Greetings!

New to distillation, or simply new to the HD forums.
** Your first post MUST go here. Introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your interest in distilling. Any posts asking distilling questions will be deleted. **

Moderator: Site Moderator

Post Reply
Bewildered Hobbyist
Novice
Posts: 12
Joined: Mon Oct 03, 2022 11:11 am

Greetings!

Post by Bewildered Hobbyist »

Hello all,

Lovely to join this group of people. I'll admit I've already used your site as a resource and it's been invaluable. Since I find myself using the site a fair bit and have distilled a little, I decided maybe now is the time to join you all as hopefully I have gone through a little of my teething phase and have questions that don't require basic answers.

Here's a bit about me and what I've done in this hobby so far.

I currently reside in New Zealand where distilling is legal and decided that while making beer a bit in the past, my enjoyment of alcohol has always been skewed towards the spirit side of things and maybe it was time to give it a bash.

On a second-hand website I came across a Still Spirits brand air still (their term not mine) for 50 dollars and thought as a price of entry I wouldn't do much better than that. I read online that Still Spirits turbo yeast was absolutely terrible so I'm my typical fashion I had to find out why people were complaining about it and gave a sugar wash a go as per Still Spirit's pamphlet instruction. So yeah, not for me. Only made worst by the tiny air still that smeared heads into hearts into tails.

I was however pretty hooked by this stage so bought myself a copper reflux collumn from Still Spirit and gave that a go. Again following their turbo yeast recipe so I could have some comparison between the stills and who knows, maybe it'd taste alright this time. Nope, still terrible.

Then I made my first Teddy Sad's fast fermenting Vodka wash, got myself a pot still head to my boiler to do stripping runs and then dumped the low wines in for a spirit run and something drinkable came out! Pretty ester-y, I figured due to the "anything that says bakers yeast" approach I took to yeast selection. I polished this to get rid of some of the nasties and raided my local lemon trees and make up some limoncello which I figured would hide my mistakes and indeed it did a good enough job of just that.

Back to the drawing board. I bought some Angel distillers yeast, repacked my reflux collumn with spiral prismatic packing which I got from a local maker, hooked my electric boiler up to a voltage regulator this time to have some control over the electric elements and did my spirit run. Let my cuts air out for 48 hours and blended accordingly, them filtered the result. It's my best product yet and have started to make some gin (that little air still actually is becoming pretty useful after all)

And that's me till now. Most of my revisions are suggestions made by members here already so a big thank you!
Last edited by Bewildered Hobbyist on Mon Oct 03, 2022 2:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
juana_b
Site Donor
Site Donor
Posts: 577
Joined: Sat May 01, 2021 11:55 am
Location: Hawaii

Re: Greetings!

Post by juana_b »

Welcome!
“Awards are merely the badges of mediocrity.”
― Charles Ives
Archee72
Site Donor
Site Donor
Posts: 292
Joined: Sun Feb 23, 2020 7:58 pm
Location: Queensland

Re: Greetings!

Post by Archee72 »

Learning all the time, sounds familiar….. and Welcome BH
User avatar
Demy
Master of Distillation
Posts: 3084
Joined: Fri Sep 04, 2020 1:45 pm

Re: Greetings!

Post by Demy »

Welcome!
Old Dog New Tricks
Swill Maker
Posts: 160
Joined: Sun Jul 24, 2022 2:37 pm
Location: The Mitten

Re: Greetings!

Post by Old Dog New Tricks »

Welcome Aboard , Always learning here too/////
User avatar
subourbon
Novice
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2022 8:10 pm

Re: Greetings!

Post by subourbon »

Love your handle. It's definitely the right word for a hobby that certainly be bewildering.

Welcome.
“There is no bad whiskey. There are only some whiskeys that aren’t as good as others.” – Raymond Chandler
User avatar
subourbon
Novice
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2022 8:10 pm

Re: Greetings!

Post by subourbon »

Love your handle. It's definitely the right word for a hobby that certainly be bewildering.

Welcome.
“There is no bad whiskey. There are only some whiskeys that aren’t as good as others.” – Raymond Chandler
User avatar
NorthWoodsAb
Swill Maker
Posts: 328
Joined: Fri Feb 15, 2019 2:56 pm
Location: North Central Alberta. 55.470996,-114.787297

Re: Greetings!

Post by NorthWoodsAb »

Welcome to the forum. Indeed there is a lot to learn in this hobby.
Post Reply