wtfdskin wrote:Made bacon, hams, sausage, scrapple, liverwurst, and cracklins. 4 times over. Love butcherin day.
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Got a lil piggie i feeding now that came from a hog trap. Looks like a little escapee ... hampshire/berkshire cross maybe. Difinately not wild. Only about 40# now. The wife named it...Bobby Queue.
Jbt
Remember not to blow yourself up,you only get to forget once!
Deo Vendice
Never eat Mexican food north or east of Dallas tx!
during weekend, while my last batch of Uncle Scrooge completes fermenting I started a new batch of rum. Yeast bomb + 3 liters bio Molasses, 2Kg demerara sugar, 25lt water. OG 1060. I am trying for the first time an open vessel fermentation, since I stuck a 75W aquarium heater in it to keep temp around 29C.
finished my cuts on a single malted red wheat. ended up with a gallon of 130 proof. actually a little less because i drink about a half a qt white . not bad for a single 50 pound sack for around 55 bucks. ends up being a little less than 10 bucks per 80p qt in about 6-12 months
Started 15 gallons of persimmons for my " possum fight brandy".
Og of 1.048. Started by mashing up 12 individual persimmons in their own ziploc bags with a bit of water(+- 1oz) two days ago to make wild yeast starters. Today i took 3 five gallon buckets full(packed) and and one 3/4 full and dumped them in my tc fermenter and added two gallons of water,then blended the hell outta it. Checked my wild yeast starters and added the best smelling one. Gonna let it go till it seems to slow down and then pitch 1118. the 3/4 bucket is by itself fermenting.
Still got three big trees that arent quite ready to pick.
Jbt
Last edited by jb-texshine on Mon Nov 21, 2016 7:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Remember not to blow yourself up,you only get to forget once!
Deo Vendice
Never eat Mexican food north or east of Dallas tx!
I am mashing apples just right now.
I got cheap a few buckets "Gravensteiner", which is a famous type for a good brandy.
In this way, imperialism brings catastrophe as a mode of existence back from the periphery of capitalist development to its point of departure.- Rosa Luxemburg
I've been working on a small liquor cabinet to show off the fruits of my labor. I still have to install the mirror and glass for the shelves, but it's looking pretty good so far. It also has enough room for this years batches when they're ready.
I'm just finishing the stripping run on 28 gallons of a corn/wheat/barley mash. There was 35 lbs of coarse ground corn and 4 lbs of raw wheat, 8 lbs of 2 row barley and 17 lbs of malted wheat all mashed up with 28 gallons of artesian well water. The malted wheat was my first attempt at malting my own wheat. It was fermented on the grain as well as being distilled on the grain using steam injection. I run pretty deep when stripping so I am expecting around 7 gallons of 35% low wines.
It is snowing like crazy right now. If my travel plans for tomorrow get changed due to the weather, I may get the spirit run done. Otherwise, I'll likely do the spirit run on Sunday.
I'm doing some strip runs today. When I got the keg boiler out to set up, I noticed a foul smell, like a dead animal. I thought maybe a mouse found his way in there and died. After inspection, it seems I didn't clean well enough last time. The underside of the top was covered in furry moldy gunk! I spent some time cleaning up and it's good now, but wow, what a mess! I'll be more careful with cleaning going forward. Maybe I'll look into getting a nice big fitting welded on for easier access.
Ran 20 gallons of corn flake whiskey through my 15.5 gallon keg boiler with a 3-4ft column with 3" dephlegmator. The racked washes had a nice slurry of ice on top which I assume I lost something there considering my abv was lower than normal (120-150 opposed to 170-180)That wasnt really the problem considering they fermented fast (I think due too cold and not enough sugar, can not remember hydrometer readings)
After the first ten gallons I had decided to run the other two buckets and just do a spirit run in the near furure with all of it.
So in between removing the waterlines and moving the column for a dump and refill ( probably took 20 mins to dump,rinse,pump and reattach the column) I had shut the water down. Well my idiot ass didn't leave it trickaling and it froze on me. However I didn't know this at the time....
So my still warmed up and started producing, so I turned the heat down a bit and turned the water valves up a tad. I noticed the distillate was coming off hot...then hotter and hotter so I cranked the condenser and shut the heat down to as low as it could go. All of a sudden vapor was not only coming off the hot distillate but it was steaming out the end of my product condenser. I tried turning it into reflux to get it to stop and noticed no water moment, so I checked discharge lines and voila no water. I knew now what had happened. At this point i peaked back inside the garage and noticed I was still blowing off steam....I had turned the heat down but left the gas on a little on accident and in return I lost alllllll my hearts....I fixed the hose 15 mins later and turned the heat back on and had distillate coming out within minutes however I only made it through a pint before tasting/feeling tails...very dissapointing but a good lesson was learned today about distilling within the elements. Thought I'd share my experience from today with you all...so remember if it's winter and your running hoses don't shut them off completely....LEAVE THEM RUNNING!
