Beer Brewing Slash Occassional Distilling

[Langchop Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Langchop]

You legend. Thank you

[Langchop Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Langchop]

Checked my parrot. It's happy up to about 190ml/Min (of water). I'm guessing that should be sufficient for a small scale (11l wash) still, even pushing it hard?

[Toxxyc Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Toxxyc]

Put my pressure cooker still through a cleaning run this weekend as well. Now the big question - what do I ferment first to create a few litres of wash? I want to make a rum, actually, so that'll be a good thing for me to try (been wanting to make a sweet dark rum for a long time now). Any hints/tips and perhaps a wash recipe that'll be cheap to create? I don't want to go out and buy a 20l bucket of blackstrap now, considering that first and foremost money is a tad scarce and secondly prices have shot up since lockdown started, so something cheap would be nice.

[Langchop Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Langchop]

So, got a bit gatvol of 'remote working' on Wednesday afternoon, and while milling some grain for Veltie, I skimmed a selection of grain from my precious stocks to make a 'birdwatchers' wash mixed with a mini brew. Some grain, so I can call the final product whiskey, right?

The days very brief and crude notes are as below:

Screenshot_20200612_164117.jpg

As of today, day2, I am hearing some active bubbling and the refractometer is reading 15 Brix. I need to get me a big bucket full of water in the freezer so I have a solid ice block for the distilling in days to come.

I had intended to use some 1/4" copper tube to wrap around my very narrow still riser, kindly sponsored by Toxxyc, to have a good reflux option when required. The small radius was too much for the tube and it kept kinking. But I did discover Plumblink is a great source for larger copper fitting sizes, so going to put a very short 28mm diameter cooling jack section on there that could work well with a copper scrubber packing.

[RudiC Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close RudiC]

Put my pressure cooker still through a cleaning run this weekend as well. Now the big question - what do I ferment first to create a few litres of wash? I want to make a rum, actually, so that'll be a good thing for me to try (been wanting to make a sweet dark rum for a long time now). Any hints/tips and perhaps a wash recipe that'll be cheap to create? I don't want to go out and buy a 20l bucket of blackstrap now, considering that first and foremost money is a tad scarce and secondly prices have shot up since lockdown started, so something cheap would be nice.

I've been watching what guys are doing with their stills and their washes. From what I've gathered. most go for the Birdwatchers sugar wash, then when done, they start with the molasses and other additions to get to a nice rum. Apparently molasses is a relatively active fermenter and you need lots of headroom with that. Been following the locals and Aussies doing their thing since just after the fake virus scare, some people love their own rum more that the nice ones I enjoy, like Captain dark and Red Heart.

I'm also keen to get into that, but for now I will focus on brewing beer. But anything can happen, so I might make a plan sooner

https://homedistiller.org/forum/view...=5018#p6725590 This is the link to that thread. Admin andModerator, if not allowed, I will remove the link or you can delete my reply

[Langchop Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Langchop]

For shitzngiggles and for learning, I got some rye based vodka and did this. (Not that I think the grain basis of a vodka makes any real difference)

IMG_20200618_164902.jpg
IMG_20200618_164212.jpg

In a small bottle, a few charred staves (literally, blowtorch), a few roasted staves (literally, toaster)... And some Vienna malt soaking in, just to try and impart some malt undertones. All just to get a feel for the flavours that infuse.

In hindsight, fewer more dark roasted grains would have been better. It already getting green grassy aromas. But hey, let's see.

[Toxxyc Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Toxxyc]

I think that looks awesome, TBH. Perhaps crushing the grains slightly might have helped a bit, now that I see it on here.

[groenspookasem Banned Find all posts View Profile Close groenspookasem]

wybo punches above it's price range that's for sure. you can char your wood too, different levels of toast imparts different flavors, charring caramelizes the wood and also exposes another range of flavors. there's no reason to only stick with oak, cherry/apple/pecan etc.

[Toxxyc Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Toxxyc]

Yeah just finding those other types of hard woods in small pieces for a good price is a nightmare, specially because it has to be raw wood.

[groenspookasem Banned Find all posts View Profile Close groenspookasem]

wood smoking chips from builders? i used to smoke meat with jack daniels barrel chips :-)

[Langchop Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Langchop]

Got some nice oak options at builders Spook...
IMG_20200616_164525.jpg

Then I went to my new best friend Leroy's place and they have some real options. I got some 2mm raw American white oak veneer edging.
IMG_20200616_223428.jpg

Next time I will get some white oak cleats and cut so I can get lots of exposed end grain
IMG_20200616_155542.jpg

Day 2 and my 'wiski' is getting some nice dirt, I mean colour...
IMG_20200619_170107.jpg
Also took out the Vienna malt and put a smaller amount of dark choc malt. The mushy grass aroma was not doing it for me.

[Langchop Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Langchop]

This is more of my rambling diary at this stage but its nice to just peg the progress somewhere.

I got my stainless plate the other day and put a nice bead of silicone on. This together with little clamps I got made to 'somewhat' conveniently clamp the plate to the top of my tupperware boiler.

IMG_20200626_133758.jpg
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The idea being that I can then do bigger (ie. more practical) batches and do the first stripping (?) run of 18 or so litres in there and then a second run (spirit ?) in the smaller 14L stainless pressure cooker still.

In other news I got me a nice cheap R200 washing machine pump to hook up to my tupperware brewery for a mash recirculation. I am guessing at this stage that you want to measure mash temp from the pumping line and control it from there?

IMG_20200625_204318.jpg

On the little fun experiment, that green grassiness seems to have faded in the aroma, and now smelling more mellow and woody. Plus a nice deepening brown colour.

IMG_20200626_134356.jpg

[BackOffMyBrew Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close BackOffMyBrew]

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCat...cPNteKXzBomVMQ Barley and Hops

You obviously know this channel, I've found some solid tips and advice there

[JIGSAW Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close JIGSAW]

Yip, with lockdown, I think everyone officially knows about the barley and hop channel

[Langchop Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Langchop]

Thanks BOMB (hehe. Was that an intentional sequence of words in your handle!?)

I know B&H comes highly recommended by many. Must admit though, one of the first vids I saw was about converting a pot into a still, and even with my inexperience there were a number of things that made me raise an eyebrow or three. I since learned that they/ he has a big following of people who are skeptical about his vids and then similar number of people tantamount to a cult following. I have heard of people too hesitant to challenge him because of the backlash from his backers!

All that fun and games aside, I have watched a few and they are for the most part very useful.