Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hey all, complete newb here.

First I understand this is a hobby, so shouldn't really come down to cost/benefit, as hobbies tend to cost a lot of money (I restore European cars as a hobby... don't even ask about cost).

However given I don't mind a drink (generally around a bottle a week), plus I'm just about finished restoring my last car.. I'm now looking at something else to get into. I find distilling pretty fascinating.

I'm an American Whiskey fan and appreciate a good spiced rum as well, hence I'm focusing on a pot still setup.. something relatively compact as well (maybe 25-50L boiler).

Looking at costs of each run (not including setup/equipment costs), is the yield great enough to justify the means if you were to look at it from a pure cost perspective?

I know there are about a million variables that influence yield/efficiency, however if I try and do some really basic estimates I get the following:

25L wash (eg. rum wash: dextrose, molasses, carbon, yeast) $46
Stripping run (Conditioner) $3.50 - Yield probably about 17L taking everything except the bottom of the fermenter and the foreshots)
Spirit run (Conditioner) $3.50 - Yield guestimate 3-3.5L @ 40%, dilute to 37.5% = 3.2-3.7L (avg. 3.45L)
Electricity/Water $8

Cost: $61 / Yield 3.45L

Variables aside.. is this overly optimistic for a basic pot still setup? Are these the types of costs you guys/gals see, or am I way off?

Get rid of the dextrose, carbon and conditioner cause you won't need them if you do cuts and not use turbo yeast.

If you go to all grain or grain sugar heads you will have a bit more cost but if you use cornflakes and wheetbix it will be cheaper. Like all hobbies, I can spend big or go small and simple :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I think your numbers are a bit off too,
A VERY basic dodgy work out - 25l of wash at 8% is 2l of 100% alcohol or 4@50% 5@40% you roughly loose 5% per run, so end result would be UPTO 4.6L @40% then loose 1/2 ish for cuts, so you might end up with 10% of the initial wash size at drinking strength,

woodduck wrote:Get rid of the dextrose, carbon and conditioner cause you won't need them if you do cuts and not use turbo yeast.

If you go to all grain or grain sugar heads you will have a bit more cost but if you use cornflakes and wheetbix it will be cheaper. Like all hobbies, I can spend big or go small and simple :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Thanks again woodduck.. you seem to be fielding all my questions across the different threads!

I just picked up a wash recipe off google to give me a cost base to start with.. it was the first rum wash I found, could be complete rubbish for all I know! looks like they're using dextrose instead of sugar, cost wise they look to be about the same. Good tip re the carbon and turbo yeast, thankyou. I was looking at the conditioner to try and keep frothing (no idea of the correct term) to a minimum given the rum washes will be molasses based.

I've had a brief look at whiskey/grain washes, and they do look a little more expensive again. Plus I'll need to buy a mill (and find somewhere to store all the stuff!).

Do the yield estimates seem about right? Obviously variable, but are they at least ball-park?

Is there any cost benefit in going to a larger boiler? My immediate thoughts on that are not really.. given I'd need more ingredients to make a larger wash, so cost would be proportionate. It would then take longer to distill so water/electricity costs would also increase with yield.

RC Al wrote:I think your numbers are a bit off too,
A VERY basic dodgy work out - 25l of wash at 8% is 2l of 100% alcohol or 4@50% 5@40% you roughly loose 5% per run, so end result would be UPTO 4.6L @40% then loose 1/2 ish for cuts, so you might end up with 10% of the initial wash size at drinking strength,

thanks mate.. exactly what I was looking for. I realize there are a stack of variables at play so giving accurate numbers is impossible, but just after an idea of what I could aim for.

So roughly 2.5L for about a $55 outlay.. brings it to around 3.5x 700ml bottles @ $15-16 each. Not too bad, but at that rate I'd be running the still every second week, so I'd probably need to look at upping the volume.

Ahh I get it, you were working from a 15-20% turbo yeast basis
Have a bit more of a read of the rum recipes in the recipes section here, I doubt anyone here will recommend the turbo yeast at all for rum
Charcoal + rum= white rum
The 50 l keg boiler is a great start, larger ones on the cheap are a bit harder to find

RC Al wrote:Ahh I get it, you were working from a 15-20% turbo yeast basis
Have a bit more of a read of the rum recipes in the recipes section here, I doubt anyone here will recommend the turbo yeast at all for rum
Charcoal + rum= white rum
The 50 l keg boiler is a great start, larger ones on the cheap are a bit harder to find

Yep, the recipe did have turbo yeast in it from memory..

The 50l keg boiler looks like a plan. I'm just confusing the shit out of myself by reading dozens of different build threads. Looking at a standard keg, they have that tube in the middle (no idea what it's called), so I'd have to figure out how to get that out, then add a weldless tap to the bottom, plus add 1 or 2 weldless heating elements, plus a temperature/voltage controller (and figure out where to mount the probe).. then there's the fitting of a pot/column still to the top, maybe via a tri-clamp and gasket. Cost wise I end up about the same as the T500 boiler, but it's 50L instead of 25...

