Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

So I stripped it and started a second generation anyway.
Yield was about 3.5-4L but ill keep that until I've stripped the second and third generation.
Lucky NG is on special again.

Dogfish wrote:

Doubleuj wrote:Also tried to find calcium carbonate without much luck,
Where do you buy yours from up here Rum?

Hi,
Try Woolworths or Coles in the washing detergent section. Product is called Lectric Washing Soda - about $4 for 1 KG

Hey dogfish,
Looking this up it's actually sodium carbonate, not calcium carbonate,
Not sure if it's edible or would do the same thing. Someone with a chemical background chime in here?

Doubleuj wrote:

Dogfish wrote:

Doubleuj wrote:Also tried to find calcium carbonate without much luck,
Where do you buy yours from up here Rum?

Hi,
Try Woolworths or Coles in the washing detergent section. Product is called Lectric Washing Soda - about $4 for 1 KG

Hey dogfish,
Looking this up it's actually sodium carbonate, not calcium carbonate,
Not sure if it's edible or would do the same thing. Someone with a chemical background chime in here?

Thanks for pointing that out Doubleuj.
I'm not sure if that is the right stuff to use now?
kiwistillers VM Operation Tutorial specifies that sodium carbonate should be used.
From a brief search on the net sodium carbonate seems to be a lot stronger than calcium carbonate.
I think these two ingredients are getting mixed up by home distillers, and that could be why some are reporting that they had no noticeable improvement.

I'm new to this and no expert, so take this with a pinch of sodium carbonate:

I've done some more reading about sodium carbonate vs calcium carbonate and i think calcium carbonate is used if you intend to reuse backset for generation washes and sodium carbonate is use for runs where do not reuse back set.
This is so you don't get to much salts (sodium) in your fermenter.

Hopefully someone with experience in this can confirm/clarify

Folks, this recipe makes a great whiskey :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I noticed some members tackling this for the first time.

A couple of things to remember. Follow the recipe. Good cuts will leave a quality spirit. Oak it @ 65%. When you smell it at 3 months of age it will smell "bready". Don't stress. Give it time. Spirit watered down to 40% abv smells and tastes differently to that of 65%. If you can hold for 12 mths, you will be rewarded with a top drop!!

Persistence and patience will be rewarded. It is the nature of this hobby :smile:

I put two 30lt NG washes down this weekend. It was bubbling away nicely this morning :smile:
My first wash away from Tomato Paste Wash. I can wait to try it.

I don't normally eat sugar cereals and I was surprised how tasty dry Nutrigrain is. I couldn't stop eating them. I think I'm going to serve a snack bowl of them with the NG whiskey.

My second favourite part about Nutrigrain whiskey is eating the nutrigrain while a make it :laughing-rolling:

Coles has Nutrigrain on special at the moment - 1/2 price.
$3.15 for 500G :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Stock ay. I'll be keeping my eye out for the home distillers with multiple boxes or nutrigrain in their trolly :laughing-rolling:

Woodsy71 wrote:Folks, this recipe makes a great whiskey :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I noticed some members tackling this for the first time.

A couple of things to remember. Follow the recipe. Good cuts will leave a quality spirit. Oak it @ 65%. When you smell it at 3 months of age it will smell "bready". Don't stress. Give it time. Spirit watered down to 40% abv smells and tastes differently to that of 65%. If you can hold for 12 mths, you will be rewarded with a top drop!!

Persistence and patience will be rewarded. It is the nature of this hobby :smile:

Glad it came good for you woodsy :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Dogfish wrote:. I think I'm going to serve a snack bowl of them with the NG whiskey.

Do it , and try this : cupla cups of nutrigrain , frypan , cupla splashes of olive oil , cupla teaspoons of curry powder . flash fry the NG for about a minute in the CP and O.I.

Just be careful you dont bite the ends off your fingers when eating 8-}

Hi guys,

I think I have stuffed up royally and forgot to grind up my nutrigrain. The ferment has been solid for about a week and I was expecting the cereal to break down, but here's what it is like. All visible signs of fermentation have stopped. Sorry, don't know gravities, no hydrometer.


russian photo sharing

All good Pater, I didn't grind up my first few lots and I think all I did was scoop out the floaties and chuck them. It will still make a nice drink :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Oh TFFT! We have only just got our still ready to put together and clean, so further delays would have been well... bad!

You could probably put a stick blender in there to break it all up if you wanted but if its done and not just stalled then that would make it harder to clear.

Yeah grinding or crushing isn't really necessary with nutrigrain, as all of the grains in them have already been crushed and stuck back together anyway.

I think I will do that with gen 2, (the hand blender thing I mean) it will give the trub a good ole aerate in any case. I'm just glad it will still be ok to make something drinkable in the first instance. Can't help but to grab the middle of the first hearts to try the white dog as it will be our first run through the pot and thumper.

While I am at it, with the pot and thumper, I was planning on just doing the one run, slow and steady. Is that the right way to go? / purpose of a thumper?

Cheers guys. This is a great resource.

Hi guys,

We ran our first gen through 'Nessie' and whilst it came through a little warm I think? 30deg, it went through without a hitch. The thumper thumped away, check the build thread, I am really impressed with the sound as you might pick up on lol.

anyway, we had a good sniff of each jar as it was changed and definitely noticed the changes as it went along. We then grabbed a small measure from a couple of jars, distillers privilege and all, watered it down to about 40% and tasted. Amazing how much difference across the board, but... they all tasted like vodka. Better vodka than we have ever had straight, but not a hint of anything other than grog. Having said that, the very middle jar was smooth, no burn, and left a nice warming feeling in the chest that you would expect from a whisky.

Does the flavour come out after some airing and oaking? We were planning on putting 4 or 5 gens of harsh cuts into a corny keg and add an oak stave for maturing. Does this sound like a good plan?

Sliante

9.5/10ths of the flavour comes from oak ageing. Dont be afraid to have a taste along the way during the ageing process. You will be amazed how much the flavour swings early on..

bluc wrote:9.5/10ths of the flavour comes from oak ageing. Dont be afraid to have a taste along the way during the ageing process. You will be amazed how much the flavour swings early on..

awesome, thanks Bluc. Exactly what I wanted to hear. Not that I don't like the flavour (or lack thereof), it's just not what we were looking for.