r/firewater

I just came into a lot of peaches and I’m interested in making a brandy out of them. I’ve seen different recipes where you can either puree them or cut them up for the mash.

Anyone have any success in using fruit for mash? Would love any tips!

So im relatively new to the hobby so please forgive me if this has been answered before

Currently working with a 5gal pot still with a thumper but taking up way too much space in the kitchen to be running as often as I'd like

Looking at an Still Spirits Air Still Pro so I can keep up with the hobby without taking over the whole house, as a precursor to this I'm looking to order a standard Still Spirits Air Still to see if its a good fit without spending the extra on the Pro just yet.

First batch will likely be an apple cider brewed from apple juice (no preserves) likely with EC1118. Would like to know if anyone has had any success with similar brandy recipes in an Air Still

(The plan is a stripping&Spirits run but open to hearing about one and dones too)

Any experience, advise and cautionary tales welcome

If I put 11 pounds of grains to boil in 5 gallons of water, how long should I wait before draining out the liquid and sparging?

Successfully started a rolled oats and malted barley mash yesterday probably the hardest mash I’ve ever done, but I think it turned out pretty good Starting gravity was 1.060 I’m excited to see how it turns out when it’s finished. Anyone else ever tried that mash?

Hi everyone,
I want to make a clean vodka sugar wash, but I only have standard baker's yeast.
What is your best simple recipe? Looking for:
Good sugar-to-water ratio
Easy nutrients (like tomato paste or boiled yeast)
Tips to avoid bad flavors
Thanks for the help!

Went out of my way to order a bunch of truckers favorite corn for a mash.

Yesterday I went out to my garage and I had to turn the air conditioning off to talk to my wife and I forgot to turn it back on. I go back today and I see my mash is fermenting at 93°F, liquid temp not ambient. Ambient was 104. I'm doing everything I can right now to cool it back down but I'm worried that the 10 to 11 hours it could've been that high will ruin my flavor. Anybody have any tips? As far as yeast I'm just using red star bakers yeast.

I made 3 buckets of 25l sugar wash and did a stripping run on each. My result was around 7.5L of alcohol. I did everything in my T500 reflux and diluted it to 30% and filled my 300ml glass pots.

Aired them out for 24 hours and tried to determine the heads hearts and tails.

I kept a selection of about 2.7L what I think is drinkable, or my smell and tastebuds are wrong but I hoped for a higher yield. Or is this about right?

I'm new to this, I found a crappy vevor style still at goodwill and have been playing around with it. I'd like to move up and be able to do different things. I know something like this can be used to produce high proof neutral spirits but can I run it as a pot still for whisky or rum? If anyone has experience with this company too I'd love to hear. Thanks!

Not sure if this is useful for someone. Considering ASP has been available for a while.

Being a tinkerer, I was given 2 Airstill Pro's. Both had different issues. I figured if I can get one running, it will be good to play with.

Managed to get one running without issues, cleaned it, vinegar run followed by sacrifical 4l tawny port run.

Second one's either controller or thermal sensor seems to be malfunctioned.

Pros

- Managed to get 24l TPW processed in 4l increments over 6 days

- Rinsing and starting 4l mash takes about 5 mins in the morning. Turn on and goto work (partner is at home and keeps an eye on the still)

- Not having to clean/sanitise everything and setup water lines makes my Saturdays free.

- Second distill gives approx 91% abv, clean and acceptable neutral

- ASP seems to work best, when ambient is under 24c

Cons

- Its a mess to get saddles out, i feel design could have been like a long basket with saddles to take everything out easily

- Do not use ASP indoors, even at 20c ambient, vapour is not cooled 100%, a sizeable vapour escapes and stinks the area

- Even though instead of botanical basket, extra copper scrubber can be added, extra copper is never bad, right? Wrong, Manual specifically says not to put extra copper above the weir and I have to agree. With extra copper neutral had had this bad smell.

- After 6 runs, saddles are filthy, worse than 6 runs of T500, and distill had this nasty smell

- Internally silicon hoses used for 2 joints (for some its a deal breaker), it will not be easy to replace these with hdpe hoses

- I can't see myself using this for macerations, not enough compression for cuts

- Under warranty its all good, anything goes wrong, its pretty much a throwaway product

- For regular acceptable quality neutral, saddles need to be cleaned (boiled in vinegar-salt-water solution) every 6 runs. Can get away with 20 or so runs before still needs to be re-seasoned

Bottom line

- Great product, if you are short of space and time (as long as someone can keep an eye on it), and want to make acceptable quality neutral

- Twice distilled TPW is acceptable and felt better than store bought vodka

- If you have space, resources, water and can give up your saturday. T500 will produce better results and with 5x capacity. Otherwise airstill pro would be sufficient for acceptable neutral.

How i am using air still pro? I run 24l TPW over 6 days and collect it all in 5l demijohn. Dilute it to 40% and then run in T500 at approx 900w. Final distill when diluted to 45% abv, is smooth and loved by everyone.

Hi all looking into making my own vodka at home. Prices in Australia are ridiculous and I'm primarily making it to use for herbal tinctures, so alcohol strength is more important than taste. Im about to buy some things online and was looking for recommendations on whether I'm missing anything or chosen my items poorly, as I've never done this before and am pretty clueless.

Things in my order:

20L food grade bucket

Aquarium air pump/air stone (apparently required for the ferment in the bucket)

VEVOR Moonshine Still Distiller 5GAL/21L Stainless Steel Water Distiller Copper Tube with Circulating Pump

Home Brew hydrometer

sugar/distillers yeast.

Is that correct and really all I need? I think I need to also source a lid for the bucket, somebody mentioned a breather valve also (obviously due to the ferment gases). Regarding testing is the hydrometer the only thing I need? Are there meters for also testing methanol content? Any advice would be greatly appreciated cheers

Is there any merit to do so or reason why I shouldn’t re use the remaining liquid from a distillation as the base of a new ferment? Say I’ve completed a run, ive got a couple gallons of liquid, it’s been sterilized by the heat (hopefully), it retains flavor to an extent, I can just pitch sugar and yeast and re wash it, sure the flavor will be different , but is there any reason I shouldn’t other than ‘thats not how the craft is done.’ If anyone has experience with this I’d be happy to hear it.