Home Distiller

tombombadil wrote: ↑Sat Jun 06, 2020 3:47 pm 8 gallons of water
16# corn meal
4# ground steel cut oats
3# distillers malt
1tbsp each alpha and gluco enzymes
11g Mangrove Jack M47 (Abbey Yeast)

Stripping batch #4, started another sugarhead and mashing batch #5. I think that after batch #5 I'll have enough low wines to fill my boiler for a spirit run.

Next I've gotta do a couple 100% Munich runs for the great malt collab, then maybe the chocolate bourbon?

Grapefruit gin. Trying it now in a G&T with a squeeze of grapefruit and I expect any grapefruit lover would like it.

Did a spirit run of KSSF Gen4, Gen5 is frying away and started a Bird Watchers with the aim of making that espresso vodka I saw here, has been getting good reviews, wife should love that.

Got one of those 5 gallon pin kegs from a buddy, removed the valve and cleaned it up. Thinking of making a thump keg out of it, anyone use one of those for a thump?

JC973 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2020 9:13 pm Did a spirit run of KSSF Gen4, Gen5 is frying away and started a Bird Watchers with the aim of making that espresso vodka I saw here, has been getting good reviews, wife should love that.

Got one of those 5 gallon pin kegs from a buddy, removed the valve and cleaned it up. Thinking of making a thump keg out of it, anyone use one of those for a thump?

Only issue is the gasket material on them. It's black rubber which is not ok for distillation.

Seabass, I may have misspoke, here are photos of what I have, will this work? Thinking of a 2" Tri Clover clamp spool type that has the down pipe and vapor exit in a single unit, are those any good?

That's a sanke keg. Perfect for distilling. When you said pin keg, I figured you meant pin lock, which is a corny keg with rubber gaskets.

I use a 1/6 barrel sanke keg as a thumper and as a steam driven thumper for small batches. They work great!

Sorry, I’m still getting my terms down, total noob.

How do you have yours set up for a thump? I just saw the one on Oly Dist web site and figured I would replicate that.

I have no idea what a steam driven thumper is... geez I have so much to learn

My thumper connection started with a 2in triclamp tee. I turned down a copper 2-1 reducer so it fit in the tee. Basically took off most of the larger part of the reducer. Then soldered a 1in 90deg fitting to it, soldered it to the tee and soldered the down pipe to it.

A steam driven thumper is just a thumper driven with water in the boiler. I use it for gin and bourbon. Fill the boiler with water and thumper with gin maceration or bourbon on grain mash. Then you don't have to worry about scorching solids.

Gotcha, thanks for the photo

I found the post on the steam thing, I have a fruit mash coming up, I have 60 pounds of both Apricots and Plums frozen but I think I’m going to try the Bane Marie process

Stripping #3 of 4 of Sundae Chocolate bourbon. This one, #3, I used rolled oats instead of corn.

Refluxed a 25l sugar wash that had added back 750ml of "neutral" that had been sitting on limes. Gave my new neutral a beautiful subtle lime background that I think I will make into a simple vodka.

30gal batch of what will be kveik AG barley vodka.

Well work ahead so making a second batch sake, and done with a barley and sorghum beer, then i have a jam, sugar, syrup and raisen mash going with some wine yeast, soooo.... Should have some fun weekends ahead

Needed a mixer/chopper for an apricot brandy I’m planning so I made this from a SS all thread and a couple of 12” props from my RC plane, hope it works.

Slowly heating up the final spirit run of Sundae Chocolate bourbon. I'm also thinking about what to make next......

^^^^ Well.....I heated it up too slowly. The thumper filled up and was puking with any heat to where I could only get a drip per second or it would puke. After taking 4 hours to pull heads drop by drop I shut it down. The thumper is full to the top and the boiler was in need of a top off. I'll let it cool down and tomorrow I'll re-fill them properly and do it again. I wasted about a 1/3 of a tank of propane

Tried my hand at my first gin on Sunday... Odin's Easy after 2 weeks of tincturing (orange peels rather than tangerines, and 42 ABV ilo 43, but otherwise faithful). Blended Sunday night and proofed it down yesterday. G&Ts all around for the family (of course I could't wait the requisite 5 weeks). Thumbs up from all . As with many things I do, I went big with a 5 gallons in the boiler rather than the listed 1 liter, so most of it will have plenty of time to mellow out.

