My Journey

Other discussions for folks new to the wonderful craft of home distilling.

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MoonBreath
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Re: My Journey

Post by MoonBreath »

I got drunk with a 60lb pincher last week ..His owner is one of my best friends, but his dog is my new drinkn buddy ..Loves corn likker and coke, can't get enough of it.
Holds his likker better than his owner, and easier to get along with too.
Yep, Rascal is one cool dog.
*Spend it all, Use it up, Wear it out*
Beware of sheet-sniffers and dime-droppers!
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raketemensch
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Re: My Journey

Post by raketemensch »

July has been a slow month for making progress, but there's been some here and there.

The main thing is that, since I've been away from my basement and close to a laptop, I've started writing a book on distilling. I'm up to 19 chapters outlined, and 3.5 finished so far. It's been surprisingly easy to write, but then again, every time I've had to write about something I've researched, it wasn't something I would choose to research. It's far easier to write about something you love than something that's been assigned to you.

I emptied out my 60-something gallon barrel that I was making my sweet feed in because it still stunk of vinegar from the cherry peppers it originally carried. I threw it in the pool, so it would get both chlorinated water and sunshine to hopefully clear out the odor. I had originally intended to do it for a few days, but in the end it spent about a month drifting around full of water, and occasionally ridden by a log-rolling child. It worked well, there isn't even a hint of vinegar left.

I just picked up a 50lb bag of malted 6-row through a group buy on the homebrewtalk forums. I'm going to install a 5500watt ULWD element in my 16-gallon BOP and start up an all corn, I think.

I also picked up 20lbs of jaggery from a local indian grocery and started up a new batch of UJ, with US-05. It got pretty stanky right out of the gate, so I'm not sure how viable it will be, long-term. Only time will tell. I should be doing the first run of it today, but I won't be emptying the fermenter enough to fire up gen 2, which is probably a good thing, since I don't have any sugar around. I set up a corona mill in the basement and milled/cooked up a few lbs of corn that I added to the UJ, to see if it will add a little more flavor. I used backset from my Jimbo's Wheated Bourbon run, which smells pretty good for backset. I don't think I'll be buying this jaggery again, it smelled like sulfur when fermenting and went pretty slowly considering the ingredients. I've been talking to Sugar Daddy about maybe doing a New England/Tri-state sugar buy. My recording studio is in an old industrial building with loading docks and a forklift, so it'd be ideal for landing 500lb of panela, but I'd need to coordinate with lots of people to pay/pickup/etc, so I'm not sure if it's viable or not yet. Maybe I'll start a thread about it tonight.

The esteemed Appalachia-Shiner sent me some oak last year, which I soaked right away and started playing with ideas to season it quickly, however I decided instead to just season it properly, using that old method called "time." It hit a year last week, so I split it into sticks that would fit into the mouths of 1.75l bottles and toasted it at 450 for 2 hours, to see if I could get some nice almond notes. As I took it out of the oven and opened up the tinfoil my wife wanted to know what smelled like almonds... Mission accomplished. I'll be trying it with the output from today's UJ run. One thing to note from this experiment is that a hammer and chisel make it far easier to split into small sticks than a hatchet, especially if you value your fingers.

I'm looking forward to firing up the boiler this afternoon, it's been too long.
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Re: My Journey

Post by ShineonCrazyDiamond »

I'm down for a NE group buy. Been thinking of starting one myself, but if you have the ball rolling, count me in as a major partner. Pm me details.
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Re: My Journey

Post by CatCrap »

I just wanted to bump this thread. Such a good read. Hopefully some others will enjoy it like i did. I love learning from others experience. Maybe an update, Rak?
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Re: My Journey

Post by raketemensch »

Thanks, catcrap, sure, why not? :]

A little over a year ago my 12th gen UJ pretty much died. Several attempts to recover from the ph crash failed, and I got discouraged.

Then I got into racing drones.

Then I built a 3d printer.