50ltr boiler is fine, most of us use them :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Have you looked at our recipe section? Good recipe's there.
http://aussiedistiller.com.au/viewforum.php?f=32

I work on ( these are VERY rough figures and like you said there are many variables and everyone's cuts are different) 10% of my wash in finished drinkable product at 40% so after cuts etc. So 10%(usually 8%) 50ltr wash = 5 ltrs of unrealistic 100% wash after cuts of say about half (I'm usually a fair bit less, closer to 1/3rd )= 2.5 ish ltrs being kept at 100% watered down to 40% (after being aged at 65%) = about 5 ltrs. But I reiterate that these are very loose figures. It does usually work out pretty close to 10% though :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I like how everyone has come about to 10% yield, looks like solid figure.
For my first 10 runs i went extremely conservative in cuts and i came out closer to 5% yield.
That said in my first all feints run i got closer to 25%, which averages out pretty well.

Again not really accurate
Mac rum
3kg molasses and 3kg raw sugar, $3.30 of raw sugar, 1/4 can baker yeast $1, dap 20c, produce store molasses $3 or $18 from Coles, I haven't personally chased down a good price on "food grade" molasses yet, some people prefer the animal grade stuff, do your research first
X2 to fill the keg (kinda, you only fill to 40l)
5 generations before spirit run
About $80 to make 20l with the cheap molasses
Around $4 a liter plus power

Even at username's rate it's only $8 litre, the real killer is time, that's 6 runs at 3? Or more Hours each, hence my general encouragement for people to go large straight up

Aging storage is a real cost too

RC Al wrote:Even at username's rate it's only $8 litre, the real killer is time, that's 6 runs at 3? Or more Hours each, hence my general encouragement for people to go large straight up

Aging storage is a real cost too

yeah f**k me... so when you say 5 gen before a spirit run, you're essentially saying 5 stripping runs then a spirit run? who has that amount of time?

If I made up (or bought) a pot still that has a bit of a taller column, could I get a little reflux action happening to increase purity but leave in enough of the flavor profile? Would a little extra reflux mean that I can increase efficiency and do a stripping run followed by a spirit run?

If you want to save time and only do one distilling run then you could get a 4 plate bubbler, depending on how much you want to spend.

I guess it all depends on what you want and how valuable your time is to you.

With regards,
Nino

Nino wrote:If you want to save time and only do one distilling run then you could get a 4 plate bubbler, depending on how much you want to spend.

I guess it all depends on what you want and how valuable your time is to you.

With regards,
Nino

I think I could manage a stripping run + a spirit run. I'd probably try to knock it over on the day I work from home, as I can monitor/tinker with it all day if need be. Doing more than that would kind of be excessive effort for the size of the reward I guess.. Running a 50L wash twice sounds about the sweet spot.

If your after quick and easy your better off going and buying a bottle. Nothing is quick and easy in this hobby, everything takes time if you want good results. Fermenting, strip runs,spirit runs, cuts, then ageing for at least 2 months if not 12-24 months for a real nice spirit. You can get quicker runs with a bubbler doing single runs, no stripping needed. It would take you around 3 hrs to do a 50ltr wash. But thats about it unless you want to drink turbos and cordials? Their quick and easy, not nice but quick and easy.

Oh and just incase you thought about it, NEVER leave a still unattended. It could end really bad :law-policered: safety is paramount in this hobby :handgestures-thumbupleft:

woodduck wrote:Oh and just incase you thought about it, NEVER leave a still unattended. It could end really bad :law-policered: safety is paramount in this hobby :handgestures-thumbupleft:

:text-+1: :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I've always worked off 2-3 bucks for a bottle of vodka (3 with carbon filtering).

25 liters at 10 ish percent is about $10 to $12 for the ingredients.
That gives 2.5 liters (@100% abv) and lose maybe 1/2 a liter for fores and little bit left in boiler (can rerun everything else so no real loss after first run).
That gives you around 5 liters (or around 7x 700 ml bottles) at 40%
12/7 = $1.70 ish a bottle.
That's not counting power or water which pushes the price up to around $2 a bottle.
Compare that to a $25 bottle and you just made $175 of vodka for less then $20.
Doesn't take long to recoup your costs.

Rum and grain spirits cost more according to the cost of ingredients but not a crazy amount more. No way I'd be doing this if my plonk was costing almost as much to make as buying it from the shop.

Rum can be very cheap to make. The coke I add to it costs more.. :doh:
23ltr wash
$2.50 for 3ltrs molasses
$3.50 for 3kg sugar
Maybe $1 worth of yeast
So $7 + power will get me around 3 bottles at 40% when re-using feignts from previous runs.

I use a 4 plate home made bubbler for single runs.

Making the bubbler was half the fun as a hobby in itself

The way I see it, if it is a hobby, you don't really factor in time as a cost. I too am restoring a car, and if you factored in time as a cost, there is no way in hell you would even start the project in the first place!
It's all about enjoyment and pride in what you are doing :handgestures-thumbupleft:
Ash

warramungas wrote:No way I'd be doing this if my plonk was costing almost as much to make as buying it from the shop.

:text-+1: but it is an enjoyable hobby