Home distillers

[MP5_Rizzo]

So quick update on this. At income tax time I'm gonna be ordering up a still. I'll be ordering from Clawhammer Supply and will be going with their 10 gallon copper, build it yourself kit. This let's me have some pride in workmanship and I feel capable of doing the work, but I also know all the parts are there and I can call them for help if I run in to something unexpected. I went with a 10 gallon as a starter so I can take things slowly but still run enough for it to be worth it. I'm also gonna order up a couple of books to read up on. And I'll probably be picking several people's brains when I can. For those of you who have done this, let me see if I have the process right.

You make your mash, adding sugar, corn, or sweet feed, etc and yeast to water. This fermets in a mash barrel. Once it's done fermeting, you siphon off the wash (liquid) into a separate container. Then you do a stripper run and don't make any cuts. This makes low wines and clears your wash of most of the water, particles etc. Make enough stripper runs to have 10 gallons of low wines? Then add all the low wines, and distill slowly, cutting out the foreshort (methanol) then cutting the heads, hearts and finally the tails. This will yield high wines or high proof alchol in your hearts correct? Is there anything I'm missing or that j am misinformed on? How much wash does it to take to strip off and make 10 gallons of low wines? And with 10 gallons of low wines, how much finished product can be expected?

Sent from behind the anvil

 

 

From what I've read and a little hearsay is temperature control is crucial,  a few degrees during certain steps can make a major difference in the end product.

[Spots]

From what I've read and a little hearsay is temperature control is crucial, a few degrees during certain steps can make a major difference in the end product.

That was part of the reason I'm gonna do a hybrid still and I plan to use both a pot thermometer and a column thermometer as well as one of there parrots with a distilling hydrometer to try and get the best product possible. I'm hoping to just make small batches of "fuel" to put back for hard times and give to a few select friends.

Sent from behind the anvil

[TMF]

I probably have a lot to type, but I'm on my iPhone and that's a big pain in the ass. My advice is to be prepared for disappointment in your first batch. Consider your first few batches to be practice.

Use a proven recipe you find online. If I recall, claw hammer posts recipes on their website. Also, cruise the distilling websites and read as much as you can. It will answer a lot of questions on the front end which you will have while doing a run. Temperatures is was got me. I tried to control the temp and about lost my mind doing so.

I pieced together a stainless steel 15 gallon pot still for pretty cheap, and it makes pretty cheap stuff. I save money by grinding the corn, turning it to gelatin and adding enzyme mashing it in a tun (along with malted barley for more enzyme) to bring out more sugar. Then I add more sugar to the fermentation vessel to bump up my percentage. I give it 7 days before distilling. My operation isn't sanitary like it is when I make beer, so I get a lot of bacteria in there, so I don't like letting it go for more than 7 days, even though I could get a higher alcohol content. Since I'm doing 10 gallons at s time, I don't really care. I use the mash tun as my fermentation vessel (FTW).

Make your first batch then go from there. The claw hammer stuff is the best out there. I'd net more productive runs if I went with one, but damn they are expensive. As with most things, you'll get better at it as you go. You have to make mistakes first.

This is my setup.

.


I like to multitask. If I'm doing a shoulder, I'm also doing a run, mowing, cleaning rifles, killing PBR, and reminding my wife what a sexy sumbitch she married.

Edited December 21, 2015 by TMF

[Spots]

I probably have a lot to type, but I'm on my iPhone and that's a big pain in the ass. My advice is to be prepared for disappointment in your first batch. Consider your first few batches to be practice.

Use a proven recipe you find online. If I recall, claw hammer posts recipes on their website. Also, cruise the distilling websites and read as much as you can. It will answer a lot of questions on the front end which you will have while doing a run. Temperatures is was got me. I tried to control the temp and about lost my mind doing so.

I pieced together a stainless steel 15 gallon pot still for pretty cheap, and it makes pretty cheap stuff. I save money by grinding the corn, turning it to gelatin and adding enzyme mashing it in a tun (along with malted barley for more enzyme) to bring out more sugar. Then I add more sugar to the fermentation vessel to bump up my percentage. I give it 7 days before distilling. My operation isn't sanitary like it is when I make beer, so I get a lot of bacteria in there, so I don't like letting it go for more than 7 days, even though I could get a higher alcohol content. Since I'm doing 10 gallons at s time, I don't really care. I use the mash tun as my fermentation vessel (FTW).