Well, we had a week of vacation in Wildwood the first week of July, and stayed in the same apartment that we stayed in the first time I got all obsessed with the idea of distilling, and after a week of vacation, then a week of work, my boys went to overnight camp for the first time ever (they're 9 and 10 now). I took a couple of days off to enjoy the freedom, all the while planning to get everything back in shape while they were gone. But then we spent one day disc golfing, one day spent flying the aforementioned drones, and today they came home.

Well, within the hour they were sucked into all the comforts they had missed, so I re-assembled the flute and checked everything out, and since it had been so long I went through the 3 cleaning runs. A looooong time ago I had picked up some braided hose to replace the cheap tubing that I'd originally installed, which gets too flexible and likes to kink up once it gets hot, and MAN does it get hot when doing a water run... I have also always had a drip from the RC inlet/outlet, as well as a few miscellaneous drops here and there that keep the floor a little wet and annoying when doing a run.

So I replaced all of the hoses today, using the old hoses for measurements, and replacing one section at a time so that I could test for leaks. The leaks I've always had were because I was using PEX bits with regular hoses, which are just a tiny bit bigger. It finally occurred to me today to do a few wraps of PTFE tape on each nipple before hooking up the hoses, and I also used some on the still.

So, now I've got leak-free PC and RC, and a squeaky clean flute ready to roll. Braided hoses are a huge upgrade.

Oh, I forgot to mention... A little over a year ago, when that ferment died? Yeah, I never cleaned it out. It's been sitting there growing a thicker and thicker infection on top, collecting fruit flies like a bug collector. 35 gallons of disgust and crustiness all over the barrel, because it overflowed once the yeast kicked in and before it crashed.

I hooked up a pump and a hose and drained it all out into the woods, all the while wodering if I was giving up a ridiculously sick rum pit. Soak, bleach, scrub, rinse, soak, bleach, scrub, rinse...

40 pounds of corn and 40 pounds of sugar later, I've got a fresh batch of UJ kicking in tonight. Unfortunately, when we went to England back in April my wife went on an unplugging spree in the basement and accidentally unplugged the chest freezer that my stored 5th-gen UJ backset was in, so I have to start all over from scratch. Worse things have happened, though, and a few examples come to mind -- like having all the real food in that freezer go bad, or, say, leaving a crashed ferment to fester for ~14 months.

Long day of work with a summer cold that's kicking my ass, but it'll be all worth it.

In a little while I'll be diluting some almost-two-year-old UJ that's been sitting on toasted oak for months. Can't wait. I read the earliest parts of this thread now, and remember how I couldn't imagine having year-old shine to drink, now I'm approaching 2. Mmmmmmmmmm.
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Re: My Journey

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It was during this week last year when I had a lot of free time during a week off from work, so I started writing the book. Full-bore, right?

But when I got home from the vacation, not only did I not keep writing the book, I completely stopped distilling.

So one year to the day later, I'm done with my cleaning runs and the flute is bubbling its way through a full keg of UJ. After trying a few times to get a good, large ferment of bananas going, this time I just threw 3 bananas into the boiler. This stuff smells awesome, I can't wait to taste it. Next time I'll have some forethought and grab 4 or 5 bunches to throw in. I've been toasting my oak for almonds and vanilla, I think they'll go really well with this hint of banana.

This is also my first run ever without water leaks from my condensers, I feel like I've finally really gotten everything firmly under control. That means it's the first run since I stopped using air-cooling that I haven't been walking around with wet feet on a cement floor. Distilling should be done barefoot, IMHO.

A friend stopped by, the guy who helped me put together the first stock pot two years ago, and we shot the shit for a while, just sitting around collecting jars. After he left I sat and watched The Secret Life of Pets with my 9 year-old. There's a TV, a couch and a recliner about 8 feet from the still in our unfinished basement, so I can get some good quality time in with the boys while doing a run now. My younger one got a good lesson in how everything is plumbed, how each condenser works, how the plates work, how and why reflux works... He's very science-minded, so he's kind of fascinated with it all. The idea of schooling him as he grows up to take this on himself someday feels really good.

