Home Distiller

I've been homebrewing for over ten years and decided to expand my horizons. I bought several gallons of cheap table wine (carlo rossi chablis) just for the nice glass jugs. Instead of dumping the wine I decided to run it through the still as a test before my first "real" batch later this week. I have a rum that is fermenting right now and I feel comfortable that I worked out some kinks and issues in my setup before that batch.

Unfortunately the distilling concentrated the bad aspects of the cheap table wine flavor for much of the distillate. There is a harsh, sharp aroma in the first half of the run which was a negative quality to the table wine though in obviously much less concentration. I may have to make a fairly narrow cut on this one, though I'm not sure how much of that harsh aroma will subside with aging. There is one jar of hearts that is absolutely divine and I'm half tempted to just sneak off with that and dump the rest. I plan to oak for a month or so on some medium toast oak chips I have.

If this was your very first run it might have also cleaned out the crap from inside the still. That might be what you are tasting in the distillate that gives it a bad taste.

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Nice fermenters!

.......and lose the silicone hose (or whatever it is) on your product output! That there is making some nasty flavors, fo' sho!

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Soggy Bottom Boy wrote:.

Nice fermenters!

.......and lose the silicone hose (or whatever it is) on your product output! That there is making some nasty flavors, fo' sho!

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Thanks! I also use a fleet of better bottle carboys but the conicals are nice because they look good enough that I can leave them on the kitchen counter and don't need to occupy my precious closet space (nyc apartment).

The manifest and instructions for the still just listed the output hose as "chemical tolerant hose" but it definitely feels different than my other silicone hosing I use elsewhere in brewing. Its very light and bendy vs. the normal extra rigid and opaque silicone. I've never heard of odor or flavor leaching from silicone, but I'll look into it.

That looks like a super setup.
I'm on the same path....I've been making homemade wines for about 10+ years now also. I just put together a simple unit, did a cleaning run and ran a batch of wine through it. Got so excited it was working I forgot to collect the foreshot and heads! saved the tails though. Not sure if I can rerun the collected liquids again. Im just new today to the forum, I'll post some pictures of my simple build later.
I'm planning on turning many of my wines into brandies, also I have dessert wines which I may incorporate into the brandy after bringing it back down to a 40% ish level. Trial an error I guess, hopefully less errors.

*edit* posted a picture of my basic unit

Just to be on the safe side I would dump the plastics from anywhere in the process other than cooling lines. I would be willing to bet that over the course of a few runs you will see the plastic hoses start to break down if it is coming into contact with final product in any way. After they start to breakdown and you see what they have become - take a long had look and understand why you dont want to use them - you are drinking that stuff!

Other than that - shiny and nice!!

The only plastic is for the cooling. The line leading from the condenser to the collector is silicone, which another user in this thread said was bad but I haven't been able to confirm that. I soaked a piece of that tube in vodka overnight and didn't notice any leached smell or flavor.

I guess my question is - why risk it? Unless you have the means to have the final product tested that there is no residue coming across - copper tubing is cheap enough right?


Meh to each his own and as for mine I wont have any plastics or silicone. but then thats just me.

Did you distill it twice ? Brandy is way better with a second pass

While we are in criticism mode there is also the rubber bung at the top of the column....same thing, recommend it go too.

So start here...http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... =35&t=5090

Then in here...lots of good reading...http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=33

But I do like your set up...are you single? My wife wouldn't let me leave my "hobby stuff" sitting on the counter or for that natter anywhere the company could see it....bad enough they can smell it while its fermenting...I just say I make sauerkraut and beer...which I do.

beelah wrote:While we are in criticism mode there is also the rubber bung at the top of the column....same thing, recommend it go too.

It may be that you have already done it, but an expedient stop gap is to wrap it in multiple layers of PTFE plumbers tape - PTFE is PROVEN completely high temperature alcohol safe; one of the forum members (an industrial chemist) boiled it in 90+ %ABV ethanol and then put the boiled booze in a MAZ-Spec and determined that nothing had leached.
No other synthetics come with this assurance or have an MSDA to back them up as PTFE does.

This all said I LOVE your beautiful conical fermenters - so jealous i don't even have the words . . .

Good luck, have fun, stay safe

Did some of those smells contain a sulfur odor? I had that issue wish some I just did....potassium metabisulfate as a preservative....?
Did you get your brandy onto oak yet? I've got some light toasted American chips and some medium toasted French chips, not sure where I want to go here yet.