Make your first batch then go from there. The claw hammer stuff is the best out there. I'd net more productive runs if I went with one, but damn they are expensive. As with most things, you'll get better at it as you go. You have to make mistakes first.

This is my setup.

.


I like to multitask. If I'm doing a shoulder, I'm also doing a run, mowing, cleaning rifles, killing PBR, and reminding my wife what a sexy sumbitch she married.

They aren't cheap, that's a fact. But I learned with most things, if you can swing the money up front, it's one less thing to go wrong in the equation. Buying a kit will let me focus on the basics of fermeting and runs and not worry about messing with a hack job still I've slapped together. Yours looks very professional, do you use copper packing since it's a stainless setup? Also, when you do your mash, you said you do 10 gallons. Do you do a stripper run to make 50-60% abv and then rerun it to get your final product or do you run your final product from the wash off your fermet? Feel free to wait until you get to a computer to type. I was reading up on claw hammers recipes, I definitely wanna start with an established recipe. My biggest worry is the cuts. Getting heads in the hearts can run flavor, but getting the methanol foreshot in them will cause blindness. So my biggest concern is making sure I don't poison myself. Is it obvious when the methanol stops by smell or is it subtle? Thanks for all the advice and help.

Sent from behind the anvil

[Raoul]

Yeah temp is a big deal. if the temp of the wash gets much above 208 you start having some pretty nasty stuff in the distillate. Not necessarily harmful, but off tasting and hangover inducing.

The foreshots are the really bad compounds.

[TMF]

They aren't cheap, that's a fact. But I learned with most things, if you can swing the money up front, it's one less thing to go wrong in the equation. Buying a kit will let me focus on the basics of fermeting and runs and not worry about messing with a hack job still I've slapped together. Yours looks very professional, do you use copper packing since it's a stainless setup? Also, when you do your mash, you said you do 10 gallons. Do you do a stripper run to make 50-60% abv and then rerun it to get your final product or do you run your final product from the wash off your fermet? Feel free to wait until you get to a computer to type. I was reading up on claw hammers recipes, I definitely wanna start with an established recipe. My biggest worry is the cuts. Getting heads in the hearts can run flavor, but getting the methanol foreshot in them will cause blindness. So my biggest concern is making sure I don't poison myself. Is it obvious when the methanol stops by smell or is it subtle? Thanks for all the advice and help.

Sent from behind the anvil

 

 

I think those Clawhammer stills have a lifetime guarantee, so you surely have something that will last as long as you do. 

 

I use the copper wool packed in the condenser unit.  I honestly don't know how many runs I can do before replacing it with a new one though.  I should probably look into that.  As for the fermented product, I drain it into a bucket then transfer it to the kettle, then rinse the corn which has settled in the bottom of the tun to get as much stuff out as possible.  My first few batches I used my first run, because it was high enough in alcohol to please me.  I used most of the product to make apple pie though, leaving some to have on hand as good ol' white lightning.  The last batch I made I did a second run which was pretty high in alcohol content, but I don't know if I'll do that again.  Seems like kind of a waste for my uses, and I just don't like spending the extra time setting up and tearing down.

 

I use charcoal from the smoker to filter by putting it in a wide mouth funnel which has a strainer in it.  I get tiny bits of charcoal in the jug that way, so I just strain it with a cheese cloth which as worked just fine for me.  Then I use a sawsall to cut cubes of live oak, toss it on the grill for a few minutes to char it up around the edges.  I take those and toss it in a large quart mason jar, pour my product in and stick it in the attic.  The temperature variation in my attic is pretty extreme, and during the summer I'll take it down at night and stick it in the fridge so there is a lot of expanding and contracting in the wood, in order to simulate what happens in a barrel.  It's not going to win any awards, but it's cheap and fun to make.

 

As stated, keep an eye on your temperature.  The stuff you're distilling will determine the temperature.  I freaked out the first time, because I wasn't getting anything hardly at 173-175, and the temp kept getting higher, even when turning down the burner.  Turns out it's supposed to do that.  Eventually you'll find your sweet spot temperature, which is really based on the alcohol content and size of your mash.  Mine was somewhere in the 180s.  It stayed there forever, and once it starts creeping fast into the high 190s, the stuff isn't very good.  However, you don't want the stuff past a certain temp.  I've made marks on my temp gauge with a sharpie to indicate the acceptable temperature bracket.  The other poster suggested 208 degrees, which sounds right.  I can't confirm what mine is since I'm not at home right now.