I'm also going on the hunt through local bakeries for a source of 5-gallon buckets of Golden Barrel molasses to get a 60-gallon rumbucket going. Having only one ferment going is too slow for me, and it's too risky to lose one and have nothing to run.

Down to about 30% coming off the pipe now, which means I have maybe 5 more minutes. It drops like a rock with a flute.
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Re: My Journey

Post by bilgriss »

Glad you have the time to get back in. Enjoyed reading your posts when you were doing this the first time. I'll be sure to follow your successes again as you move forward!
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Re: My Journey

Post by raketemensch »

Thanks, man.

The bananas were a good thing, I really like the output. You wouldn’t specifically detect that it’s banana, but it has a rum-like sweetness that isn’t usually there. Next time I’ll be throwing 10-15 bananas in — which will hopefully be next weekend, this weekend we’re going camping up in Copake.

My UJ is in a 30-gallon barrel, but you lose some volume to the corn and whatnot, so it’s been weird to fill the keg from it — I usually don’t fill the boiler all the way so that I can get 2 runs out of it, but then I end up doing 2 runs to get almost the same amount of product that I would from a single full run. This time I filled the boiler and left a little wash behind, which I think i’m going to continue doing. After cuts last night I put 2 1.75 liter bottles away for aging at 70%, plus filled the decanter with 40%, then also had 2 quarts left over to stash in the cabinet at 70% for diluting and drinking later. All from one run! Love this flute. I oaked a long-term bottle and left one white, I want to see how the bananas age without the oak too.

A little over a year ago I tried an experiment where I found some porter extracts dirt cheap, so I threw them into a fermenter with some yeast, but the yeast never really took off, and the gravity never dropped. It was one of the things, along with the big raw-sugar UJ crash, then discouraged me and led to my break.

Well, just before dumping it out the other day I checked it with the refractometer, and it’s totally dry now. I guess it just needed a year...

I’ve also got more than enough feints for a run, plus my UJ should be ready by next weekend, so all of a sudden I’ve got 3 things to run and not enough time to run them. Strange predicament, but the feints could sit forever and the porter has already sat for over a year, so what harm could another couple of weeks do?

I’ve also been following everyone’s dunder pit experiments, and have 4 gallons of backset here just begging to be infected. I’m planning to stop at Walmart to pick up some buckets to get them rolling tomorrow.
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Re: My Journey

Post by Shine0n »

Glad to see you full throttle, now infect that backset!

If you decide on some rum, use 5 gal buckets to infect so that you can do different types and see how they work with low wines.
mine have all come out well so far, but I may take a break from those and let the dunder age a bit so I can go forward on some AG to replenish my stock.

plus I'm about to be up to my ears in apples and have some work to do before it happens.

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My Journey

Post by raketemensch »

I can’t wait to be up to my ears in apples, my trees have 2 more seasons to go before I will let them fruit. Actually, I’m glad I wasn’t hoping for fruit this year, it turns out I have a cedar rust fungus because I’m growing smack in the middle of a cedar forest. Whoops.

I’ve done my chemical spray research, and know how to get started next spring — I figure I’ll let each tree produce one or two pieces of fruit to see if I’ve got it right.

Thanks for your dunder posts, between you and der wo we’ve got a lot of new knowledge to work with.
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Re: My Journey

Post by Antler24 »

Glad to hear your back into the swing of things. I've been forced to take a break as well. Took a new job that only leaves me with 2-3 days every 2 weeks at home with the family so haven't ran anything since late February. It's also fishing season here so that takes my spare time in summer. I'll leave the distilling for winter from now on. Don't drink much anyway, maybe a fifth a month at most.
Swedish Pride wrote:
get a brix reading on said ball bearings and then you can find out how much fermentables are in there
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Re: My Journey

Post by raketemensch »

Yeah, it’s always a struggle between spending time with the kids and putting away aging stock :)
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Re: My Journey

Post by Shine0n »

Glad to see you're doing well antler, my work has me consumed as well. I get home every weekend so I do have some time plus we work 4 10s and 3 off.

