Are small stills worth the effort?

[PossumPie]

I am just finishing up my 3rd batch of Corn Whiskey. I have a beginner's still 6gal. I grind my cracked corn and malted barley, I mash it, ferment it, do a 6gal batch of low wines, use the mash to make sour mash, make a second batch of low wines, combine the two batches, do another distillation to make cuts.
What I'm getting at is 3-4hrs of mashing, 20 days of ferment, 6-7 hrs of distillation, and I end up with about 4,500mls of 90 proof spirits. It tastes "ok" but I got thinking, If I bought something similar in a store, it would have cost me about $30. I haven't had the patience to age it in oak barrels to improve the taste, and to be honest, it tastes better than vodka, but no where near good whiskey. I sort of enjoy doing it, but I wouldn't say it was "fun". I've given some thought to the fact that If I had a 55 gal. still, and modified everything to do bigger batches, the time involved wouldn't be much longer but the return would be about 8-9 times greater amount. I guess I'm wondering about whether you all do this for the "fun" of it, or b/c you get a better quality drink than you could buy in the store.???

[Rusty Ole Bucket]

Speaking just for myself, I do it for the fun of it, the fact that it produces the best stuff I've ever drank is just a bonus. My job is very high stress so I really throw myself into hobbies, this one is no exception. It's been a blast so far and I'm hoping to keep it up for years to come,

Rusty

[Saltbush Bill]

It's a mix of reasons for me, hobbys should be enjoyable, but this one has saved me a lot of money over the last 14 years Alcohol here in Au is taxed to the max.
For those dealing in metric 6 gal is just under 23L, fiddling around with that sort of quantity would drive me nuts pretty quickly.
Up grade to a beer keg would be my advice, use you existing still.
See if you then find it more enjoyable, if not maybe this isn't for you.
A lot of my hobbies revolve around making things, campoven cooking , making bacon, sausage s, salami, Mead making
Still building......so yes I like to make stuff and do enjoy the hobby.

[OtisT]

For me it’s the fun of building, operating and making product, and the joy of having unique and quality spirits to share with others. I live for the long process and consider my time making spirits my therapy. This is my hobby and I do it because I love it.

In my opinion if you are not doing this for the enjoyment you are wasting your time. The exception to this would if you live in a place where you can’t buy good/safe spirits and you just can’t go without. If it’s not something you love doing, go buy some nice booze and spend your free time doing something you love. Life is too short.

[SW_Shiner]

Nothing wrong with small stills. I have a 25L along with my two keg stills. My work is semi-seasonal so i dont always have the time to run bigger charges. Its really handy to be able to set up the small still on the bench and can do a strip run in the time it takes to cook and eat dinner. 2 hours a night 3x a week gives me enough low wines for a spirit run on a friday night, make a sample blend saturday and the final blend and oak on the sunday. Its also great for experimenting and trying out new grain bills. I also make gin and absinthe occasionally and a smaller boiler allows me to make small amounts at a time as i don't drink them much. NZ also has a heavy tax on alcohol so i dont have to do much before its cheaper for me to make, as an example, I hear in a lot of youtube videos that Buffalo Trace is a great whiskey to have on hand. I got a 700ml bottle the other day for $96.50 on special at the local bottle shop.

[8Ball]

Yes. I have a 5 gallon copper pot & I have plenty of great spirits on hand. More than I’ll ever drink & share. I can do three 21.25# all grain mashes @ 9G ferments & wind up with 2 to 2.5G of aging stock when I’m done depending on whether or not I add feints. The small pot size I use gives me a lot of flexibility to experiment with grain bills and makes more than enough to enjoy.

[Deplorable]

For me it's the reward of a good drop of whiskey, and the finger in the eye of regulation for the sole purpose of taxation.

