I haven’t distilled in quite a while, but the wife recently was laid off and we can’t justify my usual commercial whiskey purchases. $15 for some corn and oats though is much more in our price range! All grain, no sugar. I already had enzymes stored away which made it easy.
90% corn
10% oats
Planning to drink it clear. Maybe I’ll make some fun recipes with it like apple pie or limoncello too!
How are y‘all powering your electric stills? Upgrading to a pot still arm for my Anvil Foundry 10.5g from a Vevor Air Still and want my runs to not take 10 fuck forever. Are people adding a 240v outlet to their garages or what? I know the “how” of that is a better question for r/electricians or something, but wondering if that was a fairly easy modification or if people are just dealing with using 110v. TIA
Bought this still from a gentleman down the road. But I can’t seem to quit figure out how to put it together. Looked up some stills online and didn’t see one quite like this homemade one.
Any idea how this all connects?
So i have a solution in everclear. Previously i just used a candle warmer to evaporate the ethanol, but that got expensive so i got a condenser, silicone tube, and some glass vessels along with the pump from an old cat fountain and here we are. If im only interested in recovering the alcohol to be reused as a solvent, do i need to worry about things like heads or tails or whatever?
Its thc oil btw. I take old vape carts, crack the top off and soak them in everclear to get the residue/final drops that won’t reach the wick, then reconcentrate and add the reclaim to candy or something edible.
Alfie’s Bamboo Rum. Mashed in with fermented Bamboo shoots.
Running my new ccvm still for the first time after cleaning, made a batch of birdwatchers. Really surprised how well everything worked. I was probably a bit too conservative with the speed and cuts but at least the hearts were really clean.
Next up is a wheat flakes/ barley malt mash hybrid vodka 👍
Has anyone experienced high shipping fees with these guys I went to order 2 bags of milled corn(48lbs) and they charged me $160 for shipping alone
I have a vevor air still and I'm getting tired of doing 11 hours of running every 10 days and the air still runs hot, like 35c-40c before the heat wave. I just make neutrals so I don't need anything fancy. Thinking about getting a crappy vevor 5 gallon kit but A) I'd need something to heat it, I don't want to use open flame. And B) I don't want to waste a ton of water so I'd have to make a recirculator of some sort. Any tips would be appreciated!
Quick intro, I'm a long time brewer familiar with fermentation. Recently bought an Airstill clone, done a few runs and love the hobby. Ready to go for an entry level still. I've tried to search for advice on this still but don't know what it's called, if there's a name or keyword you can recommend feel free to share and ignore this post - I'll get back to research.
I have a 35l Brewzilla I plan to use for the kettle and have seen some love for this still so on a whim pressed order on Ali Express. Mainly because the parts are all modular so even if I don't like it as is, I can reconfigure or add bits.
My question is about how to run this in reflux mode as shown here. I assume the dephlegmator is the key to running it and by increasing the flow rate to it I can go from 100% reflux all the way down? If so would the idea be to get it warm, hold it in 100% reflux for a while (how long?) then start to take fores and heads by slowly reducing the flow?
Second question, I assume if I take the dephlegmator this will make a decent pot still?
Third question, what mods have people made and recommend? I'm guessing adding another 500mm packed length will help get me closer to azeotrope, what about adding a T-piece and converting to CCVM, any benefit there?
Thanks so much for reading, looking forward to the learning curve.
I recently acquired a 120 quart (30 gallon) cooking pot. It is 20 inches in diameter. Would anyone have a burner recommendation to match this size pot?
I currently have a small propane burner and 100lb propane tank. I have serious doubts that my propane burner could get this big pot to boil. I know my burner can handle a 13 gallon pot but not so sure about 30 gallon.
So ive made some beers that mmmm… are absolute un drinkable piss, ive run them through the a pot still and all the hops flavor has remained present, making the initial flavor … substantially worse. From foul burnt ipa to ipa whiskey, which has a taste similar to Nintendo ds cartridge bitterant. Is there any way to clean up the flavor to make it neutral, or am I better off just using it as fire starter? It’s hands down the worst thing I’ve ever tasted in my life
It was time to move the still out of the Man cave And back into my front yard When it gets dark , I do it the old fashioned way By lantern, light and moon light
Based on u/aralseapiracys recent posts about Chinese village distilling and related practice of solid state fermentation in baijiu production.
Has anyone done this themselves? Specifically the solid state fermentation and follow on distillation?
