Home Distiller

after using turbos for the last 2 years, i found this site. built myself a 2 inch offset still.
i did about another 4 turbos, after gaining confidence with still use.
did alot of further reading and doing the test stated on different posts e,g rubbing between fingers, taste etc started to get very picky about
quality of output from turbo wash. bad smell carbon filtering didn't really sort it out.
you can't make a silk purse out a pigs ear.

started to read about neutral washes, read about the tomato wash and winoes neutral wash, decided to do the tomato paste wash because of ease to purchase
ingriedents, anyway finished distilling tom paste wash today.
outcome very impressed, very little taste or smell compared to turbo. will try wineos wash next.

personally quite proud of myself, i feel i've just taken another strep in my training in distilling.
these below are my pros and cons of turbos compared to homemade neutral washes.

neutral wash turbo
final yield low high
alcohol quality high low
time to distill
(based on 25 ltr wash) low high
filtering time none high
final taste/ smell good poor

would be interested to read other peoples pros and cons ?.
having now seen both sides of the fence, will be doing neutral washes from now on, the only thing i think i gained from doing turbos was the final yield.
most of the time i use essenses and the smell/ taste was altered allways altered by the off tastes present in the finished product.

from now on i'll be doing neutrals, and distilling a little more often.

thanks to all concerned,

Congratulations on your great forward step, you will not regret it.
Quality beats quantity every time.
Cheers.

carlos castenada wrote:would be interested to read other peoples pros and cons ?.

price: reasonable, high
ease of use: moderate, trivial

I started out using Turbo's then found the Birdwatchers Sugar wash recipe.

Made and distilled the Birdwatchers and flavoured it with Still Spirits Classic Bourbon.

Really enjoyed drinking it untill I ran out early and decided to finish with having a few of the same flavoured Bourbons but made with an earlier Turbo Yeast ( Alcotek 48 Hour ). To be honest I couldn't drink the stuff, what had been an acceptable drink before was totally out for me. Had a few litres in the cupboard which I gave away. It's amazing when wanting a favour done what a bottle of home distilled will get you. Better than offering money most times.

In short I will never ferment or distill a Turbo again. A friend asked me to do a batch using Turbo but I talked him into supplying the goods for a Birdwatchers run.

Love this hobby

It's amazing when wanting a favour done what a bottle of home distilled will get you. Better than offering money most times.

Got a plumber mate coming round this morning to move a gaspoint and install another for the missus.

He never charges me.

He just loves UJSM.

Hi there, 1st time poster here, so not sure if this thread is too old to get a response from.... I tried my first birdwatchers the other week, after being advised by a friend.... Everything went smoothly, SG was .990 ish, did the boil in the reflux as I normally would until the temp increased by 1 full degree, but maybe my expectations were a little different, but I think the yield was about half that of what I would normally get? I shaved 200mls off as I normally would to be safe.....

So I am yet to cut back to my preferred 45% strength, but I would say less than 5litres, compared to the 9ish I would get with a turbo? am I missing something, or will the yield always be lower than a turbo, but from what I have read, a lot cleaner etc? I did do a smell test, and there is no where near as much smell in this, than from the Turbos..... so I wont need to carbon filter as many times..... before adding to container and dropping some oak in.....

Is this all normal, or have I done something wrong