Beginner's Guide

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Welcome to the Home Distiller's Beginner's Guide. Use this page to begin your journey.

Beginning your journey

Start by reading this page completely and going through the reading list, keeping in mind the first spirit you want to make. For example, whiskey is basically boiled beer minus the hops. If you've never brewed beer before you can try something easier to make like a rum or sugarhead. Rum can be as simple as putting some molasses, water, and yeast in a bucket and waiting for fermentation. Sugarheads are just as easy. Both of these are perfect for beginners.

Legality

It is very likely that home distillation of spirits is not legally allowed in your area. Research whether or not home distillation is legal in your area.


In New Zealand distilling spirits at home is a legal activity. In most other countries home distilling is either forbidden or subject to legal constraint.
In Hungary, Bulgaria and possibly other EU countries it is possible to distill at home subject to local regulation. This includes paying a fixed excise tax which is typically not collected for political reasons.
In Austria and Germany the local regulation allows the distillation of spirits with small stills.
In Italy and in other EU countries it is legal to distill essential oils at home, subject to regulation.
In the Italian region Friuli-Venezia Giulia common stills exist, which can be operated subject to regional regulation.
In Brazil it is legal to distill but not to sell unless you are a registered producer.
In the US it is illegal on a federal level to distill except in an approved Distilled Spirits Plant: CFR 27; Chapter 1; Subchapter A; Part 19; Subpart C; Section 51
In the US it is legal in most jurisdictions to distill alcohol as fuel, subject to regulation and obtaining a permit.

Safety

We at Home Distiller take safety extremely seriously. It is easy to be safe but there are pieces which can be harmful if you don't understand the danger. These pages should be read and understood.

Setting up and using your Home Distiller Account

The Home Distiller Forums reading lists

Reading list for beginners: As you start your journey you need to read. And read. And read more. This is not a good hobby to just try out without researching. Bad things can happen easily.

Here are a few good starting points.

How are various spirits made?

What is: Whiskey - Rum - Brandy - Vodka - Gin - Sugarheads - Cordials - and Liqueurs - Other Spirit types.

You can also look at flavor profiles here in the Spirit Style Guide and Developing a Flavor Profile.

Base Flavor Spirits: Whiskey, rum, brandy and so on develop their flavors from their base ingredients. Whiskey is made from grains and in essence is distilled beer, minus the hops. It takes some time and equipment to get to the point of fermentation. Rum is made with molasses or a form of it. Brandy is made with fruit juices.

Vodka and Neutrals: Vodka and Neutrals are made to have very little flavor other than the taste of ethanol itself. They can be produced from various ingredients including grains, sugar, potatoes and so on. Neutral spirit can be drunk straight, as a mixer or used as a base for other spirit types such as gin and cordials to name a few.

Gins and Sugarheads: These are flavored spirits. The main characteristic of this category is that they are flavored and then redistilled. There are three major types of Gins/Sugarheads:

Vapor Infusion: Using a neutral as a base, botanicals are used to infuse flavor in the vapor path of the still.
Spirit Maceration: Using a neutral spirit as a base, flavoring agents are macerated into the spirit. They can be used as a finished spirit or distilled again.
Wash Maceration: During fermentation flavoring agents are added to the wash which is then distilled as normal. Genever is an example of this style.

Cordials & Liqueurs: These use a base spirit, generally vodka, a neutral spirit or brandy, and then flavoring and sweetening agents are incorporated. These are not redistilled.

Stills: Types and what they are used to make?

There are two basic types of stills: Pot and reflux. Most stills are some type of hybrid or are able to be modified from one to the other. One key is to understand the difference between the boiler, where the wash is heated, and the column, where the vapor is guided and then collected. You can have one boiler which can use more than one type of column to produce different spirit types.

Pot stills The most simple type of still, the traditional pot still allows its boiler contents to vaporize and flow orderly through the still directly to the condenser. This method of distillation allows all available flavors and ethanol components (good and not so good) to be collected, leaving it up to the distiller which ones he wants to later keep or discard. Today, many smaller and boutique distilleries employ pot stills to batch-produce a spirit of maximum flavor while forfeiting the efficiency and volume of a continuous maximum-capacity still. Spirits traditionally pot distilled are whiskies, rums and brandies.
Reflux stills The reflux still is more complex than the simple pot still, with internal dynamics capable of producing multiple distillations over the course of a single run. Each re-distillation inherently increases spirit purity and ABV while decreasing flavor, with the potential for producing a very clean-tasting, high-proof distillate ideal for making Neutral grain spirits (ie: base for gin) and vodka. To operate efficiently, reflux stills require physical length (height) along with a re-distillation path created with either packing media or stacked chambers (plates).
Condenser Controlled Column A hybrid vapor-management reflux still where the reflux coil replaces the physical takeoff valve by positioning it in front of the takeoff arm. Minor adjustments to its position allow the distiller to direct a prescribed amount of vapor to be taken off or be returned to the column (reflux ratio) for further distillation. In liquid management and coolant management stills the reflux condenser remains fixed and reflux ratio is controlled via a mix of coolant flow and power input. Take-off for each of these stills is different and can be found in the section on reflux stills.
Bokabob A version of a liquid management still.
Types of Stills - LM, VM, CM Describes in more detail the differences between the still types and how to control the output of the still. As a new distiller this is a bit complex so it's good to revisit this after you've been reading about distilling for a little bit.

