Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Sounds reasonable, I had only one spirit run on my still in a different configuration - seems like 78% wasnt right for mine, how it's set up now, the 70% is more like what everyone else is getting :wtf:

When organising cut jars, I generally allow 20% as bulk heads with the next 10% as small transition jars, 30-35% as "should be" hearts jars and then more transition jars - I haven't gone too far into to adding the "after cardboard" jars as yet myself, so i generally just collect tails in bigger jars for a later feints run. I get caught out with that system occasionally, but as it's all getting run again, I dont stress too much.

600ml fores is probably too much if your recycling feints, 50-100ml is fine, have a search for stacking heads to see why

How fast were you running?

RC Al wrote:Sounds reasonable, I had only one spirit run on my still in a different configuration - seems like 78% wasnt right for mine, how it's set up now, the 70% is more like what everyone else is getting :wtf:

When organising cut jars, I generally allow 20% as bulk heads with the next 10% as small transition jars, 30-35% as "should be" hearts jars and then more transition jars - I haven't gone too far into to adding the "after cardboard" jars as yet myself, so i generally just collect tails in bigger jars for a later feints run. I get caught out with that system occasionally, but as it's all getting run again, I dont stress too much.

600ml fores is probably too much if your recycling feints, 50-100ml is fine, have a search for stacking heads to see why

How fast were you running?

I collect at 1L per hour speed, any faster and I hear this hissing, huffing noise from the output pipe. So with my still is all ok if there is drip drip dribble coming out. At dribble, dribble, drip is too fast and the huffing noise appears no matter how much fresh cold water for the condenser. I found a ballance between cooling water and heat for the boiler that I get drip, drip dribble and the alcohol comes out at below 20 degrees celsius.
As I said, I am a complete newbie in whisky making. Probably I took a big jump instead of starting the traditional way.
Probably 600ml fores is too much. I had 3 x 27L MacWhisky washes which I split in 4 because my boiler is only 26L. On the stripping run I discarded 150ml of each run, so it works out to 200ml per 27L wash. On the spirit run on 16l low wines I discarded other 600ml as fores. Please tell me what would have been a reasonable volume to be discarded as fores in my case. Should I remove fores only on the spirit run?
I have a lot of experience in fruit brandy done in the traditional Eastern and central European way. They call the plum brandy Slivovitz. That is easy to make for me and oly fores are removed ald everithing collected to 20% alcohol percentage. The specific flavour and taste comes only after aging for at least 3 years in mulberry barrels. Probably I will share my experience in a separate post.
I had 5 x 27 MacWhisky washes and I finally distilled the last one yesterday. All I can say is that it is very boring ant it takes ages to do it with my settings.
I am contemplating to get a 4" or 3" bubbler, did not make up my mind yet. Here in South Africa prices are crazy, between 4000 and 6000 Aussie dollars for a 4" 4 plates bubbler. Parts are also hard to find and very expensive. And if I want to import it, it myght get stuck in customs unless I supply a distillation licence, not to mention the huge shipping costs.

Thank you Mac for this great recepe.
Never distilled whisky before and complined about taste but had no Idea what is should taste like straight from the still. I had 3 batches:
1. With a different LME. Oaked on medium toasted Tennessee bourbon chips. Tastes good after 2 weeks
2. A bigger batch of washes with the right ingredients.
One half oaked on French medium toasted spirals. Taste is bad, petrol like. Never use French oak on Whisky.
The other half oaked on medium toasted Tennessee bourbon chips. Wow what a great taste, I can't stop drinking it. I watered down a bottle to 40% the rest of 2.8L at 67% still on the same oak chips.
1. The last batch with the correct ingredients. On nedium toasted American oak dominoes for 10 days. Not a great taste, now on medium toasted american oak chips.
The conclusion:
The MacWhishy is a great recipe. Thanks again Mac
I will stick to the right ingredients and always find medium toasted Tennessee bourbon chips for aging. This gave me the best results.

You'll need to leave your dominoes for longer. The problem with chips is you get so much end grain and this leads to lots of tannins - which taste really bitter. Chips will give you a result faster but at a cost. If you prefer the taste of chips then go for it, but put some on dominoes and leave it for a few months before deciding you don't like dominoes.

db1979 wrote:You'll need to leave your dominoes for longer. The problem with chips is you get so much end grain and this leads to lots of tannins - which taste really bitter. Chips will give you a result faster but at a cost. If you prefer the taste of chips then go for it, but put some on dominoes and leave it for a few months before deciding you don't like dominoes.

Hi db1979,
Yes, you are right. I realised this a week later. After the first week the chips impressed with the smooth taste and vanilla flavour. A week later the tannins appeared. So I think the chips will do a fast and good job if only left for no more than 10 days.
I will give tre dominoes another try. I will cut some more from the 2 staves I have and I will toast them more. I have to read again the oaking section. On the staves is written: Americxan Oak, medium toasted. I guess I have to toast them some more. I am too scared of charring.

Tannins can be smoothed by aeration too, have a read of the aeration thread. Oxygen oxidises the tannins and changes their flavour.

Thanks for advice db1979, I will try the aeration if necessary. If not happy I will do another spirit run.