Thanks for the compliment raketmensch, I wish I could've document mine as der wo has but as mentioned above time is the key. I do have 2 more going, Swiss cheese culture and soil, we'll see how they turn out!

My journey this year has been rum and AG, fun trying and learning new things and for the most part have turned out well.

keep at it and chug along, hope all stays well with ya.

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Re: My Journey

Post by Antler24 »

Shine0n wrote:Glad to see you're doing well antler, my work has me consumed as well. I get home every weekend so I do have some time plus we work 4 10s and 3 off.


Shine0n
That sounds like a pretty good work schedule! Pretty jealous here! My job keeps me from home most of the time and that part of it's difficult, but I really love everything else about my job.
Swedish Pride wrote:
get a brix reading on said ball bearings and then you can find out how much fermentables are in there
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Re: My Journey

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On Monday I charged the keg with a year-old ferment of a beer kit that I picked up dirt cheap as an experiment. It smells awesome, and I can't wait to run it, but after having the keg filled all the time it's a little disappointing to only have 8 gallons in the keg. NEED MOAR

I also picked up a gallon of Evolved Habitat molasses for the next round of UJ. Ish.

I boiled it for ~5 minutes, even though people have said that didn't make a huge difference, simply because I wanted to thin it out to hopefully get a better OG reading. It would appear that you just can't get a good OG reading, and I think I've way over-sugared this barrel now. And, since I had stuff boiling already, what shiner could resist cooking some corn? So I cooked up a couple of pounds of cracked corn in the molasses before dumping it into the barrel.

Which led to the one thing I hadn't really expected from working with molasses... It smells so.freaking.good. I just want to dive into the barrel and drink it all up. I've made a lot of washes and beers and things over the years, but NOTHING can touch how good this barrel smells right now.

The yeast didn't kick in as expected, which has led me to believe that I've created an unhealthy environment for my yeast. I added sugar until the refractometer read 1.070, which is my usual goal, but I'm starting to think that it's actually much higher than that. I just wish I had a good way to tell... I mean, I know that the reading is off with a hydrometer because of the solids, but I can't find any mention of how to adjust for using a refractometer. It's only a gallon of molasses and 14 pounds of sugar in a 30-gallon brute, so I should actually be low, I would think.

I'm tempted to just do a nice big yeast bomb, but I also don't want to create a crapload of off flavors from a yeast genocide.
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Re: My Journey

Post by raketemensch »

Wow, at some point recently this thread broke 10k views. Thanks y'all, it gives me some hope for finishing this book.
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Re: My Journey

Post by Shine0n »

I do 2 gal and 16-18lbs dark brown sugar in my rums at 15 gallons so my guess is that your yeasties may have been sluggish.
I also do a 50/50 wash warm water starter and let sit for 20-30 minutes, never had one not start :thumbup:

I still check mine with my hydrometer, if I have 1.112 and end at 1.03-1.05 I can do the math and figure what my abv is. og-fg×130=?????
I'm sure you knew that but if someone reading your thread doesn't know this, now they can.

I can't see your og being too high if you did indeed fill the 30 gal fermenter to 25 +

I think evolved habitat moll is either 43 or 45% sugar so at 12 lbs per gallon and only 43% that's right at 5 lbs sugar and what part is actually fermentable?

I love anything to do with molasses so I wish you the best with this ferment, maybe even step feed another gallon or some dark brown sugar?.?.?.after a few day of course.

Good luck,
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Re: My Journey

Post by raketemensch »

Shine0n wrote:I do 2 gal and 16-18lbs dark brown sugar in my rums at 15 gallons so my guess is that your yeasties may have been sluggish.
I also do a 50/50 wash warm water starter and let sit for 20-30 minutes, never had one not start :thumbup:

I still check mine with my hydrometer, if I have 1.112 and end at 1.03-1.05 I can do the math and figure what my abv is. og-fg×130=?????
I'm sure you knew that but if someone reading your thread doesn't know this, now they can.

I can't see your og being too high if you did indeed fill the 30 gal fermenter to 25 +

I think evolved habitat moll is either 43 or 45% sugar so at 12 lbs per gallon and only 43% that's right at 5 lbs sugar and what part is actually fermentable?

