Tell us about your mistakes.

[sltm1]

When i made my condenser unit for my still, I used 1/2 to 1/4 reducer couplings as the nipples to attach my hoses to. There was just enough room to put on the hose and secure it with a clamp. Worked like a charm, but it always bothered me that it was such a perfect fit. Fast forward to yesterday. I had just finished a run of 4th gen UJ, cleaned everything up and gone to grab some lunch. After lunch I remembered that I had left some sheet music in the distilling room (practicing guitar is a great way to spend time while monitoring the still), so I went back to get it, opened the door and saw the that the exit hose had come disconnected of the condenser, said, "hum", and took a step onto a carpet that was as wet as wet can get. The hose, when it dropped to the floor, siphoned out most all the water from my 6gal water tank!!

The fix, not wanting to reduce the flow by soldering in 1/4 tubing, I started looking around my shop for a remedy. I took 2 45lc shells, belled out the upper lip and sawed off the bottoms. They slipped over the 1/4 nipple and i soldered them inplace, there is now PLENTY of room to attach the hoses without them backing off!!

[W Pappy]

Started the keg and thumper build and was prepping some 2" copper pipe. A piece rolled off the bench and landed leaning up against a box next to me.So like a jackass I stuck my thump inside and picked it up with my thumb and index finger . Instant pain son of a b.... I didn't sand the bur off yet opened the ol boy up if I move it just rite looks like I grew a pig cooter on my thump The moral is when you cut your parts debur them then not when you get around to it or you could have a 16 year old trying to hump your hand cause that"s the closest thing he has seen to a real cooter.

[T-Pee]

Admitted to adding sugar to an apple brandy ferment and got caught by Jimbo (site apfelmeister).

It wasn't pretty.

tp

[Jimbo]

[SoMo]

So I'm at the feed store and see on the clearance rack a 50# bag of dried molasses 42% invert sugars. Bingo rum in my future, I get a few gals of backset still hot throw it in the cooler/mash tun start adding dry molasses and it seizes up, add 3 more gals of h2o loosens up but still the largest porridge I've ever seen. I stir it good give it a couple hours and pulled off 2 gal of clarified molasses. Repeat adding water stir, settle dip clarified liquid. 8 hours later I've got 4gal of molasses water and a cooler full of sludge. Took SG added sugar and water to SG of 1.065 pitched a tbl of DADY at 75*. Hope it works it's bubbling away. Moral of the story buy liquid, save 2 discs in your back, dry molasses ain't worth shit but to a cow. Gonna buy some liquid start another ferment and mix. I will say the flavor of the wash is very strong carmely, vanilla.

[SoMo]

So after all that work I was able to run off that wash and surprisingly it came out pretty good avg profs fores at 140p so not bad a couple quarts of hearts to play with. I added some Carmel sugar color and spices, the misses damn near drank a pint at 80p she loved it so some mistakes end up success's. just have some faith follow the basics and it might just work out.

[NZChris]

Aggressive fermentation has turned my 80 litres of grapes into 100 litres of boiling must in a 90 litre container.

Scooped off 20 liters into another fermenter, put a bung in, and before I could find an airlock I had a fountain through the bung.

Just as well I didn't pick the other vine.

Her Indoors is liking her G&T though.

[Jimbo]

Aggressive fermentation has turned my 80 litres of grapes into 100 litres of boiling must in a 90 litre container.

Thats funny (for us, prolly not for you so much). We all been there.

[Odin]

The love of automated distilling! Last night I was distilling a rye vodka. It took longer than anticipated. No, not true, I started too late. And since I run automated equipment and had to rise early next day, I decided, at around 1 o'clock in the morning ... I'd go to bed and leave the still to finish the job.

This morning I woke up and found out the still had finished automatically. But somehow, due to a shitty, cheap water inlet line I use ... the water inlet line got disconnected from the Gardena coupling.

