My Journey

[raketemensch]

Heh, I went from a stockpot to a keg That was a big step.

This was my first spirit run with the larger volume.

[skow69]

Oh, thank god. I thought you'd gone through the roof there for a bit. 50%+ is pretty aggressive in my world, but I know some guys cut like that all the time. Maybe their ferments are cleaner.

[raketemensch]

Oh, thank god. I thought you'd gone through the roof there for a bit. 50%+ is pretty aggressive in my world, but I know some guys cut like that all the time. Maybe their ferments are cleaner.

Yeah, I've always cut really tight, for some reason this batch just worked out well. Maybe it was the long, slow boil to get up to speed? Most of what I ran had been aging for 3+ weeks before running, too.

I even ran the cuts past my wife, who is super picky about these things, and she loved it.

The ferment went in 3-4 days, it was my fastest UJSSM run yet. This current 5th gen batch did not go as well... I'll hopefully get to strip it this weekend.

[skow69]

Congratulations. Sounds like it's really coming together.

[HDNB]

congrats on a great run!

it's amazing what a slower, steady run can do with a bit more volume. it just pours it's heart out, doesn't it?


now we just gotta fix that friggin electricy issue.

[raketemensch]

I killed my 5th gen UJ.

It's been stuck at 1.01 for at last a week now. The ph dropped down to about 3, which is probably because I over-sugared due to a mis-calculation with my first brix conversions. I actually had the wash at 1.0965, which seems crazy high. I got the ph back up to somewhere between 5 and 6, which I believe is ideal, but it didn't start back up again. I just threw in a small yeast bomb (with the same baker's yeast I started with) to try to get it to finish up. I'm not sure if I need to start over or not, we'll see if I can get this to recover. Since yeast thrives on dead yeast, maybe there's a huge party starting as I write this. Meanwhile I have a few gallons of Gen4 backset in the freezer just in case.

Learning curve, baby. I had the temp controlled, but too much sugar and no oyster shells killed me. I think the oyster shells might have overtaken the extra sugar by keeping the ph up, but I dunno for sure. Either way, they'll be part of my sour mash/wash plan from now on.

This means that I have nothing to strip tomorrow, so I'm getting some other work done in the meantime. I'm re-wiring the controller (again), even though I found nothing wrong with the way it was wired, and no copper exposed to create shorts. I'm off to Home Depot in a few to get some larger gauge wire nuts, as the ones I'm using just barely work, and are probably too small for the task. I'm also going to look for larger... whatever those things are called that you pass the wires through into the box. The things with the clamps? The drier cord is super fat, it just barely fits through the ones I have.

I am also finally going to take some time to finish building the fins for the top of my column. During last weekend's run I accidentally created some early reflux during fores collection, and it seems to have allowed me to make wider cuts. After a ton of reading this week, I think that having even a little reflux can help equilibrate the liquids in the boil to make collection cleaner.

It seems like this is a pretty large grey area because of how we tend to talk about distillation -- reflux is for neutrals, and pot stills are for flavor. There's very little talk about reflux for flavor, even though the flutists (flautists?) are doing tons of reflux and pulling full-flavored stuff at 85-90+%. Sure, the plates are the majority of that, but the reflux has to have something to do with it. I'll be digging more into this in the weeks to come.

[skow69]

Check out Making Pure Corn Whiskey by Ian Smiley.

[raketemensch]

Check out Making Pure Corn Whiskey by Ian Smiley.

I'm back to reading it again, I keep switching back and forth between that and "Designing and Building Automatic Stills."

They're both full of really good information and some really bad information, and you spend a lot of time translating things to fit your own scenario. The guy in the automation book is putting heating elements in plastic 5-gallon buckets. Ian's building stills out of hot water heaters, with no mention of the boiler material. I enjoy both books, but both authors rub me the wrong way a bit. Ian's got a "THIS is the only correct way" tone sometimes.