I love anything to do with molasses so I wish you the best with this ferment, maybe even step feed another gallon or some dark brown sugar?.?.?.after a few day of course.

Good luck,
Shine0n
Thanks man, that's exactly the kind of info I was hoping for. With all of the corn taking up space in the bottom of the barrel, I think I only added around 20 gallons, so I think my goal would be ~28 lbs of sugar. If I'm counting a gallon of molly as 12lbs, then I'm at 26, so I guess I'm not too far off. I'm getting some bubbling, it's just a slow start. I didn't pitch anything, I was basically just firing up Gen 3 of a UJ with molasses, maybe I just need something a little more vigorous to get the molly going.

I hope to find a good line on molasses soon, as the idea of not keeping a multi-gen barrel alive all the time and simply having a big bucket of liquid to fill and empty each time is really appealing. I'm looking at picking up one of those 26-gallon stainless boilers in December, so having 25 gallons/batch would just be perfect.

Of course I'll end up continuing with the UJ anyway, it's just so tasty.

Edit: I just found dark brown sugar for $1.69/lb at nuts.com:

https://nuts.com/cookingbaking/sweetene ... /dark.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

I buy a lot of other stuff from them, that seems like a pretty good price. Shipping is only $6 (which is what's killing me on buckets of molasses), and if you bought 50lbs shipping would be free.
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Re: My Journey

Post by Shine0n »

The whole gallon weight is 12 lbs, 5 of which is sugars so when I put 16-18 dB sugar plus the 2 gal of moll I have roughly 26ish lbs in a 15 gal ferment, Give or take a lb or 2.

I've not had the best of luck using the rum yeast more than 3 generations then the pucker up, I could've fed them a bit more but I buy 2 lbs of yeast for 5 bucks at Sams club. just fleischmann's active bread yeast which works very well for rum at warmer temps like 80f +

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Re: My Journey

Post by Shine0n »

I can find it at Walmart for less than 2$ per 2lb bag but I'm looking the Web for 25lb bags to save me some lute.
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Re: My Journey

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I was finally running out of room and jars for feints, even with the small amounts that I get from running the Flute, since I had a bunch from back in the pot stilling days. So out came all but the bottom plate, and I stuffed the sight glasses up with Chore Boys.

So, time for my first neutral runs! All of it went into the keg, watered down to 40%, and I refluxed it for about an hour before collecting. I have no idea how high I actually went, as my refractometer only goes up to 80%, but I was well above that for hours today, and it tastes very clean.

After cutting heads my wife actually complained that it's a little too bland. That being the goal, I feel pretty good about this, especially since I ended up with a little over 5 gallons. I was NOT expecting so much product, I haven't done this before and hadn't done the math.

The weirdest part about running neutral is that... No oak, no aging, just bottle and drink. What a concept! It's really tasty to me, just a hint of an almost fruity flavor and very, very clean taste. We had a bottle of Looza peach nectar, so I've been mixing with that and very happy.

I had been planning to finish up the vodka and run my first rum today, but as I said -- I hadn't done the math, and spent way too much time collecting, proofing, blending and bottling, so the rum will have to wait for next weekend. It's been ready for about a month now, but I've never made anything that didn't taste better with a little extra time in a barrel, even if that barrel is a big garbage can.

On another note, a little over a year and a half ago I made my only batch of Sweet Feed. I really didn't like it, it was way too spicy, and just kinda tasted weird to me. There were no pellets, it was Blue Seal COB, and even though everything seemed fine with the ingredients, the distillate was kinda gross to me.

But being me, I can't waste anything, so into the jar it went with some oak, and I would try it every few months and still find it gross.

Well, 18 months seemed to be the magic number, as it's now my wife's favorite. I really want to try it with some Coke -- it's got an almost scotchy flavor, but without the fungalness that I usually don't like about them. I bet it'll be even better in another 18 months.

Just when I finally thought I could count out a recipe, it comes roaring back as a favorite. Anyone have a few more Brute barrels I can borrow?