I don't think a small still is worth the effort and time unless it's a gin still or for test batches.
In order to justify the time and effort, I need to ferment enough to get at least 1.5 gallons (5.6L) of 120 proof spirits. My mashes are around 25 gallons (94L). From that, I run 2 stripping runs in my 50L boiler and collect 18 to 22L of low wines for the spirit run. Larger runs make cuts easier, and the amount of time and effort is comparable to feeding a 5 or 6 gallon still, you just get a lot more reward for the effort.

[Turbo6ta]

I am just starting in this hobby too but don't know how much I will really enjoy doing it yet ... I used to brew homemade beer that I really enjoyed doing, but I was never really happy with the beer I was making (always had a slight yeast taste that I didn't like), so I finally gave up on making home brewed beer.

Another hobby was modifying and drag racing a Corvette that I owned, but I pissed away so much money on that car and do to my lower back problems it became very very hard to get in and out of it, so I sold it at a big loss.

I was thinking about buying a small airplane (I'm an ex-military pilot), but with some of the health problems I have now, I don't think that I could pass a flight physical anymore, so that idea is out of the picture.

So, now it's distilling time ... we shall see

[The Booze Pipe]

I set out on this venture with the attitude that whatever I make, it should be as good or better than what I can buy. I home distill because I'm kind of addicted to it. This is my hobby, my time away from Life. Most people don't have that luxury.

If you aren't enjoying the process now, I would guess you might not enjoy later on at any point.

Your six gallon setup is fairly small, but should work just fine for anything, especially learning. If you scale up your boiler, you'll want to scale up your fermenter and other equipment as well. Don't forget (I'm guessing you didn't read all of the rules and whatnot) 30 gallons is the limit for boiler size to be discussed on this site. And you're right, It's a similar amount of work for a much greater return. But you will be dealing with 100 pounds of grain, instead of 20!

You can scale up slowly over time as you learn and evolve on your journey. Or if you have the money and want to go all in, I recommend a jacketed 30 gallon boiler for stripping, a 13-15 gallon keg (spirit still), and around a 60-70 gallon fermenter (or two) for 50 gallon ferments. Two strips directly into the spirit still and a spirit run will give you around 4 gallons final product about 140 proof. Proof it out to 120 and fill a five gallon Badmo, carboy, or barrel.

I think if you got a keg for a stripping still, you could make a 10 gallon mash, and the low wines would fill the six'er for a spirit run.

Aging will "improve" flavor of whiskey, but if you want something that is tasty and unaged (white) try making a corn whiskey with enzymes, leaving the barley malt out, and use a good yeast that will produce good flavors (esters). I've had luck with Red Star DADY (very tolerant and forgiving; ferment around 85f,) others use ale yeasts. I am experimenting with one now, OYL-501. The next most important process that will improve flavor without aging, and it takes quite a bit of practice, is making your cuts. I suggest making this all-corn whiskey over and over to get the practice on making cuts. Eventually you'll find a repeatable process. Good cuts are most important.

And consider finding a neighbor to give your leftover grains to feed whatever stock they have, or your own!

[PossumPie]

Seems like the fun of the process is an important element for many. Reading my original post and giving it more thought, the cost savings was probably the motivating factor for me. I'm just not refined enough to say that what I made from sour corn mash and left unaged was much better flavor than middle-shelf vodka. If I aged it in my toasted oak barrels for a few years I may have an exceptional product, but the barrels I have only hold 5 liters each so It would be a long wait for a little reward. Much of the process is "hands-off" ie fermentation about 3 weeks. I guess the part I don't enjoy is the actual spirit run taking cuts, etc. It takes constant attention for about 5 hours for my setup. As I type this, my final cuts of 120 proof corn whiskey from two 6gal stripping runs and a LONG 5hr cuts run is a grand total of about 1 gallon. just seems a lot of effort for not much product.
I'm going to try it again, I write done everything I do (right or wrong) and try to learn for the next run. The sour mash I used for this batch was from a batch back about 6 months ago. Yeast also was from that batch. I love the science behind it. Just not sure about the final process though.

[NZChris]

You can use the backset and trub from one strip to make a wash two or three times the size, which is what I like to do. One day stripping and putting down the next large wash, then spirit run the next day.

