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jellybellyma wrote: ↑Thu Jan 04, 2024 9:50 am Filled my first barrel ever with rum, I'm so excited already, but waiting is so hard!

It’s worth it though. I pulled some roughly 2 year old rum out of that BadMo to make room for the tribute rum, and OMG is that good! By far the best I’ve made, in my opinion.

Finished a neutral run of WPOSW that I started yesterday. Refluxed with my 2" packed column at about 70ml / hour take-off once into hearts. Hen I restarted today I took fores until the smell cleaned up then carried on. Got another 3 jars before I noticed the severe slow down from the VM head. The last 200ml took about 45 mins so I called it quits and powered down.

Also finally understand why VMs slow down when tails come.

3 litres odins gin. Bottled at 50%abv.

Edited. With fresh picked juniper berries

Bradster68 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 07, 2024 8:00 am 3 litres odins gin. Bottled at 50%abv.

Edited. With fresh picked juniper berries

You guys who have access to wild juniper are so spoiled!

MooseMan wrote: ↑Sun Jan 07, 2024 10:09 am

Bradster68 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 07, 2024 8:00 am 3 litres odins gin. Bottled at 50%abv.

Edited. With fresh picked juniper berries

You guys who have access to wild juniper are so spoiled!

It's one of the dominant bushes we're I am.
But picky as hell getting em

Bradster68 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 07, 2024 12:44 pm

MooseMan wrote: ↑Sun Jan 07, 2024 10:09 am

Bradster68 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 07, 2024 8:00 am 3 litres odins gin. Bottled at 50%abv.

Edited. With fresh picked juniper berries

You guys who have access to wild juniper are so spoiled!

It's one of the dominant bushes we're I am.
But picky as hell getting em

Wow really Brad!

The dominant fruit producing plant here are blackberries and we make gallons of wine every year with them.
Also pretty spiky!

But I'd kill for access to juniper.

MooseMan wrote: ↑Sun Jan 07, 2024 1:13 pm

Bradster68 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 07, 2024 12:44 pm

MooseMan wrote: ↑Sun Jan 07, 2024 10:09 am

Bradster68 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 07, 2024 8:00 am 3 litres odins gin. Bottled at 50%abv.

Edited. With fresh picked juniper berries

You guys who have access to wild juniper are so spoiled!

It's one of the dominant bushes we're I am.
But picky as hell getting em

Wow really Brad!

The dominant fruit producing plant here are blackberries and we make gallons of wine every year with them.
Also pretty spiky!

But I'd kill for access to juniper.

I'm thinking black berry brandy

Bradster68 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 07, 2024 2:57 pm

MooseMan wrote: ↑Sun Jan 07, 2024 1:13 pm

Bradster68 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 07, 2024 12:44 pm

MooseMan wrote: ↑Sun Jan 07, 2024 10:09 am

You guys who have access to wild juniper are so spoiled!

It's one of the dominant bushes we're I am.
But picky as hell getting em

Wow really Brad!

The dominant fruit producing plant here are blackberries and we make gallons of wine every year with them.
Also pretty spiky!

But I'd kill for access to juniper.

I'm thinking black berry brandy

Haha yeah so have I, if I can keep the Mrs out of it long enough to distill some before next wine season!

MooseMan wrote: ↑Sun Jan 07, 2024 11:08 pm Haha yeah so have I, if I can keep the Mrs out of it long enough to distill some before next wine season!

Blackberry wine tends to involve the addition of sugar, but if you want that flavour to carry over, you'll want to ferment the natural sugars and distill that. Which means a lot of picking.

I missed sloe season last year due to an excessive of Real Life, but the previous year I started a batch of sloe wine for distilling. 21kg of sloes netted me around 2L of low wines which I've yet to distill. I don't think I need to explain the time investment of picking 21kg of sloes! Maybe try making a geist first before committing to harvesting 100s of kgs of blackberries!

NormandieStill wrote: ↑Mon Jan 08, 2024 12:42 am

MooseMan wrote: ↑Sun Jan 07, 2024 11:08 pm Haha yeah so have I, if I can keep the Mrs out of it long enough to distill some before next wine season!

