Home Distiller

So I was curious as we've all had these "aha" moments, or traveled and tried to replicate something. What is the weirdest thing you've tried to ferment or distill? I am too new to have any great stories but I did help with a project to distill ethanol based hand sanitizer when working in a geography that we didn't have alcohol, mail service or time to do a full ferment... It was miserable but funny. I have heard of airag, the Mongolian fermented mares (as in horse milk).... But never been around it, not sure what to think of it.... But hey someone tried. And googe you can't use your kale wash, we already know that one....it is awesome though.

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Oh come on googe, cheer up. I think your kale tops somebodies kool-aid.

Haven't had the guts to try your compost heap juice yet googe? Haha

I'm fermenting some Jam at the moment. Diluted about 1.5kg of Damson Jam with water to 4.5l, then popped in some pectolase for 24 hours then added some yeast. Still bubbling away. Might not be enough for a decent boiler charge so will probably top up with another 5l water (to give approx. 6% ABV) for a small potstill run.

Weevils!

By accident of course. Booze tasted just dandy.

Dandelions...... Yummy..

WIski wrote:Dandelions...... Yummy..

I've been trying to find dandelions to make some wine. I hear it's fantastic. Usually it's infested around me, but of course now that I WANT Them, I seem to just miss them and find a field of fluff. Wonder how it would be distilled too. If I find enough, I'll be trying for sure!

***edit***. After a bit of research, I won't be running dandelion wine through the still.

The weirdest thing I've fermented and distilled? Horse shit and sugar.
It's been many years since I did this on a dare.
For a 5 gallon wash.
7 pounds of sugar
1 shovel full of fresh horse apples
2 or 3 gallons of boiling water.
And enough cold water to top off the buckets.
Ferment and distill as normal. 3 five gallon striping runs and a spirit run.
Based on the ingredients it should have tasted like shit. It didn't
The person who dared me to make it, unknowingly helped to drink it.

shadylane wrote:The weirdest thing I've fermented and distilled? Horse shit and sugar.

Based on the ingredients it should have tasted like shit. It didn't
The person who dared me to make it, unknowingly helped to drink it.

Have you ever told him?

tp

Yes, and he threatened to shoot me.
I wasn't worried, To do it, he would of had to borrow my weapon.

Figs, it don't sound weird but it sure do taste it
Oh yeah and sugar and clover, and that turned out a great neutral, go figure

My old man made a clover wine. Tastes like honey water. I would make it but I don't have the patience to pick that many flowers. I had a batch of naturally ripened cheese start to ferment, haven't been able to do it again since I started stillin.

Manure was sometimes used as a nutrient. High in nitrogen. I think the Alaska bootleggers bible even has a recipe for shine that includes it. think about it, fertilizer is used by some here...manure is fertilizer, just in its more raw state.

The first thing I ever fermented was grass. I did it for a high school physics project. I can't say what it tasted like but I did run it in the lawn mower to cut grass for subsequent batches. Among other things, I concluded that using alcohol as fuel would never be cheaper than fossil fuel until fossil fuel became scarce. That was back in 1982 and it still isn't cost effective today.

Here's the recipe:
1. Mow the lawn.
2. 1 full bag of grass clippings (10 lbs.)
3. Juice from 2 lbs sweet potatoes ( enzymes )
4. 5 gallons of water
5. Combine all ingredients and heat to 150 for 1 hr.
6. Ferment and distill

moosemilk wrote:

WIski wrote:Dandelions...... Yummy..

I've been trying to find dandelions to make some wine. I hear it's fantastic. Usually it's infested around me, but of course now that I WANT Them, I seem to just miss them and find a field of fluff. Wonder how it would be distilled too. If I find enough, I'll be trying for sure!

***edit***. After a bit of research, I won't be running dandelion wine through the still.

I'v done distilled dandelion wine it was good... think distilled sunshine

Kool aid sounds so artificial moosemilk lol. It's good tokoroa . I like the sound of dandelions!. Cows live on it mitchy, must have something in it!.

What NOT to run through your still . ..
by frozenthunderbolt » Sun Oct 09, 2011 7:13 pm
Most of us knew about not running beer,

I can add to that list do not run dandelion wine, no matter how free it is, as the bitter compounds will carryover to your whiskey feints run f****** it to hell even after flushing the column with boiling water. I'm going to try re-running it with a tincture of dill and a tincture of mint and see if it would be appropriate for an absinthe base.

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... n#p6929688

Don't think I want to chance it...until I have a second still just in case.

moosemilk wrote:What NOT to run through your still . ..
by frozenthunderbolt » Sun Oct 09, 2011 7:13 pm
Most of us knew about not running beer,

I can add to that list do not run dandelion wine, no matter how free it is, as the bitter compounds will carryover to your whiskey feints run f****** it to hell even after flushing the column with boiling water. I'm going to try re-running it with a tincture of dill and a tincture of mint and see if it would be appropriate for an absinthe base.

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... n#p6929688

Don't think I want to chance it...until I have a second still just in case.

It’s pretty labor intensive picking all those flowers too... the recipe I used you made tea out of the flowers and added the juice of a few oranges and some sugar so I couldn’t speak to its legitimacy. At any rate I didn’t know any better at the time “I only had a 3 gallon still” but in nostalgia witch is often inaccurate I quite liked it. At any rate it would suck to put off flavors in your still doing a silly experiment.

Shady, while manure makes sense from a nutrient perspective you are a braver man than I running that through your still....I bet the tails had a certain special kinda funk to them.

Rockchucker, I usually think of pine nuts as being really fatty without a lot of starch or sugar, how'd it turn out and what made you think to go down that road.

As for dandelion wine, I have only had it a couple times and always from a little german community nearby, their version is super sweet, almost like a dandelion port.... I assume there are probably better versions out there than what I've had, maybe I'll try out a clover or dandelion wine next summer, lord knows they grow freely enough here....

Most of us knew about not running beer,

Yeah bout that , I have ran beer and know plenty of others who have (kiwikeg comes to mind among others) and it has worked out to be a find drink. beer schnapps or beirbrandt is a pretty common moonshine among germanic ppl and has been for centuries . I have heard all the stories about how if you run beer you can throw your still and boiler in the trash and the product will be undrinkable, let me assure y'all that that is a load of crap, i think likely just a theory dreamed up by someone thinking about hops oil but not actually knowing anything about it, repeat a story often enough and it becomes the excepted truth. Truth is if hops oil ruins your still then don't ever make rum as it would have 10 times the oil and for sure never run a fatty grain like oats, sorghum (and many many more) as they would have 50 times the oil. Any residue hops oil that might make it into the still in very late tails (if you chose to collect very late tails) would be washed out in the first few millilitres of the fores of the next run

I was wondering about that myself, crow. I figured fors would clean up a lot. But I'm new, so thanks for clarifying some myths. I will still wait to try experiments though until I have a second still, just in case. I ran hook rum today, then flushed the hell outta my still before starting my stripping run of ujssm. Shoulda done other way round but wasn't sure how much time I had In the day, and the rum has already been waiting. I have a couple feet of copper sheet, maybe I'll build a mini still just to see the effects various washes may have. Then turn the boiler into a flower pot and the cap into a water can for a really interesting conversation piece.

ive fermented and distilled both root beer and a Scottish drink called irn bru. root beer was awesome irn bru not so much.

I also had a crazy idea of tomato and garlic that I was going to flavour with basil. the tomato and garlic fermented up a treat but it was far to think to put in the still and was pored down the drain before anyone could try it

eck