I'd love to try this and looking for any tips on ensuring success from a westerner trying this process for the first time.
Probably going to shoot for a corn/ rice/ barley/ oats recipe for a western twist.
Picture related: is this the right yeast/ bacteria starter to use for solid state fermentation
I have just done a couple of invert sugar brews with no problem. Going from gravity of 1080 down to 1005 over a fortnight.
Then I’ve started a malt extract brew with the same equipment, the same yeast, and the same location.
It fermented very busily for a couple of days then slowed down to almost nothing. It’s gone from a gravity reading of 1100 down to 1060.
It’s got yeast nutrient, it’s got some calcium carbonate, it’s got a warming strap. I just can’t figure out where I’m going wrong!
Is it too rich a mixture? It’s got some caramalt and dark malt extracts - is it full of unfermentable sugar?
Or is it the yeast? I’ve been using EC-1118.
Any ideas welcome.
I've got some high rye corn whiskey that I want to age in a small barrel, but it seems that every seller I can find online has pretty mixed reviews of their barrels. I know user error is responsible for some of the poor reviews.
If you've purchased a small barrel for aging spirits and have been happy with it, please let me know where you got it. Thanks in advance!
So I made a batch of apple pie and it's amazing but I've noticed that the apples have started turning tan. Is this just the alcohol being absorbed into the fruit or should I be worried about it going bad
I recently bought a countertop filter for around 300$ and am not really satisfied with it so I’m now considering distilled water instead.
Are the cheap distillers like VEVOR worse than the more expensive ones purity wise or is the price just for convenient features? If the formers the case does anyone have some tips on using the compact ones so I don’t have to wait around for 5 hours whenever I’m thirsty.
I am going to be building a 3" CCVM column similar to Dad300's that a lot of people have probably seen from HD forum. I have seen these use corrugated stainless-steel tubing as a Dimroth style reflux condenser. From reading a ton of threads 5/8" CSST should work well inside of the 3" column and 1/2" CSST for a 2" column (see pic stolen from HD). This should be cheaper and a whole lot easier than winding copper tubing.
Has anyone actually made one of these and if so, where did you find the uncoated CSST? OR did you buy coated and strip it down. I'm only finding 1/2" yellow coated CSST (for gas lines) at places like homedepot. But can't find 5/8" coated or uncoated anywhere. Occasionally I will see 3/4" uncoated CSST for water heaters but not sure if that would be too big once wound into a Dimroth.
I don't know if I need to either change something about how I do things or if it instead is my expectations that needs to be reset. I find that when I do a run I have no problem at all hitting a rock solid 96% ABV according to my hydrometer throughout basically the whole run (at the very end it tapers off for the last 100ml of output or so at 97-98C boiler temp, but with a horrible tails smell, so I usually stop there). But even if I manage to hit azeo the "neutrals" are not as neutral as I would expect.
Don't get me wrong, it is not bad, but it is still easy to taste the difference between the hearts (after diluting to 40%) and for example Absolut or other commercial vodkas, and has a bit more of a "burn" to it.
So to the question, should I either modify my approach, or reset my expectations to more reasonable(?) levels? Should I run multiple spirit runs, run it slower (or faster?), skip the sugar washes (I have a beer brewing setup and experience brewing beer, so a all-grain mash is not out of reach, even though it is a bit more work), or should I start carbon-filtering the product (I was lead to think this would not be needed with a high-efficiency column)
I have a 2" 1m long SPP packed column in a CM setup on a Digiboil i have modified with a dimmer for power control. I have a ~10cm long roll of copper mesh in the vapor path to catch sulfur compounds (the still itself is 100% stainless)
I ferment 3*23l of TFFV, strip them in pot mode, then distill the ~30% low wines with the full column.
Generally, everything except for the first 2 jars and the last jar smell/taste pretty similar. There is a noticeable heads, hearts and tails part, but I feel the hearts doesn't clean up as much as I would expect.
I am happy for any and all suggestions/pointers for what to do! I would love to be able to produce a true neutral base I can use to make non-strongly spiced things with.
I purchased this recommended distillation tower: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08RMVQDMB?ref_=pe_125775000_1044873430_i_fed_asin_title
I'm using it in conjunction with my Brewzilla. I was hoping to hook up my hose to use in the condenser, but it's not clear to me if that's possible. What's the best/simplest way to approach it with this set up? What's the intended set up here? Using a water pump? If that's the case what will I need to order to make sure I'll be good to go?
Thanks