Sincerely,
Rain Distillate
A little late getting started but running my third distillation of 5 gallons of 4th gen Sweet Feed liquor. It was 140 proof before cutting it to 50 proof with spring water. Wife has gone to get cider and apple juice so I guess this, except for one quart will go into some apple pie for New Years. Little rainy and about 50 degrees. Just perfect for cooking. Been a couple of big does easing around toward the back of the property.....never know when jerky on the hoof might get harvested. Drinking some hot coffee with a splash of 6 month old SF that was on oak for 3 months. Life is good. Merry Christmas to all!!!!
Down_Home52 wrote:...It was 140 proof before cutting it to 50 proof with spring water...
So you cut it to 25%ABV BEFORE adding the juice and cider? What'll it be afterwards?
ss
Ran it through the pot still after diluting and it came out at 160 proof for 3 quarts then down to 152 for 3 quarts. Ran everything else out down to 100 proof. Used a quart and a half at 160 for the pie. 1 gallon apple juice, 1 gallon apple cider, 3 cups sugar and 8 cinnamon sticks. Sipping some right now. Not bad....not bad at all. The sweet feed gives it a little different finish. The other 9 quarts are tucked in for a two week nap.
Beef Wellington with friends!
Enjoying a bit of 2 year old S3 1.0 whiskey. This is some of my oldest stuff and I gotta say, age your whiskey, this is amazing!
Shouting and shooting, I can't let them catch me...
I made ten gallons of beer today. Half is topping off my 15 gal solera sour keg, other half is getting french saison yeast. I then used the spent grain to make a ten gallon sugarhead for vodka.
Did a 12 Gal neutral run on some corn sugar head and bottled up some Christmas presents (espresso laced vodka) a few days late but I'm sure that the recipients won't complain about that
I finally got to do the spirit run on my rum low wines that had been sitting for a couple of months. Started with 34L @ 25%ABV, and stored away for aging about 9,5L @65%ABV. I was surprised by the cuts I did, I expected to keep less, but it was all good tasting, maybe it's because it has been sitting so long.
I put it all into a 10L glass carboy with toasted (not charred) european oak.
Between al ingredients, the final cost was 5€ for each 1L @40ABV
45 Degrees F today and I must say it was perfect stilln weather.
Just finished a back to back run made of roughly 17 gallons of wash from 5 Lbs corn maize,5 Lbs of Rye and about a Lb of Barley with with some enzymes and a little (15Lbs) granulated sugar for good measure.
I was very nervous with this run because it was my first time moving away from corn meal and corn flakes. The whole science of breaking down starches is very fascinating and I have much more reading to do in the mashing in threads. Overall I was impressed with the outcome. This is my favorite smelling likker I've made so far. I yielded a gallon of 90% abv hearts and the rest went in the feints jugs. Running 15.5 Keg CM Reflux about 4' column with packing.
Yesterday late afternoon I had made up 3 Lbs of corn flakes and 4 Lbs of cracked corn with 20 gallons of hot water and let it sit all night with the lid on and blankets wrapped around it. Before I put the heat to the still the second time I saved 10 gallons of hot backset from the first run and went inside and tossed it into the mash barrel with the corn that's been going all night and day. The temp rose back up to 140-145F so I tossed in my 2Lbs of barley and my powdered enzymes gave it a small stir and capped it back up with blankets all around.
I'm going to let it sit all night because I'm in no rush. Tomorrow when I get a chance I'll invert some sugar and add to the mash barrel. After that I'll add some yeast from my yeast cake from last ferment and pitch some fresh yeast. No rye this time so I'm hoping I'll be able to save a little to compare with the upcoming run.
I LOVE THIS HOBBY! I wish this was my job. When they say find a job where you love what you do......
Rain Distillate
Just finished a run of "pikeys easy scotch" - 25 Litres inc 2 litres tails from last run. I actively dislike that "peaty" taste of some of the Islay / Laphroaig types, preferring the milder ones like Glenmorangie and this is my aim. I'm getting quite close, but that's a-nother thread.
Took 70cl @ 68,, then 4.25 Litres "Hearts" @ 58 and 2.5 Litres tails finishing @20.
Don't suppose this lot will make it to the ageing stage - but I'll do another at the weekend probably, to get oaked and flavoured.
Meanwhile I look forward to a minor libation this evening
Pikey your yield is great, you started from a 13% wash from an AG barley mash? My yield for scotch is less than half yours, i get 5 liters hearts @65% from 75L mash
cuginosgrizzo wrote:Pikey your yield is great, you started from a 13% wash from an AG barley mash? My yield for scotch is less than half yours, i get 5 liters hearts @65% from 75L mash
Er - no not quite cuginosgrizzo The clue is in my "easy" word. Sure somebody somewhere did the "AG" part, I just bypassed it & used the fruits of their labour with a tiny wee bit of "reinforcing sugar"
Hence "easy"
[Edit;- You reverse engineered it to come up with 13% did you ? Thanks for that - I'd reckoned somewhere in the 12 - 14 % rangefrom the ingredients, but seeing as I couldn't measure the water and couldn't measure OG, I didn't know for sure and couldn't be bothered to work it back - just knew it was enough. ]
. not bad for a single 50 pound sack for around 55 bucks. ends up being a little less than 10 bucks per 80p qt in about 6-12 months 