 

Since you're going to throw out the heads anyway, I group that in with the foreshots and use it to kill weeds in my dog run area.  You'll definitely know what the foreshots are.  Take a drip of it on your finger and stick it on your tongue, then rinse with water and spit.  You'll know then what it tastes like.  Then, as your drip gets going, taste it as it goes.  You'll teach yourself real quick what is what.  If you stick with a consistent recipe, you will be an expert on what to keep and what to toss within your first few batches.

 

One of my first batches was a bunch of homemade mead and wine which didn't travel well when I moved from Tennessee.  Since I'm not one to be wasteful, but also not one to stomach funky brew, I distilled all that stuff.  It came out quite amazing.  I've played around with a few corn recipes, to include using cornmeal from the store.  I've found that regular deer corn was the best tasting.  Plus, when you dump the leftover contents of your fermentation vessel behind your house, the hogs come out in force.  The ground where I dumped my last one was tore up a good 6 inches down.  So you may get some bonus pork out of the deal  I've also heard that it's good for the chickens, in case you have any.

[No_0ne]

 

Be raight pleesed t' hep yew fellers git stearted ...

Edited December 22, 2015 by No_0ne

[Spots]

Be raight pleesed t' hep yew fellers git stearted ...

Gotta love the legend



Sent from behind the anvil

[Spots]

Is there any reason this won't work as a fermeter?
http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/how-to/g1580/how-to-build-your-own-home-brewing-mash-tun/

Do I need to add an airlock to let it breath?


Sent from behind the anvil

[CommsNBombs]

Is there any reason this won't work as a fermeter?
http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/how-to/g1580/how-to-build-your-own-home-brewing-mash-tun/

Do I need to add an airlock to let it breath?


Sent from behind the anvil

Definitely put an airlock, and if its a high yield recipe a runoff tube, on anything youre fermenting a mash in

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[TMF]

Is there any reason this won't work as a fermeter?
http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/how-to/g1580/how-to-build-your-own-home-brewing-mash-tun/

Do I need to add an airlock to let it breath?


Sent from behind the anvil

 

You can absolutely use this as a fermenter.  And no, you don't need to airlock it.

 

I use a 15 gallon mash tun (cooler) as my fermenter for this.  I leave the lid slightly ajar to allow oxygen into it, however, they aren't air tight anyway, so it's up to you on that.  Unlike beer, you don't need to worry about having your fermentation vessel air locked.  Think about it, none of the major distillers do this.  In fact, when you go to the distillery at Jack Daniel's, they have the lid open on the giant fermentation vessel where you can stick your head right in there and smell it.  Not so with beer breweries.

 

The reason you want to airlock your fermentation vessel for wines and beers is because you don't want it to have much exposure to oxygen (which there are still theories on allowing exposure during fermentation), as well as not allowing wild yeasts and bacteria into what you're fermenting which could throw off the taste.  If the plan is to distill it, then you don't have to worry about any of this.  In fact, most people will argue that allowing wild yeasts and bacteria into your fermentation vessel will potentially add complexity in your flavor. 

 

Since you're only fermenting for about a week before distilling, it just isn't enough time for the stuff to get funky or ruined.  I leave my mash tun on the back porch for a week, with the lid slightly ajar.  This means it is fermenting at a high temperature (around 80 - 85 degrees) and the yeast is super active.  It also means that everything can get in there.  I can promise you it doesn't matter.  You're distilling it.

 

And to add clarity, the airlock doesn't allow it to "breathe".  It just allows a blowoff tube for the CO2 to escape, because otherwise, the top of the vessel will blow off from the pressure.  It doesn't allow anything in.  In fact, I've had one of my very active worts blow my airlock off when I was brewing beer.  Huge mess there.

[TMF]

Definitely put an airlock, and if its a high yield recipe a runoff tube, on anything youre fermenting a mash in

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Nope.  Just allow for enough air to escape so that the top of the vessel doesn't explode off.  On a vessel such as this, if too much pressure built up from having the lid on tight, it would just pop it off.

[CommsNBombs]

Nope. Just allow for enough air to escape so that the top of the vessel doesn't explode off. On a vessel such as this, if too much pressure built up from having the lid on tight, it would just pop it off.