If time is a problem, get another 6gal vessel and build a Charentais style preheater to speed up the stripping runs and save on energy costs. Mine is over thirty years old and saves me time and money every time I run it, plus I can put any sized wash through it because it is a semi-continuous system.

[Yummyrum]

Possum , most of us have started on smaller stills and for similar reasons to you realised it was a lit of bother for the returns and upgraded to bigger stills .
Yes you are correct in your thinking that if you have a larger boiler and run more low wines in it , you can turn up the heat proportionally and fir the same six hours investment , get way more product .

But as was mentioned earlier , 30US gal is the maximum we consider “home distiller” size . Beyond that , it’s boardering on commercial .

Now while making enough Rum wash to fill a boiler that size is a big job but quite doable , think about the amount of grains and the process of making that much mash and disposing of the waste . If thats not an issue , go for it .

But also consider a bigger still will need more power and coolant water . Again , if thats not a problem , go for it .

[NormandieStill]

I run a 30L still which realistically lets me run about 26L for a spirit run. You definitely want to scale up your ferments to ensure that each spirit run is on a full charge. I've been quite happy with this as a setup but have always wondered about having a 50L keg in the mix somewhere to let me steam strip larger charges, or scale up some spirit runs (I can relatively easily max out my 30L still when making apple brandy, without having enough raw material to justify two spirit runs.). Just the other day I managed to pick a 50L keg so (in about a year given my current rate of progress on personal projects) I can finally put that to the test.

[MooseMan]

And to put this into even more perspective, I'm now running a 100L boiler (A 26 gal beer keg) after starting out with a std keg.
I can strip 2 or if I wish 3 big boiler charges with no concern for boil overs, and spirit run the resulting low wines for a good yield that helps me to put down plenty of aging stock and keep a good variable drinks shelf.

I also run a small still in the kitchen for making gin, often just 1L at a time and really enjoy the versatility of it.

[Dancing4dan]

I'm wondering about whether you all do this for the "fun" of it, or b/c you get a better quality drink than you could buy in the store.???

Larger keg still is easier and can be built for a fraction of store bought stills. Remember, it does not have to be full just full enough to keep an electric element submerged during a run. A keg based still has made it distilling more enjoyable because of batch size. Ferments are 16-19 gallons on grain a couple ferments easily fills a keg still. Half keg for spirit runs or just do mor ferments to fill a full keg spirit run.

Don’t enjoy commercial spirits as much anymore preferring the taste of my own product. Commercial spirits seem heads forward to my palate now. I have some expensive scotch that isn’t getting consumed.

[Corn Cracker]

I think they have their place in our journey, I've had a 5g alembic still that does really good for a few years but, the problem is doing multiple runs to get enough for a good spirit run. I'm building a keg still so that I can get more hearts and better cuts

[howie]

i only have a 35L brewzilla that distills and makes beer.
size wise, all my setup works perfectly for the 2 x fermenting fridges, 35L fermenters, 2" still, 19L cornies (beer), 27L fermzilla.
so i've often wondered about going to milk can with a 4", mainly for speed, but i can't justify it (or be arsed changing a lot of stuff)
fortunately, i have plenty of free time
i make more booze than i can possibly drink and have not bought anything from a bottle shop for many many years.(i wouldn't want to)
TBH my own gin pisses all over any store gin.
i have rum and whiskey in barrels, some are 4 years old.
there is one small barrel of 3 yo whiskey on the kitchen bench right now, but it is so nice that i can't decide whether to bottle it or see if it can get any better. it pisses over any mainstream whiskey.
the point is, you need patience.

[Bolverk]

I started with a 3 gal vevor clone, and it was worth it enough to get me really interested, but then upgraded to 7.75g keg and it was worth it for about a year.

I currently have a 15 gal keg and it's definitely better. In my opinion, as a hobbist, it's hard to get better than this when you start considering how to power it and cost per batch to total product at the end.