The whole first floor got flooded. Ankle deep. The good thing is water flows away. But my carpet is wet. And even after extensive vacuum cleaning (you know, with one of them water vacuum cleaners) ... it will probably stay wet for another week or two.

The mss wasn't very pleased with me.

Odin.

[oilguy]

Made my parrot with 1/4" inlet and out let, first run overfilling and spilling all over , not good,
used recomendations from here have upsized to 1/2" much better , no spillage

[TINY]

Made some beer once that fermented a little quicker than I was thinking and had a little less head room than was needed. Ended up clogging the air vent and blowing the lid clean off the bucket. Could see the marks where it bounce off the wall hit the ceiling and then the other wall and landed on the far side of the room. Just glad it didn't split the side of the bucket so the mess wasn't too bad.

[acfixer69]

Last night i was filling my boiler so I could sneak a fast run in this afternoon. While filling the battery in my pen light crapped out and I couldn't see fill level through the fill port. I spotted a piece or copper wire I used to suspend a snip of hose in some foreshots a while back ahh a dipstick ok. All is good I'm full. But then where is the snip of hose? After sleeping on it last night I decided I'll drain the 12 or so gals into a shallow pan and pump back into a spare fermenter. So after emptying and cleaning back flushing no snip showing up. I would normally hook the pump discharge to the drain and fill but it loose why not stick it in the fill port on top after all its a fill port. Well as my week has been going at the end of the back fill I tip the fermenter to get the last of the good stuff and must have tugged on the discharge hose. Well UJ at 35+psi shooting wild at me then the ceiling then 2 walls only 3=4 seconds maybe a gal. What a mess on everything in the room. I stuck a fan in the room opened a window turned out the light. Will deal with it tomorrow.

AC

[Beer]

Once came home from pub. Totally wasted. Had wine fermenting in the bathroom and probably got tired a bit. Sat on the fermenter and BUUM it went from the airlock hole to all over me and the bathroom. Then probably.. got tired again and past out. Girlfriend was NOT happy in the morning.

[dsly1]

Strain your mash. Even if it's a sugar shine to get the yeast out. Makes for for bready aftertaste shine if you don't! (Yes I'm an idiot) a pillow case and a huge oil funnel (new of course) work well. Just have to keep moving the pillow case cause it clogs fast.

[Red Rim]

A while back in my newbie vigor, I thought my yeast was getting hungry so I decided to feed it another 10 lbs of sugar in the middle of a strong ferment. DUMB!!!!
55 gallon fermenter with only the two inch bung hole turned into a corn geyser!!!

[shadylane]

A while back in my newbie vigor, I thought my yeast was getting hungry so I decided to feed it another 10 lbs of sugar in the middle of a strong ferment. DUMB!!!!
55 gallon fermenter with only the two inch bung hole turned into a corn geyser!!!

I've experienced what happens when adding more sugar to a actively fermenting wash.
But not through a 2" hole.

[T-Pee]

Kinda did the same thing recently with a wash that stalled due to low pH.

Added too much calcium carbonate too fast. I could've put out a car fire with all that foam.

tp

[Red Rim]

While I was trying to poison myself with an aluminum pressure cooker and a rubber seal, I made this mistake.
I allowed my tails from my last run to freeze in my worm. Thinking that the heat from the boiler would defrost the line, I didn't worry to much about it. Wrong!!!! The heat from the boiler will never reach the end of your worm without some sort of pressure release down the worm. It turned my rubber seal into the coolest looking flamethrower. 360 degrees of flamethrower action. Like I had created another much, much larger burner. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Like a teenager, sometimes it is amazing we make it through to adulthood.

[aquavita]

Greed is bad.

Have learned the hard way that the turb smell/flavor will carry through the distillation process - even with MULTIPLE runs - there will be the little reminder that it is there.

Never again.

