Is my Still working?

[WU Moonshine]

I first became interested in creating my own liquor a few months ago. I started doing research and found out a couple of things. What I came up with was a pot still that by most distiller's standards would be sub par. I have a attached a few pictures to this post to see if my still, as ugly as it is, would work. I have tried three washes of honey shine.

My ingredients for my honey shine are as follows:
1 quart of honey
4 lbs sugar
1.25 gallons of water
About 2-3 grams turbo yeast

I heat the water up to about 120 degrees F. and pour the honey into the pot. I then mix the sugar in, and let the mix cool.
Once the mix has reached about 80 degrees F. I pour the turbo yeast into the mash. I let the mash ferment for 14 days, and during those 14 days I do not touch it or do anything to it. I then distill the mash and this is where the confusion sets in.

The first time I distilled this mash, I yielded about 1 liter of about 68% ABV and it tasted amazing. The problem is the past two times I have done the same recipe, I have yielded nothing. The yield smells like yeast and it has a milky color to it. I also have ran into the problem on my last run that when I distill, the liquid comes out and it is perfectly clear, but then the worm seems to squirt out a bunch of milky substance, and it ruins whatever was in my collection pot.

I am probably doing multiple things wrong here, but that is why I am asking for y'alls help. Any information/help would be great!

[junkyard dawg]

looks like a plastic tube you are using for a worm.

Why turbo yeast?

kinda sounds like its puking....

[WU Moonshine]

The plastic tubing connects the arm to the worm. I know that this blog strongly discourages using plastic tubing, but it was the best thing I could find to use. The worm itself is copper. I use turbo yeast because that's the only type of liquor yeast that my local brew shop has. It's liquor quik 20% ABV turbo yeast. Are these two things bad?

[junkyard dawg]

The tubing is very bad. You'd be best not to drink anything that came through it. There is no plastic tubing that is safe for hot ethanol. It could be milky from chemicals leaching out of it.

The turbo yeast just tastes bad. You can use any of the yeasts the brew shop has. Ale yeasts, ec 1118, champagne yeasts... bakers yeast are all better choices.

When I say puking, what I mean is that is sounds like the boiler is foaming up and coming over to the worm.

[WU Moonshine]

So you are suggesting that I should just use copper piping throughout the entire system? And thanks for the yeast advice. Also, does my recipe look good? I found it on the internet and it seems to work but I am open to any other recipe ideas.

[Dnderhead]

id say it did not ferment. way to much sugar.the sugar alone is 22% add the honey it is something like 33%
double the water and add plain yeast (no nutrients) their still there.

[junkyard dawg]

yeah, what Dnderhead said.

We got some good recipes here. Pull up a chair and check out the forums and Homedistiller.org. You'll find much good advice to do this stuff right. Good luck to ya!

[junkyard dawg]

forgot... yes, copper the whole way. You can get little unions to put it together. Take your time, patience pays off with this stuff.

[dakotasnake]

just a side note, putting a cpl. unions on is a good idea, makes it better for taking apart and staching away plus cleaning. iv had good luck with bakers yeast like red star from the local grocery store, beats the hell out of turbos.

[castle]

Ok I'm doing my first post so here we go ....you must use cooper or stainless all the way to the collection jar or you could make yourself or someone sick.....when putting on your fittings it is also a good idea to use silver solder cost a little more but better safe then sorry now onto the mash you really don't need to add the sugar the honey will do the job just fine ... That should take care of your problems...