I usually ferment 15 gals, i strip 8 gals, and put those low wines in the thumper and run the next 6 gals with my faints for about 1.5 gals of proof whiskey

I'd still love to get my hands on one of those 30 gal kegs...

[LWTCS]

If you're sharing with friends and family and a regular drinker, I don't see how you can keep up with demand without running a 50L (or similar) outfit?
I couldn't anyway.

50L outfit and at least 3/ 30L fermentation buckets rotating between something working off, something clearing and something ready to run.

[The Booze Pipe]

If you're sharing with friends and family and a regular drinker, I don't see how you can keep up with demand without running a 50L (or similar) outfit?
I couldn't anyway.

50L outfit and at least 3/ 30L fermentation buckets rotating between something working off, something clearing and something ready to run.

You're absolutely correct. I'm currently running only one fermenter, but I need two! I just don't have the space. patience and planning is key in this hobby.

[howie]

If you're sharing with friends and family and a regular drinker, I don't see how you can keep up with demand without running a 50L (or similar) outfit?
I couldn't anyway.

50L outfit and at least 3/ 30L fermentation buckets rotating between something working off, something clearing and something ready to run.

arf, well there's your problem.....
i only supply my mother with gin, my family don't drink much at all, my friends mainly drink my beer when they come around.
i usually have 4 x 30L fermenters of FFV on the go, that keeps me (and mother) in gin.
in between i do dark rum, white rum and whiskey to top up barrels for occasional forays into the spirit world.
but your right, i'd have to ramp up production if my family drank (and get a milk can with a 4" still).
on tap, i also have XPA, irish red ale, landlord bitter and alcoholic ginger beer, so visitors mainly keep their hands off my spirits

[PossumPie]

I started with a 3 gal vevor clone, and it was worth it enough to get me really interested, but then upgraded to 7.75g keg and it was worth it for about a year.

I currently have a 15 gal keg and it's definitely better. In my opinion, as a hobbist, it's hard to get better than this when you start considering how to power it and cost per batch to total product at the end.

I usually ferment 15 gals, i strip 8 gals, and put those low wines in the thumper and run the next 6 gals with my faints for about 1.5 gals of proof whiskey

I'd still love to get my hands on one of those 30 gal kegs...

So you don't make a sour mash? You are using your thumper to skip having to do 2 strippings...I have an oak keg thumper that I only used once, It seemed like a hassle to set it up and charge it with something, but the more I think about it, it would save the whole stripping run if I kept some low-wines or sour mash to put in it each time I wanted to do a run.In another thread I explained that I had taken the bands/top off of my oak barrel to rechar it and it fell apart. Took 3 days but I finally got it back together so it doesn't leak. I made sure to number my staves after that mess.

[Bolverk]

So you don't make a sour mash? You are using your thumper to skip having to do 2 strippings...I have an oak keg thumper that I only used once, It seemed like a hassle to set it up and charge it with something, but the more I think about it, it would save the whole stripping run if I kept some low-wines or sour mash to put in it each time I wanted to do a run.In another thread I explained that I had taken the bands/top off of my oak barrel to rechar it and it fell apart. Took 3 days but I finally got it back together so it doesn't leak. I made sure to number my staves after that mess.

Sometimes I sour mash, sometimes I sweet mash. Doesn't really change how I distill it.

Yes, this saves me a stripping run, but it makes for a funkier whiskey, so it really depends on what you want to make. A thumper is called a second distillation but it's widely considered to be roughly a half of a distillation because once the thumper is up to temp not all of the vapor from the pot will condense so youll end up somewhere between a single distillation and a double distillation in terms of your final products taste and abv.

Sorry can't comment on using an old barrel as a thumper, my thumper is keg. I have a fill and a drain port so it's stupid easy to use.

Edit to add:

Another option is to have a stripping still and a spirit still. Yes it's not as much volume as the 3 strips and spirit, but it makes for a simple process... strip say 12 gals in a 15 gal still and put the low wines (about 3.5 gals) in a second smaller still and then run that.