From now on I'm only collecting tails for these runs, which will take forever to build up with a flute, but I don't like to waste anything that I've put so much work into. This vodka should last a while, and was a great way to point out to my wife that yes, despite the amount of money I've put into this setup, it has more than paid for itself now.
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Re: My Journey

Post by Shine0n »

That's funny about the sf, I have 2 quarts white I put in the back of the fridge March ish 2016. I just tasted it last weekend and now I don't want to leave it alone. lol

Congrats on a good voddy, it's never been my thing but always something to try and maybe this winter I will give it a go.
No flute, just boiler and thumper, so looks like a few large stripping run and a slow "large" spirit run or 2

ohhh, and some more rum. lol
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Re: My Journey

Post by raketemensch »

Never enough rum, right?

The thumper will be my winter project. I don’t suppose I really need one, but I’ve got an unused keg here, and I feel like I’m missing something if I never actually run one.

Part of me is tempted to run the flute into a thumper, just to fill it with apples or bananas. A rum run through the flute into a thumper full of bananas sounds pretty tasty to me.
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Re: My Journey

Post by jb-texshine »

raketemensch wrote:Never enough rum, right?

The thumper will be my winter project. I don’t suppose I really need one, but I’ve got an unused keg here, and I feel like I’m missing something if I never actually run one.

Part of me is tempted to run the flute into a thumper, just to fill it with apples or bananas. A rum run through the flute into a thumper full of bananas sounds pretty tasty to me.
Add a hole to the top for shooting flavors and you'll see the true benefits faster.
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Re: My Journey

Post by CatCrap »

Well, I guess i ended up with a similar story. Got really into distilling, super excited and gung ho, and then got into a ton of relationships and breaking it off with the fiance. So, it's been 6 months without any distilling.. but, the bright side is that the 2 batches i made, UJSM and Cornflakes, has been sitting on oak barrel chunks for that whole time. It is really starting to acquire some exciting flavors. I couldnt believe how much vanilla i could smell when i opened one of the jars for periodic airing. It's like fucking magic. Incredible that i managed to make this.

So, I'm back at it. I moved a few months ago to a way nice place, so much room. So I've got more than one extra room for all the stillin, fermeting aging goodies and gear i need. So, i had a few 5 gallon jugs i saved of wash, 1 ujssm, 3 WPOSW, and a less than successful Birdwatchers. It had an unlpleasant sulphur aroma, but it ended up going away after fermentation completed. I used one of the Turbo Yeast that brewhaus sent along with the ferm kit. So, i'm going to try my hand at neutral. Doing some strips, got a new WPSOW started, once i accumalate i'll do a reflux run aiming for pure, clean, high abv. First time i've run reflux on my PS2. So, i'll hopefully start a thread sometime soon and get back active o n the boards.

=)
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Re: My Journey

Post by CatCrap »

OH, and i think that is so incredibly awesome you're teaching your kids about this hobby. ONe of the coolest parts of it is how many different skills you pick up. I so wish i had learned about that stuff earlier in life. Soldering is so cool.. i have to build a copper still by hand some day. You're kids are in good hands!
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Re: My Journey

Post by raketemensch »

I've been slowing down of late, but still making some progress. I've also got a couple of sourdough starters that I'm feeding daily (those might make for some interesting dunder...), so the fermentation is constant, if not always about making booze.

But today I got ~50 gallons of ferments going. One is a gallon of Evolved Habitats molasses with 22lbs of Jaggery from a local indian market, and the other is a fresh batch of UJ. I'd bought a second 32-gallon Brute barrel back before Christmas, but then I got laid out with the flu for 2 weeks (still recovering in the 3rd week), so I just never got it started. That's a bummer, because I'd have lots of time for runs over this 3-day weekend, but whatever. At least I'm moving forward.

