Hello From the Heartland

[WillieP]

First post as required.....
I started making homemade fruit wines more than a dozen years ago, and can say that I produce a better product today then I did in the beginning. LOL
I then picked up home-brewing beer about 5-6 years back. I started with extract and moved on to all grain. This is a little more my speed and I have really enjoyed it so far. (the Mrs. is the wine drinker) I have attend a monthly homebrew meeting with some of the members having 25 years of experience and a couple that brew professionally the last couple of years, and that has certainly helped with my brewing.
I recently researched the making of mead, and have dabbled in it just a touch, but then my interest shifted to home distilling.........
I have been lurking in the shadows of this site for several months doing the required reading and soaking up all the knowledge I can. My desire is to make the finest product that I am able to produce. I'm not a cut corners on quality kind of guy. I am a DIY kind of guy though, and enjoy the challenge of building the required hardware myself when able. I've built a yeast stir plate, a copper manifold for a mash tun, controller of a fermentation chamber, and a PID controller for a HERMS system. I have began the build of my still, after much reading. I've chosen to use the 15 inch salad bowl and 8 gallon brew kettle as my boiler with a 2 inch by 30 inch column and a 36 inch by 1/2 inch condenser with a 1 inch water jacket. My interest lays more with bourbon/whiskey and rum so I plan on running as a pot still, though I like the idea of adding packing and seeing if I can get any reflux out of it if I decide to try some neutral.
So far, so good for a guy that has not as of yet made a single wash.....
This site has a wealth of knowledge to draw from. I am in agreement that one should be willing to do the digging if they want to drink from the well. Although it is sometimes nice to be able to ask someone where to dig.

Cheers,
Willie P.

P.S. I also enjoy smoking meats and making cheeses