[jonnys_spirit]

I feel like a small still and a larger still complement each-other well.

For the larger still, ~15g boiler seems to be perfect for a mash/ferment in a 50g blue hdpe barrel for the 2-3strips depending on whether feints are recycled can also minimize squeezing. Quantities are manageable and complement single batch sizing with what I feel is good yield/effort ratio. Power and water needs are also pretty accommodating if you have a 30A 240V circuit like a dryer circuit drop that can run a 5500W element. That batch size can be completed in as short as a week if you’re motivated or stretched out over months if less motivated and yield about 3g @ barrel proof.

The smaller still I use is a 2.5g (10l) that i run on a 1500W modified hot plate that works well for infusion style spirits yielding average 1/2g per run or evan smaller quantities like a single bottle or where i have limited ingredients.

It takes some effort but I find that I can produce adequate aging and drinking stock with this setup without too much excessive effort.

Three gallon carboys work perfect for me to store/age and recycle feints in dedicated containers for certain products like grain and rum based spirits for the larger batches which then only need two strips worth of low wines to fully charge a spirit run along with some fresh ferment top-up.

I find that the effort however isn’t completely insignificant however very well worth it. Maybe in the range of 12-16hrs of hands on time to complete a batch with the longest stretch being a 6-8hr spirit run including setup/strike and cleanup.

I don’t supply anyone other than myself except for the occasional share and if we had two or three regular drinkers in the house they would need to contribute time and effort or it would become excessive depending on everyone’s consumption and the products being produced.

Cheers,
jonny

[LWTCS]

If you're sharing with friends and family and a regular drinker, I don't see how you can keep up with demand without running a 50L (or similar) outfit?
I couldn't anyway.

50L outfit and at least 3/ 30L fermentation buckets rotating between something working off, something clearing and something ready to run.

Yeah, if you can carve out enough space, once you get going you really don't have to dedicated that much time to get an efficient rotation going. Best of luck.

You're absolutely correct. I'm currently running only one fermenter, but I need two! I just don't have the space. patience and planning is key in this hobby.

[zach]

There is no substitute for power and size. I started with a 5 gallon stockpot using Rad's apartment LM design on a 1.8 kw hot plate.

It's been 3 years since I've run that rig. I opted to move outside with a 100 kBtu/Hr propane burner next to the swimming pool.

Now with a 15 gallon keg boiler and a 23 gallon milk can thumper, I can strip 28 gallons in 2 hours after set up, with clear in the keg and slop in the thumper.

I've thought about using an oak wine barrel for a thumper / fermenter. It is possible to install manways and tri clamp fittings on oak barrels.

[PalCabral]

I have two stills. My main is 50L but needs at least 11L mash to ensure the element is covered, which in principle means that I can't run smaller batches than 20L. My other still is a 4-5L Portuguese alambique which is perfect for maceration/infusion runs but really too small to gap the issue with smaller batches. Ideally, I would have loved a 10-15L still with plate heating, but that's just being greedy. First world problems. I work around the issue instead.

[Bolverk]

I've thought about using an oak wine barrel for a thumper / fermenter. It is possible to install manways and tri clamp fittings on oak barrels.

oakbarrel.jpg

Dude, do you have a link this?

[zach]

https://www.glaciertanks.com/brewing-be ... 6nMp4hqNYd

[The Booze Pipe]

There is no substitute for power and size. I started with a 5 gallon stockpot using Rad's apartment LM design on a 1.8 kw hot plate.

It's been 3 years since I've run that rig. I opted to move outside with a 100 kBtu/Hr propane burner next to the swimming pool.

Now with a 15 gallon keg boiler and a 23 gallon milk can thumper, I can strip 28 gallons in 2 hours after set up, with clear in the keg and slop in the thumper.

I've thought about using an oak wine barrel for a thumper / fermenter. It is possible to install manways and tri clamp fittings on oak barrels.

oakbarrel.jpg

I've been thinking of doing a left-over barrel fermenter as well!