The rum barrel is different from most, as I also have a corn bed in it. I'm pretty much running it just like a UJ, today I even got the old yeast colony started up again in the bottom of the barrel, so I didn't have to re-pitch. The irony is that I pitched a nice, fresh yeast into the actual UJ, and it's not bubbling anything like the rum bucket is. It had been dormant for at least a month, so I wasn't sure how much life would be left, but man, it fired right up and started bubbling within an hour. That's some healthy yeast right there. I added 3-4 gallons of rum dunder to the rum bucket, and 4 gallons of 3rd gen backset that I've had stashed for a while to the new UJ to give it a jumpstart.

I also have new aquarium heaters going in each barrel, keeping them at 75-80F.

The other night I finally got up the nerve to taste the gumball that I made after a batch of Jimbo's All Grain. When the all-grain was fermenting I got a wicked infection, and it smelled horrific for 2 days. It was fermenting in the family room, and fortunately my wife was away for the weekend, but WOW did it smell horrible for those 2 days. But then it just.... recovered, and smelled fine after that.

Well, the bottles of all-grain are still buried deep in the closet where my stuff ages, and that gumball had been sitting right up front begging me to give it some air and a sniff once in a while -- but it smells off, a little sweet, a little like that infection. It just hit 18 months, so I figured it was time to give it a shot, and damn if it isn't my favorite thing I've made so far. It's a little sweet, it's the first thing people notice about it, but with no additives whatsoever.

Some time this week I'll finally give in and dig through those shelves and find the actual AG. I was kinda hoping I wouldn't like it, all that work....
So, I'm back at it. I moved a few months ago to a way nice place, so much room. So I've got more than one extra room for all the stillin, fermeting aging goodies and gear i need.
There's something so nice about having room to get everything set up comfortably.
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Re: My Journey

Post by Antler24 »

So it sounds like your happy with the flute. How much you figure you gain in cuts compared to your old setup? How would the pot stilled whiskey/rum compare in taste and quality to the same recipe through the flute?
I've wanted a flute for a long time...
Swedish Pride wrote:
get a brix reading on said ball bearings and then you can find out how much fermentables are in there
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raketemensch
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Re: My Journey

Post by raketemensch »

I love the thing. I keep coming up with plans for a thumper, but then I do a single run and stash the hearts and move on to the next batch... the flavors are great, I prefer them to my old single- and double-run pot stilled stuff, and the lack of Tails is amazing.

Honestly, I almost wish I did get more tails sometimes, for later neutral runs, but it’s worth it to see the clear changeover.

But overall, the best part is the amount of time it saves me. I have two little boys, so long stretches of time in the basement are hard to come by. When I do get the time I can get to (tasty) product in a single run, drop in my oak and stash it in the closet for later. Well, that’s the plan, but generally I end up drinking half white and stashing half to age.

I would still like to add a 24” section to pack for making neutral, as I recently did an all-feints run with only 1 plate and the rest of the sight towers full of scrubbies, and it was reeeally good. A little more flavor than most vodkas, but really clean. SO good, my wife loved it, which is unfortunately why I’ve run out again...
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raketemensch
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Re: My Journey

Post by raketemensch »

Well, I finally busted out the AG that I'd made (Jimbo's Wheated Bourbon) after 18 months. It had picked up an infection while fermenting, which it promptly killed off on its own, but it smelled horrible for a couple of days during early fermentation. Fortunately my wife was away, because it fermented in the family room -- I'd not really planned on how much 16 gallons of liquid and grain would weigh... It's amazing how much of this hobby is pure logistics.

Anyway, I was a little concerned because it still had a bit of funk to it, but OH MY GOD was it good. Really good. Best thing I've made so far good.

Which, unfortunately, means that I need to do more AG and less sugarheads. Not counting gumballheads, of course. That gumballhead was the bomb, too.

To make a long story short (as if I was capable of that), I started digging into SCD's Easy Large Batch Mashing techniques, and started working on a plan to implement them. I've got a 16 gallon stainless stockpot that I got for my birthday a few years back, so I drilled a hole in it and installed a Camco 5500watt element in it. That'll let me measure out an exact amount of water and bring it to a boil pretty quickly. I've already got a bench at the perfect height above my fermenting area for dumping out. I also worked out that with a 32-gallon Brute barrel, a 50lb bag of corn was the perfect size for a single batch. But how to grind 50lbs of corn quickly and easily? I've got a corona mill, and I considered electrifying it, but it doesn't have a bearing and that worries me, plus I've read a lot of stories of people burning out their drills keeping the thing turning. A few people recommended this beautiful mill for powderizing the cracked corn, but I don't have $250 in the budget right now. I was digging around craigslist and ebay and amazon and found a few possible options, but none that I was really happy with.