[shadylane]

Finished the last stripping run, shut down the still and opened the drain.
Figured I'd clean up in the morning.
Walked into the shop and the end of the garden hose had blown off some time in the night.
No big thing with a cement floor.
It needed washed down any way.
But I'm going to hate the next water bill.

[Truckinbutch]

Finished the last stripping run, shut down the still and opened the drain.
Figured I'd clean up in the morning.
Walked into the shop and the end of the garden hose had blown off some time in the night.
No big thing with a cement floor.
It needed washed down any way.
But I'm going to hate the next water bill.

Had the same thing happen Little things like that can really screw ya and they are so easy to forget at the end of a long session in the still house .

[rad14701]

Strain your mash. Even if it's a sugar shine to get the yeast out. Makes for for bready aftertaste shine if you don't! (Yes I'm an idiot) a pillow case and a huge oil funnel (new of course) work well. Just have to keep moving the pillow case cause it clogs fast.

I've never seen a pillow case, old socks, old Tee Shirt, or even a coffee filter strain out yeast... Letting it clear until the yeast and trub drops and then siphoning is the best method... I even rack into secondaries, let it clear again, and then rack into my boiler... Only then do I consider it as cleared of yeast as I can get it...

[bearriver]

Bear River, is now a Bear Lake.

You already know the story.

[dsly1]

Strain your mash. Even if it's a sugar shine to get the yeast out. Makes for for bready aftertaste shine if you don't! (Yes I'm an idiot) a pillow case and a huge oil funnel (new of course) work well. Just have to keep moving the pillow case cause it clogs fast.

I've never seen a pillow case, old socks, old Tee Shirt, or even a coffee filter strain out yeast... Letting it clear until the yeast and trub drops and then siphoning is the best method... I even rack into secondaries, let it clear again, and then rack into my boiler... Only then do I consider it as cleared of yeast as I can get it...

Did a surprising excellent job!
I strained it twice but totally didn't have to. I'll be doing that from now on

[bearriver]

Tough week, my billy badass pump that I also use for another hobby burned up mid spirit run. Hopefully it's under warranty. Otherwise that will be a $200 dollar bill. What happened was it wasn't grounded properly. So when I stuck my hand in the reservoir to feel the temperature, I got blasted hard enough to knock me down and ruin the pump.

Then the still was severely damaged in 3 separate places by someone who decided to help me move it without permission, along with the propane regulator. It took me a full day of work and 12 gallons of sac wash to get the still operational again. Then it was 32 bucks plus an hour each way to the hardware store to replace the damned LP regulator

Moral of the story: Ground your wires, and don't let ANYONE touch your shit.

[W Pappy]

Damn son you is one lucky fella that could have ended up in fire.Did they at least shut the gas off rite away?

[bearriver]

The still was disassembled and put away. I would have never knowingly let someone touch it.

2 separate instances in the same week... Grrr...

[apdb]

After the worlds longest build in the history of mankind... I finally completed my 2" Concentric/Hybrid (Rads) with reflux return. (post pics in another thread) Took me some time to get the return just right and lined up just nicely. I got it all soldered up and finished. I stood it up on end and admired my first attempt at building a still. I was so proud, I decided I got to take a nice photo of my handy work. Now where the hell is my camera? Right.... it's in the other room. Away I go to get my camera in hurry but oh oh, smash!!!!! I come back to see my 6 feet of 2" reflux still lying on the floor mangled. My 3/8" tubing all bent outta shape. My needle valve twisted up. My liebig lieing the wrong direction. My water inlet kinked. FRACK!!!!!!!
Time for bed.

[pounsfos]

My cousin nwas interested in learning how to distill
I was at work and told him to fire up the still for me so when I got home it will be all heated up and ready to go (saving 2.5 hours of wait time)
I got home, he had turned it on but didnt turn the water on
I lost about 6 litres of good stuff out the top (was a spirit run)

Bugger

[apdb]

Stupid bird.
Re-work it tomorrow. It can suck my ball
Time for bed