Thanks Odin! Your KISS method is kick ass!

DetroitDIY wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 2:24 pm Tried my hand at my first gin on Sunday... Odin's Easy after 2 weeks of tincturing (orange peels rather than tangerines, and 42 ABV ilo 43, but otherwise faithful). Blended Sunday night and proofed it down yesterday. G&Ts all around for the family (of course I could't wait the requisite 5 weeks). Thumbs up from all . As with many things I do, I went big with a 5 gallons in the boiler rather than the listed 1 liter, so most of it will have plenty of time to mellow out.

Thanks Odin! Your KISS method is kick ass!

I made a small batch a while ago. It's mostly gone so Im thinking about the next one, imagining how ill change the recipe, but then I try some of what I've got and decide to leave the recipe alone because I like it so much.

I made a batch recently also, tried just a nip to confirm the taste and hid it from myself, 3 weeks to go, my wife keeps asking when, she is less patient than me

Halfway through my spirit run and everything is going normally this time!

JC973 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 6:53 pm I made a batch recently also, tried just a nip to confirm the taste and hid it from myself, 3 weeks to go, my wife keeps asking when, she is less patient than me

Yah. My wife keeps saying she's done with alcohol. Chardonnay is her weakness. But I keep seeing her sneak into the meads, and UJSM, and Odin's Easy the other night, and some white penala rum last night.... hmmmm. Good thing I enjoy fermenting and distilling to excess.

Stripped a sugarhead today. The late heads early hearts section is pretty tasty right of the still.

It's a sugarhead from korn likker that's using Abbey yeast. Im definitely picking up the fruity flavor from the yeast but it's not the same fruitiness that I would expect from a beer made with that yeast. Very perfumey. Not apple/pear, definitely more berry/plum/raisin. It'll be interesting to see how much of that survives the spirit run.

I started using my parrot again during stripping runs so I can make sure I'm collecting far enough down.

Also, started building my thumper connector.

I really don’t know! Homebrew had a special on over milled grains, 10 lb for $10, guaranteed at least 60% barley of one sort or another. Only the angels kno what else was in there. Didn’t move by itself, so I figured it was good enuff. Threw in 10lb of corn and 1 of rye in 10gal of good water with a few ounces of DADY. Nice amber color, great smell. Hit 10 70 on conversion. Took a sniff today and damn near burnt out my sinus’. I’ll give her a run later this week and see what the devil has wrought.

Ran 25l of bourbon and put down 24l of cola yesterday.... smelled amazing this morning!

Made an ESB today and pitched hornidal kveik

Made a Fruity Pebbles sugar wash. I needed something to drink, and I have no idea what it's going to taste like!

Beerswimmer wrote: ↑Mon Jul 13, 2020 7:12 pm Made a Fruity Pebbles sugar wash. I needed something to drink, and I have no idea what it's going to taste like!

Glorious I'd imagine...

A UV-C sterilizing cabinet. It's taken several weeks and two attempts to import a sterilizing lamp, but it's done now.

My roof and spring collected water often starts tasting buggy after a week or two and becomes unusable for diluting and proofing unless refrigerated, so this should fix that problem.

Deliveries that might be contaminated with Woohoo Flu can be radiated to kill virus before we handle them.

So few weeks ago i decided to through some stuff together and see.
Raisens, honey, syrup, sugar, jam and who know what ells.
Fermentented like crazy, couldnt even sleep, for about 2 weeks, and i used chinese wine yeast or sake yeast.
All sugars converted and have to say, put some scrubbies in my shotgun condenser and wow, its not dripping but running, foreshots collected measered 160proof.
Tasted the mash and mmmm, tasted kust like a nice pontage wine.
So i think this is going to make a very nice brandy.

DSmith78 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 13, 2020 12:17 am Ran 25l of bourbon and put down 24l of cola yesterday.... smelled amazing this morning!

24l of cola? Soda? Pop? Soft drink? Can you share the recipe?