Overall this was a pretty sweet weekend for me, even if I didn't run anything. I got my electrical situation worked out finally, which is just HUGE in terms of my progression path. The controller's working and mounted solidly in its box, and I also installed some CPU fans on the top and bottom of the box to push/pull air through. Just by chance, the fan on top also has some LEDs built into it, which lets me know that it's plugged in and running.

I also bought the materials for turning the stockpot still into a thumper, and got them all laid out and planned. I'm ordering a big 2.5" cork so I can drop stuff in there once I'm done drawing fores and am working my way through the heads. It will also allow me to plug up the thumper plumbing and still use the stockpot as a standalone still when I need it.

I found another keg as well, which I hope to pick up this week. My boiler now is working well, but I'd love to have a drain and a fill port. I don't want to take my current boiler out of commission while getting those things added, so I think I'm just going to build out the new keg with element holes and fill and drain ports and keep this one running. When I get that one done, I can just do stripping runs from one into the other, and be charged and ready to go for the spirit runs once I water down a little.

[rager]

Check out Making Pure Corn Whiskey by Ian Smiley.

I'm back to reading it again, I keep switching back and forth between that and "Designing and Building Automatic Stills."

They're both full of really good information and some really bad information, and you spend a lot of time translating things to fit your own scenario. The guy in the automation book is putting heating elements in plastic 5-gallon buckets. Ian's building stills out of hot water heaters, with no mention of the boiler material. I enjoy both books, but both authors rub me the wrong way a bit. Ian's got a "THIS is the only correct way" tone sometimes.

Overall this was a pretty sweet weekend for me, even if I didn't run anything. I got my electrical situation worked out finally, which is just HUGE in terms of my progression path. The controller's working and mounted solidly in its box, and I also installed some CPU fans on the top and bottom of the box to push/pull air through. Just by chance, the fan on top also has some LEDs built into it, which lets me know that it's plugged in and running.

I also bought the materials for turning the stockpot still into a thumper, and got them all laid out and planned. I'm ordering a big 2.5" cork so I can drop stuff in there once I'm done drawing fores and am working my way through the heads. It will also allow me to plug up the thumper plumbing and still use the stockpot as a standalone still when I need it.

I found another keg as well, which I hope to pick up this week. My boiler now is working well, but I'd love to have a drain and a fill port. I don't want to take my current boiler out of commission while getting those things added, so I think I'm just going to build out the new keg with element holes and fill and drain ports and keep this one running. When I get that one done, I can just do stripping runs from one into the other, and be charged and ready to go for the spirit runs once I water down a little.

i think you have you crossed over the event horizon, your now deep in the rabit hole. if you havent , check into HD anonymous !

cheers

[skow69]

+1. Could we have a moment of silence, please, to commemorate the metamorphosis of rak into raketesuperdistillermensch? I'm sure his family and friends will miss the old rak, but, in time, they will learn to appreciate the new improved version, also.

[raketemensch]

Hey, it's all good, I can stop any time I want to. Really.

I just need to strip this one last batch of UJ. And then make this rum recipe, and then an AG. And finish building this flute.

[Kegg_jam]

And then another flute and a bigger pot still for stripping and shotgun and a.....

Oh. Sorry. This was your denial post not mine.

[raketemensch]

Oh, and build out this keg that I brought home tonight

I'm putting together my parts list, I'm going to do a 3" stainless ferrule fill port with tri-clamped glass in it, and weld on a stainless nut for an element and a stainless nut smack on the bottom for a drain valve.

I've been digging around for quite a while now, looking for info on ball valves, and it looks like everyone is using brass. Is the consensus that the brass is OK because it's just touching liquids, and not vapor?

[Kegg_jam]

There's stainless online but all the affordable stuff comes from China. I think I'm gonna go with one of those supposedly lead free ball valves.

[raketemensch]

There's stainless online but all the affordable stuff comes from China. I think I'm gonna go with one of those supposedly lead free ball valves.