Its annoying making a Belgian quad bach and having your fermenter blow, I use them as a force of habit more than anything else



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[TMF]

Its annoying making a Belgian quad bach and having your fermenter blow, I use them as a force of habit more than anything else



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Yep, I've gotten to the point where I know whether or not my first few days of fermentation will be active enough to blow my airlock, and in those cases I just run a blow off tube to a bucket.  I don't like doing that because it isn't tidy, and takes up more room in the gun closet (yes, I have an entire closet dedicated to guns, beer and wine). 

 

But for the purposes of distilling, you don't have to worry about keeping oxygen out.  Some distillers will ferment in large plastic garbage cans and leave the lid off completely. 

[TMF]

The first picture is my recipe for my yeast starter. The second picture is my mash tun/fermentation vessel. I recommend using distiller's yeast, and buying it in large quantities. I keep it refrigerated and it lasts much longer than folks say it does. I order most of this on Amazon, and I believe it is available under prime for free two day shipping. The sugar there is corn sugar, which I also use for priming when bottling beer. I buy it in 4lb bags, and it's super cheap that way.

[nightrunner]

"NOT COCAINE"

seems legit lol Edited January 5, 2016 by nightrunner

[TNWNGR]

Is there any reason this won't work as a fermeter?
http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/how-to/g1580/how-to-build-your-own-home-brewing-mash-tun/

Do I need to add an airlock to let it breath?


Sent from behind the anvil

 

Thanks for posting this link Spots, you just saved me a bit of time and money as I'm advancing in my beer brewing. After playing around with some of the available kits I'm just about ready to start mixing my own whole grain brews. For all of the folks who said don't waste the time on one gallon brew kits, well using one of the wide mouth kits had been fantastic. I'm seriously considering going with a similar small scale set up for learning how to distill alcohol. 

[TMF]

Thanks for posting this link Spots, you just saved me a bit of time and money as I'm advancing in my beer brewing. After playing around with some of the available kits I'm just about ready to start mixing my own whole grain brews. For all of the folks who said don't waste the time on one gallon brew kits, well using one of the wide mouth kits had been fantastic. I'm seriously considering going with a similar small scale set up for learning how to distill alcohol.

Get yourself one of these. Changed my life:

[TNWNGR]

Get yourself one of these. Changed my life:

 

Yeah, I've already recognized that once I start buying whole grains instead of the mixtures I'll have to have a grain grinder. I like the ideal of using the screwdriver to power it, much simpler then some of the other set ups I've viewed. I was shocked at how much a powered grain grinder costs. Interestingly a lost of large scale micro brewers build their own grain grinding and mixing tools. W/O a doubt if I'd started brewing beer years earlier I'd be considering a microbrew pub in a non-provided community in TN. Combined with a small sandwich or pizza shop its a nice semi retirement business.

[Hozzie]

Damn you all, just what I need is one more thing to tinker with.  I have a feeling I will be doing the same thing as Spots very shortly.

[TMF]

Yeah, I've already recognized that once I start buying whole grains instead of the mixtures I'll have to have a grain grinder. I like the ideal of using the screwdriver to power it, much simpler then some of the other set ups I've viewed. I was shocked at how much a powered grain grinder costs. Interestingly a lost of large scale micro brewers build their own grain grinding and mixing tools. W/O a doubt if I'd started brewing beer years earlier I'd be considering a microbrew pub in a non-provided community in TN. Combined with a small sandwich or pizza shop its a nice semi retirement business.

I have a buddy who is part owner of one out in Colorado, though he went the more upscale route. I'd love to do the same thing, but it does take a while to start turning a profit, and in Florida the big beer companies are lobbying to shut down the site served microbrews.

[Tedro2022]

Damn you all, just what I need is one more thing to tinker with. I have a feeling I will be doing the same thing as Spots very shortly.

You and me both... Now, how do I pitch this to the wife???


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[Spots]

Thank you everyone for all the help so far. I can't wait to get my first batch running

Sent from behind the anvil

[TGO David]

Guys... one of the members shared this with me.  From what I am reading here, the ATF says that there are *zero* provisions for legal home distillation of alcohol.

 

[URL=http://s288.photobucket.com/user/dkyancy/media/Misc/image.jpg1_zpszw6nibkp.jpg.html][/URL]

[TMF]

Guys... one of the members shared this with me.  From what I am reading here, the ATF says that there are *zero* provisions for legal home distillation of alcohol.

 

 

This is why I practice making all my batches outside the continental United States.  Just like Hawkeye and Trapper.