Beer Brewing Slash Occassional Distilling

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

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

It wasn't but I think it stuck now

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

Well I did something last night. Don't know what I did, but I did stuff and stuff happened. I rushed it into a bit of spare time I had. Pretty silly when you have turned the potstill on and only then you start thinking about what fits into what and how to connect all the cooling pipes together. Nonetheless...

I split the wash into 2 batches, roughly 7 litres in each. Some things I learnt:
1. My SCR controlled hotplate is probably great for patient people, but seemed to take a long time to reach temp.
2. While the pot is warming up, the riser and rest of the distilling system makes no change whatsoever. Then it suddenly starts to transfer heat up the riser and to the rest of the system. With the thermometer at the top of the riser, the temp suddenly spikes higher than you would want. You then realised the wash is probably hotter than you want it before you realise it.
3. A thick solid builders bucket is not strong enough to handle expansion when you use it to make a block of ice.
4. The great load in the condenser is actually relatively easy to cool. And our my cooling jacket could be much smaller. About 8kg of ice sufficed for both distills and there was still I've left at the end. The water coming back from the cooler was still cold throughout the whole process.
5. An adjustable stand for the tubes and outlets would be the most handy thing ever.
6. Silicone tube is awesome.
7. A lot more flavour or more specifically, aroma came through than I expected.
8. If you drop a parrot, it will probably start to leak.
9. Leaning alcohol softens varnish.
10. Using a refractometer is actually a win for distilling. Easy to get a single drop, ready to get a reading, easy to convert, easy to clean.
11. Spirit run is going to be interesting...

[groenspookasem Banned Find all posts View Profile Close groenspookasem]

Well I did something last night. Don't know what I did, but I did stuff and stuff happened. I rushed it into a bit of spare time I had. Pretty silly when you have turned the potstill on and only then you start thinking about what fits into what and how to connect all the cooling pipes together. Nonetheless...

I split the wash into 2 batches, roughly 7 litres in each. Some things I learnt:
1. My SCR controlled hotplate is probably great for patient people, but seemed to take a long time to reach temp.
- what's the kw rating on it, each still is different and you need to learn the behavior of it
2. While the pot is warming up, the riser and rest of the distilling system makes no change whatsoever. Then it suddenly starts to transfer heat up the riser and to the rest of the system. With the thermometer at the top of the riser, the temp suddenly spikes higher than you would want. You then realised the wash is probably hotter than you want it before you realise it.
- your batch might be too small ( can't recall the pot size your'e using) smaller runs go faster, also why i dilute ethanol on spirit run (to increase volume)
3. A thick solid builders bucket is not strong enough to handle expansion when you use it to make a block of ice.
- school fees
4. The great load in the condenser is actually relatively easy to cool. And our my cooling jacket could be much smaller. About 8kg of ice sufficed for both distills and there was still I've left at the end. The water coming back from the cooler was still cold throughout the whole process.
5. An adjustable stand for the tubes and outlets would be the most handy thing ever.
6. Silicone tube is awesome.
- just not cheap :-(
7. A lot more flavour or more specifically, aroma came through than I expected.
- which is good for rums/whiskey/brandy.
8. If you drop a parrot, it will probably start to leak.
- ouch, killed the alcoholmeter too?
9. Leaning alcohol softens varnish.
- your missus wont be happy when she find out
10. Using a refractometer is actually a win for distilling. Easy to get a single drop, ready to get a reading, easy to convert, easy to clean.
11. Spirit run is going to be interesting...

responded above, i ran both the sugar wash and peat mash yesterday, still need to clean the alembic as i started too late, but i've been putting it off for too long. i've done another rum wash and i want to do that sabro pale ale tomorrow, i'm gatvol for distilling, long day yesterday

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

responded above, i ran both the sugar wash and peat mash yesterday, still need to clean the alembic as i started too late, but i've been putting it off for too long. i've done another rum wash and i want to do that sabro pale ale tomorrow, i'm gatvol for distilling, long day yesterday

Sorry, only saw that now. [+some new stuff I learnt on the spirit run]
1. Hotplate is a low 1 kW. [Actually worked nicely for the spirit run. More below]
2. Its a 14L pot. [Diluted the 3L at 44ABV by half and had a 6L batch. started measuring the pot until it get to 73C, then the heat starts transmitting through the system and I move thermometer to the top]
8. Luckily alcoholmeter is fine, fixed the parakeet.
12. Geez, when I reread the crap I type I dont know how you understand anything I say. Shameful, and thanks!.

I did a spirit run last night. Fun learning experience, but longer than expected too. Started at 19:00 and finished 23:30. Now I appreciate that larger stills take a lot longer so I shouldnt complain.

I screenshotted your reply Spook and used that as my guide throughout. Thanks. I googled and apparently ethanol evaporation drops about 4.5 degrees at Joburg elevations, somewhat similar to waters offset. So I offset the values you gave about 4 degrees. Largely irrelevent at this stage as for the most part I just bottled for each degree range as you suggested. There were periodic temp decreases 'back to a lower temp range', but they were minimal and I just ignored those.

So I now have a whack ton of different jars, and most research tells me to 'do cuts by smell' . Toxxyc would rock at this. Now, I can tell they are different, especially comparing the first and last jar ["tomato-ey rose water, and smelly shoes, respectively]
IMG_20200701_155822.jpg

What would I actually need to take note of wrt smells to decide where I should make the cuts? TIA

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

OK so I got my hands on 5l of 98% food grade Ethanol. Kinda for free, but I have access to a few thousand litres at a good price anyway. It's not supposed to be drunk, but I guess nobody will ever know.

Base seems to be corn sugar (dextrose). So, what do I do with that? It's technically un-aged bourbon now...