I found this in stainless for $11:

http://www.amazon.com/SuperWhole-Female ... less+valve" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

GlobalMa seems to basically be a Chinese distributor with stock in LA. Strangely, the cheap 1" NPT stainless nuts don't seem to be available in 3/4. I'll have to do a 90 degree elbow and adapt the 1" to 3/4, I guess.

[raketemensch]

Got a couple of new things done today, learned some new stuff, and of course came up with something to fix.

First, I finally got a chance to run everything at 220, which meant that I could finish a whole stripping run in less time than it previously took me just to get the boiler up to its first drops of fores. Very, very nice.

Second, while I can get a decent rate with the air condenser, I've hit its limits. I created some experimental "shrouds" out of cardboard, which basically encompassed the fans and forced the air to pass through the baseboard pipe. It worked fairly well, but I still had to run at less than half power. I haven't added the scrubbies yet, so there is a little bit more performance to gain, but it won't be enough overall to handle the wattage I'd like to throw at it. So I'll have to build a Liebig one of these days, I'm looking at doing a DAD300-style CSST one. I could happily continue to run this way, 2 hours from start to finish isn't horrible at all, but since I'm building a flute this month I'm going to need to be able to knock down a lot more.

The third thing is possibly the best -- I worked from home today, so during my lunch break I got things started, and they were well under way by the time the hour was up. So for the next hour I sat next to the still with my laptop and got a bunch of coding done. It wouldn't work for a spirit run, but for stripping runs it's pretty sweet.

The fourth thing is that I originally got into this to make flavored drinks. I don't mean "whiskey," I mean cordials, that kind of thing. I love Gran Marnier, I love Alizé, I love gin, I love Jaegermeister... Jaeger, IMHO, has gotten a bad rap from all of the promotion it got on college campuses as a party booze, I find it really tasty over ice. But then again, all of that promotion also made them incredibly popular, so I guess there's a tradeoff.

Anyway, I finally made some Apple Pie with a quart from my last spirit run, and it's the beginning of regular deliciousness. I'm going to have to step up production to keep up with my wife, though, who loves it. I'm also working on another recipe, this one an original, which I don't really want to talk about yet.

The thing making me giddiest, though, is that I'm ordering up the parts for my flute tonight. I'm starting out with only 3 plated sections, since that's where the whiskey-makers among us seem to have settled over time. I can always add more later, it'll be modular. And that spreads the purchase costs out more...

I had planned for all of that in December, but now I also have to sort out a PC. On an up note, the guy we bought this house from was very into HAM radio, and right next to my boiler are two plastic tubes that pass through the wall out into the backyard. I can keep a barrel with a bit of RV antifreeze in it right out there all winter long, with hoses passing through the wall

[raketemensch]

Here are some pics of the shrouds I made.They definitely helped a bit, but weren't enough to overcome the wattage I want to throw. They're just duct tape and cardboard for a proof of concept, if I was making them for real they'd probably be wood, and I would use small hooks to hook them onto the radiator fins.

[HDNB]

that looks like it would slow the air down, not speed it up.
try focussing (channelling) the air out of the fan onto the cooling fins and let it spill where it will, i'd bet you would get a better result.

fan>>>fins[[[[air

instead of

fan[[[[fins>>>air

or in plain english, put the shrouds on the bottom of the condensor with the "V" pointing at the fins.

[raketemensch]

Thanks, I'll give that a shot.

As it is, I stripped 11 gallons in a little over 2 hours. I managed to get up to 2/3 power on the 5500 watt element, with distillate at just under 120.

[raketemensch]

Parts for my flute are arriving bit by bit. Here's quick shot:

The sight towers arrive tomorrow, so I can do some test assemblies. So far I've got the piece that will be the dephlegmator (it'll be a CSST piece, not a shotgun), some tri-clamps (I am short one, poor planning, but another one has been ordered), the PTFE gaskets, the perf plates and some bits for the next keg.

I've got the 3/4" pipe for the downcomers, and I'm going to use 1" caps on the bottoms of them, which I should be picking up over the next couple of days. I need to dig up optimal bath depth and the optimal distance between the bottom of the downcomer and the plate below it. I'll be starting a proper build thread tomorrow.

