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I just ran my Claw Hammer 5 gal pot for the first time with UJSSM. I only siphoned off about 4 gal from my 5 gal ferment, I need to get some 6.5 gal buckets.

I collected in 8 oz numbers jars and this is what my results yielded,
#1 150 proof
#2 140 "
#3 138 "
#4 137 "
#5 135 "
#6 122 "
#7 120 "
#8 110 "
#9 105 "
#10 100 "

I did not run any scrubbers, just ran as a pot for a stripping run. I did sample a couple of drops from each jar except for #1
around #5 there was a sweet corn taste and smell, at #8 the smell was nice and smooth and finished out almost neutral.

After I finished I was able to get 1.25 gal of backset mixed with sugar and back into the fermenter once cooled, and my air lock is bubbling away. Can't wait until
it finishes so I can run my sour mash.

Being a novice at this hobby I was hoping someone could let me know how these numbers look for my first run.

Clawhammer is a good way to go for an all copper pot still. Couple of things - packing in the column won't buy you anything. It's a pot still and you would need a reflux coil and a way to manage the output to get an kind of reflux. Also, for a 5 gallon boiler, you probably don't won't to charge it with more than about 4 gallons of wash, so that it has a little head space.

Did you do proper cleaning runs? That is, give it a good manual cleaning, a 50/50 vinegar/water run and a sacrificial (sac) alcohol run. It's important to get all the soldering flux and other crap out of it before making alcohol for consumption.

Sounds like you had a pretty good run, but if you didn't do the cleaning, you shouldn't drink it. It could make you very sick.

Good luck to you and stay safe.

Ahh man. If this was the first one you need to pitch it out as your sacrificial run. And you should have done a vinegar run as well. And you might want to toss that new ferment seeing as it is filled with flux. Posted same time as scack

welcome,


i would say the numbers look good other than you stopped a little early. i would be stripping down to 20% . your running a small still and you left a bunch of alcohol in the boiler. i also run a 5 gallon pot still and charged with a proper ferment i can almost get a gallon of low wines sitting around 40%

just something to think about

plus one on the sac run, sometimes it will take 2 or 3 to really get it clean. id do up some sugar washes to run before the sour mash. think about whether you want to use that sour mash as well, it could have been contaminated from flux seeing its your first run.


cheers,

This was my first post outside of the welcome center and I got a little ahead of myself, sorry about that.

I did forget to mention that I had soaked and cleaned everything with a vinegar/water bath followed by
2 - 50/50 vinegar water runs with scrubbing and cleaning in between. Then I ran a sacrificial cheap vodka run
diluted to 40% and collected everything and saved as a future cleaning run.

I have converted my Clawhammer to run on an electric element and I'm using the Harbor Frt speed control. I also
picked up a granite 12"x12" tile that sits under my pot to help reflect heat back to the pot instead of having my wooden
work table absorbing heat from the copper still. After the initial warm up, close to 50 minutes running at 80-90% power, I didn't want to scorch my mash. I was able to run my 110v 1500w element on med power to obtain a steady 3 to 4 drips per second. At medium/high power there was a steady stream.

Well then, that's a horse of a different color. Congratulations on a successful run!

Thanks S-Cackalacky

This is a great site with so much information. I have been reading for almost 2 months since I put my still together and finally getting everything together to proceed with a new hobby in
a safe and cautious manner. So much for throwing stuff in pot and sipping moonshine the next day.... lol

Well then. You had me confused when you said that you "just ran it for the first time". Have fun and enjoy your spirits.

RoadGlideGuy wrote:Then I ran a sacrificial cheap vodka run diluted to 40% and collected everything and saved as a future cleaning run.

Chuck it...!!! You can't use contaminated spirits for a future cleaning run... Get used to sacrificing now because chances are you'll be doing so more often than you might initially think...

Done rad14701, we'll see how it works as a grass killer along my fence line lol

RoadGlideGuy wrote:Done rad14701, we'll see how it works as a grass killer along my fence line lol

That's exactly where my fores go, to killing the grass in cracks in the driveway.

Also, fores / fores and heads make Excellent charcoal starter...Eliminates charcoal lighter taste and smell, no residue ...Makes your coals have whiskey aroma.

Roadglide
those a good numbers you got. My 1st still was a Clawhammer 5 gal. Had a lot of fun building it.
Only reason I gat a different still was for some more volumn.
Main thing starting out that I learned that greed is not a good thing in distilling. Cuts the hardest. Just now starting to get the hang of it a little bit after 1 1/2 yrs.
Good luck with your ch, Its a good still. The condenser is a little short, found it best to use a pencil size stream. I could get some huffing on a fast stripping run towards the end if I ran a larger stream.
It will get warm, to hot on top, but that's Ok it will do the job.

Full_moon wrote:Roadglide...Main thing starting out that I learned that greed is not a good thing in distilling. Cuts the hardest. Just now starting to get the hang of it a little bit after 1 1/2 yrs...

I don't want to hijack this thread, but I do want to offer a suggestion to (hopefully) make "the cuts" a little easier...perhaps even enjoyable (for me it is, at least).

This link explains my way of making the cuts, which has helped me to train my palette and sense of smell:
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 2#p7345812

I hope it helps you too.
ss

Roadglideguy

Thought it might be helpful for a suggestion to improve a weak spot on the condenser of your ch 5 gal.

As built from clawhammer, the lower portion of the condenser has no support. Solder in some 3/8 tube from the 1/2in. outlet to the 1 1/2 in column. The top solder joint of the two Ls failed from putting the water hoses on and off after 4-5 months use even with the light pressure you put on it. No fun having escaping vapor.
I found that with a 5 gal. fermenter there was no room for feints. So a 1 1/2 gal thumper made an excellent addition. I just ran the vapor straight through the existing condenser and used a similar condenser on the thumper. feints/wash into boiler, wash in thumper. I was able to fill the boiler to about an inch below where the sloping cone is attached with no problems and about 3-4 pints in the thumper. Usually the thumper content doubled when finished.
After making your ch, just use the same technique on a thumper.

SS thanks for the cuts suggestion.

MoonBreath wrote:Also, fores / fores and heads make Excellent charcoal starter...Eliminates charcoal lighter taste and smell, no residue ...Makes your coals have whiskey aroma.

+1