% put the filter on and leave it off for all the runs I do to get there. Anything wrong with doing that?

I think that's the one I use..I'll go to the homebrew shop today to confirm, I just want the cartridge that fits in the piece the still came with.

Random,

Those filters work. A little. If you are after a neutral you can polish them up a bit with it. Do not expect it to turn a brandy into anything neutral-like, though. The way to use them is to run some hand warm water over them before puting them to practise. And they work up until 45%. Any higher and no results. So the strange thing is, you might want to use them on your first runs instead of on your last runs ...

Please delute your drinks after every distillation to 45% max, if you want to give it another distillation. Don't put 80% likker in it. With an airstill you are always collecting through a plastic outlet/nozzle, and collecting in a plastic can. Maybe that can is needed if you want to use the filter you are buying. On later runs ... when filtering with this type of filter is no more use ... why not collect in a glass demi-john or mason jar? Safer ...

That's it for now! Good luck & be safe.

Odin.

Odin wrote:Random,

Those filters work. A little. If you are after a neutral you can polish them up a bit with it. Do not expect it to turn a brandy into anything neutral-like, though. The way to use them is to run some hand warm water over them before puting them to practise. And they work up until 45%. Any higher and no results. So the strange thing is, you might want to use them on your first runs instead of on your last runs ...

Please delute your drinks after every distillation to 45% max, if you want to give it another distillation. Don't put 80% likker in it. With an airstill you are always collecting through a plastic outlet/nozzle, and collecting in a plastic can. Maybe that can is needed if you want to use the filter you are buying. On later runs ... when filtering with this type of filter is no more use ... why not collect in a glass demi-john or mason jar? Safer ...

That's it for now! Good luck & be safe.

Odin.

Thanks for the info. As for the filters, got it, I will use them on my second to last run. So when I bring my spirit to the 40 percent range, so with sugar washes that start around 13 percent this may just be the first run to be safe as run #2 should make it quite a bit higher than 45%. As for plastic and plastic I never attached the plasic nozzle that came with it as I thought that was just for the filter and when I'm running spirits I collect into glass measuring cups. When I distill water I use a plastic water pitcher. Any suggestion (aside from buying another still!) for moving between water and spirit? After I make spirit I have to do a few runs of water to get the smell and taste out. I'm thinking a carbon filter may make this easier and maybe I should swap filters when I'm doing water or spirit? Any suggestion there? Info on distilling spirit is bountiful though I can't find much info on distilling water, and practically nothing on the two on the same machine Thanks man. I've got 8lb of brown sugar and 15lb white sugar burning a hole in the pantry The white sugar I expect to make about 2 4 or 5 gal washes and the brown sugar to be one

Odin wrote:Random,

Those filters work. A little. If you are after a neutral you can polish them up a bit with it. Do not expect it to turn a brandy into anything neutral-like, though.

Oh and dude as for brandy to neutral I would not want to do that it'd be a waste. I do have some melomel (fruit mead) that I want to run through also, any suggestions there? It's dry so it shouldn't be too sticky, probably around .995 right now and around 10 percent. I'm thinking of just doing one still full.

RD,

I do not have the problem of switching between water & booz. When I just rinse out the head with tap water, it is okay, especially with a sugar wash. Not much taste there. How many liters of melomel do you have? If it is enough for 1 filling, is it like a galon? That is not much, especially since you need a second distillation run to get it to the right ABV's. First distillation will only get you to 1.3 liters at 30% if you start with 4 liters at 10%. If you have got a bit more than a galon, you might want to do one run on 4 liters. Delute the result with what is left of your mash, do the second run and make your cuts. Brandy is not for neutrals. I was just trying to make an example.

Odin.

This sounds dirty but how do you rinse the head out? I've just been spraying out the boiler and running some water through it. As for brandy yeah I know it was just an example it just reminded me of it. I do have more gallons of the melomel but I'd prefer to bottle that this would be more of an experiment. So if I load up 4l, run it through once, dilute it back with the wash then run it through again the advantage would just be that each time I run it through it just makes a higher quality like with the whiskey, right? I like the idea of cutting it with itself instead of water as I don't want to water it down.

In diluting I'd just be adding the first run back to the boiler with what's left in the boiler and top off a lil for whatever evaporated and never came back down from spirit heaven, right? Then chuck the first 50ml or so and bottle what else comes out till it starts coming out at the same abv as wjhat went in. Sound right?

dont follow you,, you distilled, then added the spirits/alcohol back to the spent beer?
then your back some place close to where you started.?

Dnderhead wrote:dont follow you,, you distilled, then added the spirits/alcohol back to the spent beer?
then your back some place close to where you started.?

I'm not quite following 100% either, that's what I think I read from Odin's post.. I would think I would just distill the melomel from 10% to 30% in one shot, and call that good to drink.. I know when making whiskey people distill to 80 or higher then dilute to where they want to drink it when they could have just distilled to 40% and keep it there but distilling it more times makes it better for aging and maked a higher quality spirit according to what I've read and what people have posted on this thread. With mead though as I'm not looking to age and dilute later..Couldn't I just run it through once, making cuts and drink it a 30%? If I'm mising something here please let me know.

you can distill once if like,,if not sure then distill once making cuts,save heads and tales.then if you dont like it you can add them back and re distill.

RD, DH,

What I meant was: if you plan a second distillation, you can add some of the original wash/wine you used. So not adding backset, but adding of your originial wash/wine (if any is left, of course) to your low wines and thén go for second distillation. Helps me to get over more taste.

Hope I make sense now!

Odin.

Odin wrote:RD, DH,

What I meant was: if you plan a second distillation, you can add some of the original wash/wine you used. So not adding backset, but adding of your originial wash/wine (if any is left, of course) to your low wines and thén go for second distillation. Helps me to get over more taste.

Hope I make sense now!

Odin.

Ah. So if I want to distill it more, dilute with the wash and backset being the wash that takes a back...seat in the boiler I'll probably just distill it once then we'll backsweeten with a honey water mixture like we normally would do with the mead itself since it's so dry.