[Kegg_jam]

Since your building a flute, you might as well order up the parts for a shotgun and quit messing around with them base board heaters.

[raketemensch]

Since your building a flute, you might as well order up the parts for a shotgun and quit messing around with them base board heaters.

I'm doing a CSST condenser for this one. Which kinda sucks, it's really nice not to have to deal with pumps/hoses/water/etc. Talk about messing around...

Which reminds me, I need a pump, too. Forgot to add that to the list.

[Kegg_jam]

Yeah, someone recently posted a bitchin' csst condenser for stripping. That thing looked like an elephant gun.

So many cool ideas and so little time....

[HDNB]

ost a link here in case i miss the build thread, looks like you are in for some fun!

[raketemensch]

The thread is started, but without a ton of content yet, here:

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 17&t=59022

I'm finally home from 10 days on the west coast. 48+ hours of travel, and 8 days spent in a trailer in my in-laws' driveway, "working from home" doing east-coast hours on the west coast. Still fun, though, until we *finally* got home after changing flights, to find that our luggage was lost. They found it today, 3 days later. The kids haven't seen their Christmas presents for 4 days now. Hopefully it'll be here tomorrow.

It was *really* nice to get home to my own drop. I've just been mixing it (4th gen UJ) with cider, couldn't be happier.

Anyway, my shopping list for the flute build is shrinking rapidly, I just ordered up 2 48" lengths of 1/2" CSST, one for the dephleg and one for the PC. Now I just need some 1" pipe and and some 1" pipe caps for the downcomers, and I'm good to go.

On a side note, a little over a month ago I made up some vinegar from some leftover Kriek (dark, sour cherry) beer that I'd made. It still has at least another month to go, but I snuck a taste tonight and it's *really* good.

The PTFE gaskets and tri-clamps that I was missing arrived while I was gone, so hopefully tomorrow I can piece everything together, and get started on soldering up the downcomers. Meanwhile, I have 25 gallons of gen 7 UJ ready to run, along with about 7 gallons already stripped.

[raketemensch]

Got quite a bit done this weekend. I moved the chest freezer across the basement to make room for plumbing in a slop sink, which also gives me space for the sink and another 2 or 3 Brute fermenters. I found some nice, big Sterilite containers at Goodwill for cheap last night, which would have been perfect, except they smelled like ash trays. I know I could bleach them and what not, but that smell is pervasive.

I did, however, find a nice, deep colander for $3 that'll hold about a gallon and a half of mash and fits well into the top of a 5-gallon bucket.

I finished up the last of my plates/downcomers, and did a test fit of the whole shebang, only to discover that I'm somehow *still* missing a 4" tri-clamp. I found a US supplier with Prime, so hopefully it'll be here in a couple of days.

I also worked on my new condenser, and discovered that 1/2" CSST won't fit doubled-up inside a 1" pipe. Advertised measurements are pretty much always smaller than they say (like the fact that it's about 46" long instead of 48"), but it turns out that they were actually honest in this case. So I ordered some 3/8, it's coming this week. I at least got the condenser pipe soldered to the 1" threaded connector, and test-mounted it as well:

I also put in an eye hook and pulley up over the keg today to suspend the flute. That sucker is *heavy*, so this will come in handy when I have to pull the keg out to empty it and whatnot. I really need a keg with fill/drain ports. With the 2" column it wasn't such a big deal, but now it'd be really nice to be able to drain/fill/fire right back up again without lifting that behemoth off the top. I'm also putting the sink and drain pump in right next to the boiler, so I'm trying to sort out a good way to plumb a keg drain right into the drain pump. That'd be pretty sweet, but I'd also need to be able to route it to a bucket for hanging onto some backset.

