Home Distiller

Greetings from the Eastside of Puget Sound in Washington State. I've been reading the board from end to end as one path of expanding my understanding. I'm here to learn and explore history.

Thanks to all who have posted their experience and wisdoms, I hope to follow in your example.

Keigan

Welcome to the HD forums. Do you have a still, or started a build? Let us know a little about what you like and where you currently are in the hobby.

Thank you for your first post and stay safe.

Welcome to HD!
Hope you enjoy the forums ..And the Parent Site!
Good Luck and Be Safe.

Greetings from yet another WA member.

Do you have a brother in the Air Force? If so, we know each other.

thank you all for the warm welcome. Sorry, no blood brothers though a few Colorado Springs based folks know the basis for my handle/screen name, I competed with "Hoser" at the Pueblo range fairly frequently.

I have a new sweetheart with a 12 year old daughter - they are both helping me understand the importance of living life to the fullest is so many good ways. Part of that is a commitment towards positioning ourselves in front of what many would consider as the collapse of the US Dollar. In WA we pay significant taxes on distilled spirits, our budget has reached the extreme of stop here or find other avenues. When we step back and calculate the advantages of knowing a skill vs. knowing of a skill - the math paints a very clear picture for the sustainability of our hobbies, habits, consumption towards HOW we spend our time. Hence, we are learning, we are learning to know and preparing a readiness towards the application of the knowing as budget and situations afford and require. We are grateful for all that has been posted on this site, for those contributions towards a broader understanding - we hope to some day make the same contributions. Until that time, we'll keep the questions to a search first.

Friday, UPS delivery with an adult signature required from MileHigh, 4 plate copper. We went the extreme route with a Blichmann 14.5 fermentor, because we do not want the risk of broken glass and many other reasons..... Yes, all of this for storage until it is all lost in the tragic boating accident that afflicts so many other hobbies. We should just stop all hobbies as they seem to all end in a tragic boating accident..... This will be a fun adventure enjoyed from the comforts of the back deck during good weather and the comforts of the sofa during the rainy season.

Did someone say essential oils?

Following the immortal words of Captain Jack Sparrow "what happen to all the whisky? why is the whisky all gone...."

Keigan

As a follow on toward "remain safe", there is a Kidde 5lbs Carbon Dioxide in each major room of the household, and in the truck, and in the garage..... All good.

Before using that still, read this thread here involving letters being sent to still purchasers: http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 49&t=49561

This one here is in regards to seizures of stills purchased: http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 49&t=46973

Lastly, this one I think is worth reading. viewtopic.php?f=15&t=49809" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

If the implications of those threads bother you, then I suggest returning the still. You can then either build one or buy one from someone who does not keep those records, which are forwarded to the tbb.

You would not be the only recent member to return a mile high product. Some other members have chosen not to worry about it. Either way, you should talk to your SOH about it...

bearriver

Thanks, expecting the letter, long decision between build vs. buy that went full circle. In the end it comes down to use, we have that covered with our essential oils exploration. Besides, we live on the river and our water source is a well - I'm tired of buying bottled water, time to make my own.

Welcome to the forum.

Neither the essential oil or the distilled water story is going to give you any cover if your boiler is larger than a gallon. That's the limit for still size. You might think about a fuel permit.

Fuel permit in my future based upon what I have learned from the forums. Thanks, Keigan

I've read the entire site from top to bottom. Still learning and still here.

Made my first noob mistake, which was to use a refractor to measure sugar levels in the mash rather then my hydrometer - a refractor only works when there in no alcohol present. Needles to say the refractor is no longer a part of my process and the new log will have readings from my hydrometer only.

Thank you for the welcomes.
Thank you for the posts.

Keigan

Travel has not allowed me to be on as frequently as usual, sorry I am late to welcoming a fellow member from the Evergreen State.

Welcome PNW'er from another PNW'er.

Welcome!!
Snohomish here...
Took a trip up to Bellingham yesterday to Bellwood Acres for UPick Honeycrisp - they have a real nice Distilling room at the farm. Lots of apples dont fall far from the tree
Welcome!!!!

Welcome from yet another PNW member, a bit late but better late than never. Enjoy your new hobby.

Welcome Keigan, from the dry side of Washington.

Hi everyone - quick update.

Still here and still learning about the art and science - having fun. My first two batches have been deemed a disaster, lessons learned and moving forward with an evolved procedure that include PH and hydrometer measurements at the significant steps. I am also starting to utilize US-05 which is stretching out my fermentation to two weeks followed by a week of racking/resting - is what it is for my eco-environment.

What are you making?
Where were your failures? Fermentation? Distillation?
There is so much knowledge here its hard to find a place to start...
good luck

Thanks for asking.....

My objective is to learn how to make a whiskey. I've read tons from these forums which continues to be a wealth of information.

Lessons learned:

A refractor only works to measure sugar content of a mash when there is no alcohol present, a hydrometer is the tool to use.

As far as PH strips are concerned, my eyes see very much the same shade of orange regardless of the actual shade. I now use a Bluelab PH Pen that is calibrated at 4.0 and 7.0 and 10.0. I measure the PH at the beginning and adjust to something near 5.2 prior to adding grains, then measure and adjust to something near 5.8 prior to adding yeast.

Using iodine to test for starch works really well, easy enough to go back and correct a low conversion. Not all 6 row malted barley is the same, each batch, each storage, each grind can have different levels of conversion efficiency. Keeping a 4:1 ration by weight is important and the recipe printed in a book might not keep that ratio.

Recipes from the forums are not perfect. My own process to measure PH and starch to sugar conversion must be kept in place, so that adding sugar is the last step and only after the mash has fully cooled. SG of 1.060 is a good objective and anything over 1.080 can be corrected by adding more water.

Designing ways to expose your your distillation to more copper surface area, must result in a still component that is also easy to clean. I'm having fun with this one, now on my third and final version based upon some subtle things I've read here on the forums. More to follow in two weeks after I've had a chance to make a distilling run.

The micro-eco-environment around mashing and fermentation is a science and an art to itself, there is just a whole lot going on that the eye and nose might not recognize. Even best efforts to control and sanitize can be thrown off by a gust of wind.

An umbrella can be very effective protection from changing weather conditions if/when conducting a distilling run outside - ambient temperatures, wind and rain have a significant impact on the still column temperatures and balance.

Some equipment being sold as stainless steel is an absolute rip off - rust after a single use warrants a return of the item.

A five minute conversation with a master distiller from a local brewery can be so helpful to troubleshoot errors in process.

Your results may vary!

awesome write up for your readers to pay attention to!
theres a lot of hard lessons that come fast as a hobbyist settles into the right gear and the right recipes for what they are after. you summed up some of the pitfalls nicely.
cheers! look forward to learning more next contribution!

Keigan, this thread is going beyond a Welcome, maybe it should be split and a new thread started in Novice distilling or my first?

Thank you for the feedback and encouragement. I will take on the creation of a lessons learned in the main forum, there is so much going on that requires actual hands on to have the context for association and understanding. I'll start to collect pictures to help with my lessons learned experience - probably end of Oct - I'll publish here first for validations/corrections/suggestions.

Keigan