For a more in depth understanding read Stills and rgreen's How to choose the right still.

Whisky Advocate: Know Your Stills to Know Your Whiskey - video

Some still diagrams: Diagrams and Plans Thread

Once you have a still, learn how to clean it and prep it for your first run: Cleaning a new still

What kind of equipment do I need?

Basic

Fermentation vessel - can be as simple as a carboy or fermentation bucket.
Boil kettle - The part of the still which contains the wash while it is heated up.
Lyne arm - Upper part of a pot still where vapor exits the boiler.
Column - The part of a fractionating or reflux still which the vapor passes through on the way to the condenser.
Condenser - The part of the still that cools the vapor, recondensing it into a liquid.
Cooling water - The water used to cool the condenser. Will you be using tap water or a closed loop cooling system? Learn about valves to control water flow.
Heat source - How will you heat up the boil kettle?
Bulk Spirit Storage - Once you're done with the run and before you bottle it, where will you store your spirits?
Bottling - What kind of bottles are you going to use? How will you fill them?

Additional equipment

Hydrometer - Specific gravity and Spirit - While not required equipment, these two are next to it. Reading the specific gravity of a wash lets you know the potential alcohol as well as letting you determine how close your wash is to being fully fermented. Spirit hydrometers give you the Alcohol By Volume or Proof of a spirit.
Refractometer - A more accurate upgrade to the hydrometer for determining specific gravity.
pH strips or meter - Gives you the pH of a fermenting wash. A great tool for understanding why a ferment is stuck. Not required as it won't be used too often.
Gin Basket or Carterhead - Used in Vapor Infusion of botanicals for gin, absinthe, etc. Not needed unless you are making something which requires it.

For Rums and Sugarheads there is very little equipment needed. A carboy or fermenting bucket, yeast, and an airlock (optional depending on style) is about it. Further down the road you can pick up other tools to measure temp, pH, temp control, etc. Sugarheads are especially good for beginners as you can mimic other styles with little effort.

For Brandy you'll just need fruit juice and yeast to make the base wine. Again a carboy and airlock is all you need for equipment. If you want to mash the fruit you'll need crushing equipment. Brandies require a little more effort than Rums/Sugarheads but not a lot.

For Whiskeys you can go one of two ways: Extract or All Grain. For extracts it's simple. Just mix extract, water & yeast in a carboy. That's about it. For All Grain it requires some pretty involved equipment - Grain mill (if not buying pre-crushed grains), a mash tun, hot liquor tank as well as a carboy/fermentation bucket. It can be expensive depending on how large a batch you are making. Learn about how different grains taste as a spirit: Grain Flavor Profiles. As a special note to former homebrewers: During Saccharification distillers want to convert all starches to fermentable sugars. Learn how to check for complete conversion here: Iodine starch test. Unfermenatable sugars have no effect on the spirit flavor. We keep our conversion temps to the mid or low 140s f. This also increases alcohol yield.

Vodka/neutrals can be made from a sugar base or grains. A sugar base will be as simple as a sugarhead. Grain based will be similar to whiskey. Potato vodka is somewhere in between.

Distilling

All of this leads us to why you're here: Learning how to distill. The full details are here: Distillation.

Understanding Fractions & Cuts

Distilling separates the fractions. Read these links below to understand what that means.

Blending, Dilution, Aging, Flavoring

Congrats, you now have your product! At this point you can drink it as is or process it more.

Learn about aging in Barrels and Oaking
Try different Woods for aging

Starting Out

Before you start anything you should have a good basic understanding of the above topics. Now it's time to start planning your first spirit. For complete newbies and for sacrificial runs Wineo's Plain Sugar Wash is a very cheap way to create a high alcohol wash. Wineo's recipe will create a neutral/vodka spirit. It can be drunk straight, as a mixer or used as a base for a Liqueur or Cordial. After 3-6 times runs on your still you'll likely have a good understanding of how to run your still. At that point you can move on to something more expensive or complicated without as much fear of ruining it.

Moving on from the basics

Once you get the hang of things you can start to make it your own: Developing a Flavor Profile. Use this chart to find what flavors you like/dislike in a spirit and figure out to enhance or remove those flavors, learn how to mimic a commercial spirit or go off on a new path.

External Links