Then I discovered a "local" farm (it's an hour away) that grows and mills their own corn. I figured I'd at least see how expensive it would be, figuring it'd be pretty schpensy since they advertised that it was non-GMO. As it turns out, they sell 500lbs for $75. That's less than half the price of cracked corn from Tractor Supply or anywhere else around here, and it's already milled. The thing is, 500lbs is their minimum order.

So I headed over there today with a friend and loaded a pallet into the pickup. If you're wondering what 500lbs of finely ground corn meal looks like (it's somewhere between meal and flour), here ya go:
IMG_0413.jpg
IMG_0414.jpg
Now, it seemed like less work to not to the grinding myself, but now I've got 500lbs of flour in the driveway that I need to get to the basement and store.

I ended up bringing two 32gallon barrels into the basement for long-term storage, then hauling the flour down in 5gallon buckets, two at a time. Which wasn't easy, as I had to get up into the truck bed every time to do it, so I brought out a folding stepstool to have stairs leading up, which helped a lot.

Someone was desperate to help, but not allowed:
IMG_0410.jpg
I've gotten about half brought down now, the rest is wrapped up under a tonneau cover to be moved tomorrow. It looks like I might actually fill both 32-gallon barrels, with more left over. My god, it's a lot of corn.

My enzymes arrive on Monday, which I'm excited about, but I can't actually start up a real batch until next weekend, as both of my big fermenters are full of rum and UJ. I'm really looking forward to this experiment, though, especially since I got that BOP electrified, and in a spot right next to a 220 outlet. The only thing I really still need, but don't have, is a mop wringer for squeezing slops. They're fairly cheap on Amazon, though, so I'll pick one up this week.

Considering that I'll be doing gumballheads after each one of these batches, this stuff should last me a looooong time. This may be my last rum for a while, so that I can have one AG and one gumballhead going at a time, as I don't have room for more than the 2 barrels going at a time. I also have a 50lb bag of 6-row here that I'll be working in for flavor with the second batch, as I really want to use the first batch to taste my own pure-corn whiskey. I loved Jimbo's WB, and I want to try the honey bourbon recipe as well, so I'm hoping this method works out well for me:

1) Put 5 gallons water/backset in freezer
2) Boil 11 gallons water
3) Pour over 25lbs corn
4) Add 2tsp high-temp enzyme, stir, wrap
5) Boil 10 gallons water
6) Pour over next 25lbs corn
7) Add other 2tsp high-temp enzyme and stir
8) Wrap well and wait overnight
9) When it hits 150 the next morning, add low-temp enzyme and stir
10) Wrap until temp is 135/140 (~3-5 hours?)
11) Dump in frozen water/backset
12) Hour later, at 90/100 degrees, pitch yeast

I've just realized that those enzyme amounts were for a larger batch, so I'll do some research and math and adjust those downward (I'm going to try 2tsp/batch). Obviously the grain bill can be modified per-batch.

I don't plan on ever going commercial, but I've never completely ruled it out either, and I'm thinking of this as a sort of scaling-up experiment and taking things to another level. As I may have mentioned earlier, I have a recording studio in an old industrial building 5 minutes from my house, and it'd be dead simple to have these batches of flour delivered there at 10x the size, along with forklifts and whatnot for hauling it all around. I've also been eyeing those 26-gallon boilers, but I don't think I have the powergrid left for a second 220 outlet in the basement, and I think a single element would take forever to heat up 26 gallons. Going commercial always beckons, but...

...that way madness lies.
Last edited by raketemensch on Sun Jan 21, 2018 11:42 am, edited 5 times in total.
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