Blackberry wine tends to involve the addition of sugar, but if you want that flavour to carry over, you'll want to ferment the natural sugars and distill that. Which means a lot of picking.

I missed sloe season last year due to an excessive of Real Life, but the previous year I started a batch of sloe wine for distilling. 21kg of sloes netted me around 2L of low wines which I've yet to distill. I don't think I need to explain the time investment of picking 21kg of sloes! Maybe try making a geist first before committing to harvesting 100s of kgs of blackberries!

Wow. Not a good return on investment.
Maybe I'll stick with juniper picking

Bradster68 wrote: ↑Mon Jan 08, 2024 3:47 am Wow. Not a good return on investment.
Maybe I'll stick with juniper picking

That depends... the low wines smell amazing, and bad cuts aside, my first attempt (which was my first distilled spirit) shows real potential. Somewhere around here I published a list of fruits and their approximate yield per 100kg. It's a good way of deciding if something is worth trying or not.

NormandieStill wrote: ↑Mon Jan 08, 2024 8:56 am

Bradster68 wrote: ↑Mon Jan 08, 2024 3:47 am Wow. Not a good return on investment.
Maybe I'll stick with juniper picking

That depends... the low wines smell amazing, and bad cuts aside, my first attempt (which was my first distilled spirit) shows real potential. Somewhere around here I published a list of fruits and their approximate yield per 100kg. It's a good way of deciding if something is worth trying or not.

I don't doubt that abit. Usually when something requires that much work it's usually worth the effort. Any fruit where your not adding sugar makes a huge difference.

Made my first HBB. Almost 3ysr into this hole and iv finally made the HBB.
It sure taste nice cooking. Pitch yeast in the morn

Yesterday and today I did stripping runs on my latest AG bourbon.
From a 24.5 gallon (92+ L) mash I siphoned off 13.5 gal (51 L) clear beer, leaving 11 gal (41.5 L) thick mash. I'm reserving 3.5 gal (13 L) beer to add to the low wines.
1st was a steam strip of 11 gal thick mash, using my new steam injector downtube. I went down to 5% off the spout and had no issues with either exposing the element in the steam gen or overflowing the boiler.
2nd was a normal strip of 10 gal beer, down to 5% off the spout.

One thing that surprised me was that each strip yielded exactly the same quantity at the exact same ABV. Had I squeezed the 11 gal thick mash I may have gotten 5-6 gallons (19-23 L) of beer pudding, so my yield was quite a bit higher than usual.

Last night I siphoned and squeezed 37 gallons of bourbon beer off a grain bill of 70# corn, 10# rye and 10# barley malt. Destined for a badmo clone at least three years.

Mashed in 20 gallons of SCD CROW. Been doing rum for so long that I forgot how much work AG is!

Yesterday I blended and proofed an AG batch of corn something or other lol. Not sure what to call it because its my own frankenstein. I guess technically it could be considered a bourbon if aged correctly. 14 lb cracked corn, 7 lb malted barley, 1.5 pounds oats in 12 gallons of water. Ran 4 ferments, stripped each and then spirit run on Saturday. It was more or less an experiment in AG corn with barley to convert... Honestly kind of a PITA cause it only yielded about 6% ABV per wash. I may add sugar the next time to bump that to about 9-10%

Whatever it is, its very tasty . Anways, I put a half gallon on oak cubes at 115 proof, kept the rest white. I'm looking forward to that half gallon in a year or so

wscywabbit wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 9:48 am Yesterday I blended and proofed an AG batch of corn something or other lol. Not sure what to call it because its my own frankenstein. I guess technically it could be considered a bourbon if aged correctly. 14 lb cracked corn, 7 lb malted barley, 1.5 pounds oats in 12 gallons of water. Ran 4 ferments, stripped each and then spirit run on Saturday. It was more or less an experiment in AG corn with barley to convert... Honestly kind of a PITA cause it only yielded about 6% ABV per wash. I may add sugar the next time to bump that to about 9-10%

Whatever it is, its very tasty . Anways, I put a half gallon on oak cubes at 115 proof, kept the rest white. I'm looking forward to that half gallon in a year or so

Please don't add sugar. 6%-8% is the sweet spot for all grain. If you need more, at sugar to the spent grains, refill with water and ferment a second time for sugar head.