I wandered through Home Depot for a while before finally realizing that the "PT" in "NPT" stands for "Pipe Thread." Just one of the many little bits of learning curve along the way... I finally found some 3/4" NPT stainless nuts on Amazon today, which will let me attach the CSST coil in the dephleg the way I'm planning. They're pretty narrow, and should work. The OD of the threaded bit that I need nuts for is 3/4", so hopefully that's the right measurement -- these things aren't cheap.

Last weekend we managed to move a couch and recliner into the basement, and there's an AppleTV hooked up to an old TV down there, so my wife comes down and hangs out and we watch This Old House or That 70s Show while I get stuff done. Last weekend the boys (7 and 9) came down and we had a Pink Panther cartoon marathon while I was working. One of the main reasons I hope this stuff finally gets legalized is that I could stop telling them that I'm making beer, and really teach them what's going on. The 9 year old has a really good head for recipes and loves to make all kinds of "mixed drinks" on his own, he'd be incredible at this in his 20s if I could really teach him.

Next weekend we're going to meet a litter of puppies (at 5 weeks old) to see if we want to adopt one when they hit 9 weeks. They're Vizslas, so we're off to LI to meet with a breeder. I've never had anything but mutts before, and just feel like this would be an interesting experience to have once in my life. These dogs are just so beautiful.

[raketemensch]

So, lesson learned. I hate NPT.

Who the hell came up with this standard? I have these SS nipples that measure exactly 3/4". Cool, so I just need 3/4" NPT nuts, right? Damn, they're not cheap, but I measured carefully so these should be... WTF?

I dig up a website to explain NPT measurements. First line, in red:

Nominal Pipe sizes do not match any of its actual physical dimensions

Wha? Why would you come up with a system of measurement that doesn't match any of its physical dimensions? I'm sure there's some reason that I just don't know, but it seems insane to me. At ~$6/stainless nut, I'm not a huge fan of this lesson.

But, this page has a chart to help me out. All I have to do is determine if the nipples I have measure:

5/16"
13/32"
35/64"
43/64"
27/32"

Right, because I have all these devices here that measure down to the 64th. I think the last time I ran into 13/32 I was playing an old King Crimson song. Lord.

[HDNB]

Next weekend we're going to meet a litter of puppies (at 5 weeks old) to see if we want to adopt one when they hit 9 weeks. They're Vizslas, so we're off to LI to meet with a breeder. I've never had anything but mutts before, and just feel like this would be an interesting experience to have once in my life. These dogs are just so beautiful.

going to "look" at puppies?

HAHAHA. LOL. ROTFLSH....

you mean you are going to pick out (get adopted by) your new still hand. No such thing as "looking" at pups.

[raketemensch]

going to "look" at puppies?

HAHAHA. LOL. ROTFLSH....

you mean you are going to pick out (get adopted by) your new still hand. No such thing as "looking" at pups.

Oh man, it was puppy overload, there were 8 of them. Did I mention that we brought 7 and 9 year old boys?

I think this is the guy I'm going to hire:

And here are a few of his bretheren:

Such beautiful dogs. We got to meet their mom, too, who was incredibly cool. Now we just have to wait 3 more weeks, then travel back out to LI again.

[raketemensch]

This was a pretty crazy weekend for me, which I documented a lot of here.

I got all 3 cleaning runs done in one day, without fill/drain ports or any running water in the basement... I've been unmounting/remounting that huge-ass column, carrying the keg in and out the basement door, and filling a 30-gallon barrel with cold water by dragging 5-gallon buckets up and down the stairs.

Of course, it was all worth it. Next weekend I'll finally get to run off the 8th-gen UJ in the new flute, I can't wait. Gotta remember to pick up sugar for starting the 9th gen and an in-line spigot for getting some running water in the basement. I also need to keep an eye out for a cheap pump to get some of the hot water out of the barrel so I can re-fill it.

I'd also like to move the barrel outside, as there are tubes passing through the basement wall right next to where I run the still -- the guy I bought the house from was a HAM radio guy, and I think he must've had antenna wires passing through them. Incredibly convenient, really. Some part of my brain is also working on using some of the finned baseboard to cool water on the return back outside...