Well guys just dropped $80 on wash ingredients at the HBS for this 100L whiskey wash. I can get my 16kg sugar for $16. Add on $4 for lowans and I am sitting at $100 for a 100L wash. I was only able to purchase pale malt. I hope this still turns out well, the lady told me the pale ale malt is very similar. Does 4 plates pull through plenty of flavour? Anyone tried 3? Thinking that the extra outlay in cost to generate that flavour would be great to pull a lot through. This will be oaked for around 2 years with some luck.

Also guys, forgot to ask. Was going to pitch 50g lowans. Seem adequate?

Yea i put 80 in 180l seems fine :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Hello , I have put down my first MacWhisky , I did a 54 Litres and it has just about finished fermenting. I am going to run it through my bubbler and am worried about stripping out too much flavor. It is a 4" system with 5 bubble plates. How many plates should I leave in ?

Picked a good recipe to do Mick... makes a very tasty drop. :music-deathmetal:
I just run 4 plates, but i wouldn't of thought 5 should be a problem. Flavour may be ever so slightly lighter with 5 plates.
For my rum i drop back to 3 plates to really get that rumminess through.
Really up to you. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Awesome, thanks Dan, I'll give 4 plates a go ! Cheers

Got a couple of tins of caramalt And looking forward to trying this out in my new bubbler ;)

With the 2nd tin I thought I might try something different, has anyone tried substituting the 1kg of malt for a peat or manuka smoked version? Would that be enough to give it that smoke flavoring?

Thought i would give this a try, thank you for the inspiration to cross the road and step out of the norm.

Fermented 54 litre's total volume comprising of water, 8kg sugar, 3.4 kg Blackrock Amber LME and 2kg of Baird's Peated Malt. This started at 1.08 sg and finished 14 days later at about .95 sg. Constant temp of 28c and pitching 40gm's of Tasti active dry yeast, couple of teaspoons of citric acid, and two pinches of epsom salts

Then

Fermented 54 litre's total volume comprising of water, 8kg sugar, 3.4 kg Blackrock Amber LME and 2kg of Caramalt Malt. This started at 1.08 sg and finished 14 days later at about .95 sg. Same details as above.

Ended up with less wash, squeezing the grain with a cheese cloth is just not my thing, don't shout at me, i know i have wasted some flavour/yield.

This is my first attempt at anything like this, i just TPW and make gin, but want to get into whiskey flavours.

Thinking i might run the 4" bubbler at 80% abv on each 52 litre batches, water down to 60% and oak for 6 month's on american domino's. Then blend the peat and the caraway distillate if needed.

Does this sound sensible or have i wasted my time with these substitutes ? :pray:

In case anyone is interested, the results of the fermentation is as follow.


Initial SG reading seems problematic with the grain and bubbles lifting it. :wtf:


Final SG reading looks good :handgestures-thumbupleft:

This racked up while i processed the Caramalt Malt

The Caramalt and Blackrock Amber LME fermentation.


Again The Initial SG is hard to get


Yeast stopped, not as low as i wished, but that is what it was :shock:

Now I have 52 litres of both Ferments racked. I will post progress while distilling this, however I was wondering if I can leave it racked, while I iron out some wrinkles with this new 4" Plated Column ?

Fired up the boiler today with a 4 plates column, attached a power speed controller to make the run slow and steady.

Filled up to 27 litres of the peated malt wash and connected the water management tubes. Even resting this ferment for 4 weeks, there was a lot of sediment at the bottom of the racking vessel. This was excluded from the boiler as I do not think it would help in any way.

Once the boiler hit 80c, I turned the water on to the reflux and product condenser and power back to 1900watt at 60% and refluxed for 30 minutes. Then slowly reduced the water to the reflux condenser until a drip a second came out.. Collected the fore's and some head's (definite acetone smell) and added to my glass cleaning bottle about 200ml's. Then reduced the water to the reflux condenser again until i got a toothpick size stream out of the parrot.

The first yield of hearts was at 300 ml's at 90% abv. This continued for the second 300 ml's, however noticed the second top plate clouding up.

Refluxed again for 10 minutes. The next two 300 ml's came out at 85% abv and the second top plate clouded up again.

I refluxed again for 30 minutes. Then proceeded to capture two more 300ml's at 85% abv. The 2nd and third plates were clouding up.

Grabbed another 300 ml's with maybe a little tails at the end. By this stage the top plate had started to cloud over. The bottom plate was clear and lots of activity. Then full power and no reflux to collect the feints for another day.

A TPW will cloud from the bottom to the top plate, this whiskey hybrid mash clouds the middle to the top plate and leaves the bottom alone. This just seems odd, however the proof will be it the taste once I work out what to do with it. (don't you hate distilling pun's) :laughing-rolling:

Not reading it too hard but your happy with an approx just sub 10% yield of hearts?

chipboy wrote:Re: MacWhisky Recipe Discussion
by chipboy » Sat Mar 20, 2021 10:51 am

Not reading it too hard but your happy with an approx just sub 10% yield of hearts?

Always thought 27 litres at 10% abv = 2.7 litres at 100 % abv.

Getting 2.1 litres of hearts at 87% abv was the yield, the tails added to the tails drum for a neutral run in the future.

I am open to suggestions on how to reduce the tails of this recipe ?