ShineonCrazyDiamond wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 9:56 am

wscywabbit wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 9:48 am Yesterday I blended and proofed an AG batch of corn something or other lol. Not sure what to call it because its my own frankenstein. I guess technically it could be considered a bourbon if aged correctly. 14 lb cracked corn, 7 lb malted barley, 1.5 pounds oats in 12 gallons of water. Ran 4 ferments, stripped each and then spirit run on Saturday. It was more or less an experiment in AG corn with barley to convert... Honestly kind of a PITA cause it only yielded about 6% ABV per wash. I may add sugar the next time to bump that to about 9-10%

Whatever it is, its very tasty . Anways, I put a half gallon on oak cubes at 115 proof, kept the rest white. I'm looking forward to that half gallon in a year or so

Please don't add sugar. 6%-8% is the sweet spot for all grain. If you need more, at sugar to the spent grains, refill with water and ferment a second time for sugar head.

Good to know, thanks for the feedback. I guess I'd just assumed that the preferred ABV for washes was around 9% +/-... see, learning

Brewed up a partial mash Franziskaner kit since I had an empty keg slot since Xmas. It's in my 6 gal Torpedo Keg pressure fermenter.

Did a sugarhead on the 'spent' grains to make a small batch of whiskey!

I have a just over a liter of product oaking on this same process from the Blue Moon clone I did back in Aug '23. Great way to get 2 uses out of a beer kit!!!

trying out a new gin recipe. Trying a little allspice in this one (along with the juniper, coriander, and cinnamon). Used UJSSM triple distilled as the base.

rubberduck71 wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 11:12 am Brewed up a partial mash Franziskaner kit since I had an empty keg slot since Xmas. It's in my 6 gal Torpedo Keg pressure fermenter.

Did a sugarhead on the 'spent' grains to make a small batch of whiskey!

I have a just over a liter of product oaking on this same process from the Blue Moon clone I did back in Aug '23. Great way to get 2 uses out of a beer kit!!!

I also brew quite a bit of beer, and usually just dump the grains out back for the deer. Do you get decent flavor out of the 2nd use of grains using them this way?

wscywabbit wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 3:00 pm I also brew quite a bit of beer, and usually just dump the grains out back for the deer. Do you get decent flavor out of the 2nd use of grains using them this way?

This is just my 2nd batch doing this, but I don't see it being much different than doing a sugarhead on a whiskey wash (other than smaller scale since a beer batch is just 6-10 lbs total for 5 gal).

Doing sugarheads on my larger whiskey washes is standard protocol for me. I'm a Yellow Label lazy-bum, so fermenting on grain anyway... Helps keep your paws off the all-grain while it ages.

Working on the stripping runs for an all-raisin based brandy.

Ended up with a gravity of 1.059, but chapitalized with a bochet honey to 1.085.

The low wines have a great aroma and flavor. Im super excited to see how the spirit run goes.

Also, currently sipping on an LME based single malt that aged in a char #3 french oak Ten30 barrel for 3 years. Ended up at 60.4% and it is so rich and complex.

Stripped a panela rum, cleaned out the fermentor and added 25lbs of milled oats and 55lbs of milled corn added 30 gallons of water and pitched YLAY

Reflux run 2nd part of feints.
Total of 60 litres of feints at 40%
Got 9 litres of gin base.

Maceration of oeg triple batch. Rosemary and rooibos expresso added

Set in 5 gal of plum mead. Running low now so time to refill. Probably do a few gallons of bouchet tomorrow. Too damn cold here for stillin’ now.

Final distillation of the panela rum. All of the little figertip samples during the run have been heavy on caramel aroma, nice!

Covid has me stuck at home, but unlike last time, I still have my sense of taste and smell, so I'm spirit running a 70/30 Rye and Malted barley.

70/30 Rye and Malted barley is a great remedy for covid i have heard