My Journey
Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2015 4:37 pm
I need to document things as I discover them, and I needed a place to write them down so that I can get my thoughts out about them, and realized that the forum was probably a good place to do that. Please feel to ignore this thread and my ramblings :] Hopefully this isn't the wrong place for it, none of them seemed to fit better, but I guess this area gets filtered out every 90 days.
I'm pursuing flavor over ABV, and I started with a simple 4-gallon Walmart stainless steel pot, with 3/4 copper up, and a Slant/Fin baseboard radiator and box fan as my condenser. It works incredibly well for the 4-gallon pot, but I'm slowly amassing everything I need to build my keg boiler, and it will be interesting to see how the 5-foot length works with the full-size column. I would really only need about 3 feet right now. Here's the setup as it (literally) stands:
So far I've got the keg, a Camco 02962/02963 heating element and a few stainless steel nuts to solder on to mount the element. I had ordered an electric conversion plate from Hillbilly Stills, but the bends in the Camco (which give it the necessary surface area for low watt density) won't fit into it, so I'm back to the stainless nuts. I also have an idea for a solderless connection kit that I'm going to test the feasibility of this week.
The plan is to build a 36" packed column with air-cooled output. I've sourced everything but the copper (tri clamps, packing, ptfe gasket material, the heating element, the mount for it and one of those cheap triacs from China), and someone on another forum has offered to send me a 41" plain column that he doesn't use anymore, but I haven't heard from him for a while, so I'm back to trying to source it again. My wife's not exactly ecstatic about how much I've spent so far because we have an empty apartment and reduced income right now, so I have to try to do it on the cheap.
So far I've done a few runs of AllBran, and have a big jar of the feints that I'm going to run tomorrow with a little over a quart of the original wash (refrigerated) that I'm going to use to reduce the ABV. I also have 5 gallons of UJSSM going in the basement, still bubbling slowly on day 6.
Things I'm researching right now:
1) Is 36" too tall for a packed pot still?
2) Is it possible to get through 3 or 4 generations of UJSSM in a 5-gallon bucket and somehow transfer it to a 25-gallon wash in a 30-gallon fermenter, or will I need to start over?
3) What is the current ideal still for flavored whiskey? I was convinced it was a pot, then a flute, and now I'm wondering if running feints with wash in a reflux would be best. If "best" can even exist...
I'm pursuing flavor over ABV, and I started with a simple 4-gallon Walmart stainless steel pot, with 3/4 copper up, and a Slant/Fin baseboard radiator and box fan as my condenser. It works incredibly well for the 4-gallon pot, but I'm slowly amassing everything I need to build my keg boiler, and it will be interesting to see how the 5-foot length works with the full-size column. I would really only need about 3 feet right now. Here's the setup as it (literally) stands:
So far I've got the keg, a Camco 02962/02963 heating element and a few stainless steel nuts to solder on to mount the element. I had ordered an electric conversion plate from Hillbilly Stills, but the bends in the Camco (which give it the necessary surface area for low watt density) won't fit into it, so I'm back to the stainless nuts. I also have an idea for a solderless connection kit that I'm going to test the feasibility of this week.
The plan is to build a 36" packed column with air-cooled output. I've sourced everything but the copper (tri clamps, packing, ptfe gasket material, the heating element, the mount for it and one of those cheap triacs from China), and someone on another forum has offered to send me a 41" plain column that he doesn't use anymore, but I haven't heard from him for a while, so I'm back to trying to source it again. My wife's not exactly ecstatic about how much I've spent so far because we have an empty apartment and reduced income right now, so I have to try to do it on the cheap.
So far I've done a few runs of AllBran, and have a big jar of the feints that I'm going to run tomorrow with a little over a quart of the original wash (refrigerated) that I'm going to use to reduce the ABV. I also have 5 gallons of UJSSM going in the basement, still bubbling slowly on day 6.
Things I'm researching right now:
1) Is 36" too tall for a packed pot still?
2) Is it possible to get through 3 or 4 generations of UJSSM in a 5-gallon bucket and somehow transfer it to a 25-gallon wash in a 30-gallon fermenter, or will I need to start over?
3) What is the current ideal still for flavored whiskey? I was convinced it was a pot, then a flute, and now I'm wondering if running feints with wash in a reflux would be best. If "best" can even exist...