Home Distiller

hello to all. first time posting. have a small reflex and use a plain old suger/water wash w/ distillers yeast. after my run, its cut down to taste and "aged" in jars w/...a 6x2x3/4" semi-charred white oak. and a peice of sasaphras (sp) root. makes a great taste and red color. if t gets to set long enough, it gets super smooth with age. i have to taste because the root get to strong of a flavor for somes liking. but i was raised on sasaphras tea from it so.....i like it

wow 32 people looked at this post and couldnt even say welcome or helo so ill do it welcome and helo

thank you. found this site about 6 years ago. it either didn't have forums then or i just overlooked them. but did use the main site as a reference

Forums have been here most of that time. We're a bit of a hidden treasure for those who search hard enough.

We're a bit of a hidden treasure for those who search hard enough.

I like that so very true. I had read the parent site, and was distilling for more than a year, before I found the forum.

And welcome Homer!

I dug some sassafrass root a while back, and am letting it dry some. I intend to use it as you have, and also to make my favorite tea. It has almost been eradicated here due to one of the deseases hitting so many trees now.

its still grow like a weed around here. i'm just east of you, down on flat land

I still have sprouts(of sassafrass), like the chestnut. .All the sizeable trees 6" to 2' or more are all gone, along with our wild Balsams, butternut trees, and now the eastern Hemlock.

Very sad.

Uncle Jesse wrote:Forums have been here most of that time. We're a bit of a hidden treasure for those who search hard enough.

hehe. a bit of hidden treasure, with possibly a few old clinkers tossed into the pan

Oh, btw, Welcome Homer, glad you could add to our treasures.

Do you do anything to that sassafrass root, or just put it in the jar in "raw" form?

H.

Sassafras is a weed in my front yard. They send out stolons everywhere and there are always sprouts that seem to steal water from everywhere, including my grapes. (although, they are fun to mow )

I know the rules, and hope this isn't taken the wrong way: but sassafras yields a contolled substance. I know it grows wild, this is just a friendly warning that "too much" interest might cause some unwanted interest...

What the chemist says is true. Sassafras was used in soap making and in root beer in times passed. The use was discontinued.

Ok I had heard of sassafras but never read about it. I had no idea it's a precursor to MDMA, I'm pretty shocked.

I guess a competent organic chemist can synthesize or extract just about anything if they put their mind to it but it seems sassafras is the easy way.

Glad they don't grow around here, I might have planted a bunch and drawn suspicion!

I had no clue that sassafras yielded something like that. We used to dig up the roots and make tea from it in the Boy Scouts when I was younger.

/shrug

~r~

Aha! The boyscouts is where it all starts!!

Well, at least i can still get file' for my seafood gumbo.

Where I grew up, all you had to do was walk out in the woods and you'd see these trees all over the place.

~r~

I didn't mean to scare anybody!! I mean, it DOES grow all over the place in these parts!! It's still used for flavoring, with the offending compound removed, and file' is made from the leaves which don't have enough of the 'bad' stuff to worry about.

But a big pile of sassafras and distillation equipment could quickly move you from talking to TTB to talking to DEA...God forbid!!

I don't claim to be an organic chemist, but just looking at the skeletal formulas pictured here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safrole and here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDMA
makes me think twice about it.

Hmmm... no wonder they no longer serve sassafras tea at the state fair exhibits anymore.

as a kid, it was sold in bags at all the local stores for tea. about 5-6 years ago, it was done. the goverment site says because it caused liver damage.now, if thats true, at age of around 15, i should have died from it. so, i hope i didn't break the rules right out of the gate .never had any "side" effects from it, that i know of.