Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

CaptainRedBeard wrote:I need some advice on this one guys. The missus is whinging at me for normal vodka (smirnoff) and there's not a chance in hell am I paying $35 for a 700mL bottle with my little distillery set up.
So I've got both a pot and a reflux. How should I go about this so it has a vodka taste, and not end up as a neutral?

Im not really sure what you mean by a 'vodka taste' To me a vodka is a neutral. There are guys here who talk about 'mouth feel' in a vodka. Look at the wheatbix all bran wash in the tried and proven section.viewtopic.php?f=32&t=170 There are members using that slowly run through a reflux still saying they get that mouth feel. Ive done it but personally prefer the TPW.
Worth a shot.

The only thing I can taste in 'normal vodka' is dirty stinking heads...

I'll just stock with the TPW I think. The missus will just have to evolve

Still spirits do a vodka essence for their turbo yeast range of products, maybe that might satisfy her :teasing-neener:

MacStill wrote:Still spirits do a vodka essence for their turbo yeast range of products, maybe that might satisfy her :teasing-neener:

Haha sadly I have that essence. But essences will be no more.

I have a t500. Could you just boil it up in the boiler for that? Or would ir not get hot enough? Sure it would though.

Cheers

Any body still using this :think:

Yes.
I use a version of this or a modified Weekbix All Bran for my neutrals. Personally i prefers these over TPW.
Only real modification is slightly less sugar, and nicer results :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Meatheadinc wrote:Yes.
I use a version of this or a modified Weekbix All Bran for my neutrals. Personally i prefers these over TPW.
Only real modification is slightly less sugar, and nicer results :handgestures-thumbupleft:

How much sugar do you use Meatheadinc?

4kg to 25l from original 5kg to 30l.
Not a big change.
I never exceed 4kg to 25l on any sugar heads sometimes less eg dwwg ujssm cornflake etc

Meatheadinc wrote:4kg to 25l from original 5kg to 30l.
Not a big change.
I never exceed 4kg to 25l on any sugar heads sometimes less eg dwwg ujssm cornflake etc

Thanks for that I tend to do the same usually only use about 4kgs of sugar in my washes not that I have been distilling for very long but I am getting there and getting some nice results :).

i still pot still this from time to time
good to make the Aussie cream with, and just for something different. its a nice light whiskyish drink.
I also on occasion make this, age and then add a little bit of my preferred whiskey essence for a different flavour profile.

Got myself a 60L fermenter to make sure there's plenty of headroom for the forewarned kasplosion, and because I don't want to have like 50g of what germ left over and 1/2kg of sugar, I was thinking maybe go for the full packet (500g) wheat germ, 5kg of sugar and just top up the water to somewhere around 25L

For the more experienced with this recipe, does this sound about reasonable to keep the ratios of everything pretty close so as not to overwork the yeasties? (going for lowans bakers yeast on this too)

Psykamaholik wrote:Got myself a 60L fermenter to make sure there's plenty of headroom for the forewarned kasplosion, and because I don't want to have like 50g of what germ left over and 1/2kg of sugar, I was thinking maybe go for the full packet (500g) wheat germ, 5kg of sugar and just top up the water to somewhere around 25L

For the more experienced with this recipe, does this sound about reasonable to keep the ratios of everything pretty close so as not to overwork the yeasties? (going for lowans bakers yeast on this too)

sounds perfect. 5kg in 25L gives a good starting SG. the ferment only foams up a tiny bit (in my experience anyway). its cooking the germ that gives an explosions 10 times out of 10. :mad:

Thanks Andy,

hoping my 11L stainless pot will be big enough to cook it up then :shifty:

The cooking part of the plan was just dump the packet of wheat germ into the pot and half fill or so with water to cook... I guess we'll see how much mess I can make :D

what boiler do you have? i use my T500 boiler to cook massive amounts of stuff

My boiler is pretty ancient, think along the lines of the boilers that came out with the stills before the T500 was released.

My 11L stainless pot from K-mart seems to be doing alright, though I did consider safety glasses when it first got up to boil! :teasing-tease: :laughing-rolling:

So just did the cuts on my run of DWWG and I have to say I'm impressed! :handgestures-thumbupleft:

200mL foreshots
750mL heads
1500mL hearts @ 70%
~450mL tails

Forgot to take a gravity reading at the start but finished at 0.975, I'm really liking it as a neutral but I'll be adding essence and aging some in a 2L barrel as part of my ongoing oaking experiments. Rate it much better than TPW according to my taste buds, just a bit more involved to prepare. I also didn't get any of the big foaming up that others have described while fermenting.

2 questions:

1 - Does anyone else keep stirring this once it's up to boil?

2 - Has anyone noticed any difference between just having it on the stove for 90mins vs holding it at a boil for 90mins?

Had a play with this recipe have stripped 2 runs and got a 3rd bubbling away at an alarming rate. Previously i was using cfw to learn about how my still behaved.
The cfw stripping runs were great i collected down to 20% got very cloudy/milky colour with a oil haze on top. All good from what i have seen in these pages about stripping.

With the DWWG stripping runs i have used the exact same process as cfw runs but i have had a change in the stripping product. I got a brown coloured oily sludge on top of my last 2 jars approx 20-30% abv.
This first time it happened i freak pulled my still apart cleaned it and ran vinegar through it. I stripped another cfw and all was good no brown stuff.
Last night i stripped a DWWG and my brown stuff was back once i hit 20-30% abv.

Is it a character of this wash to leave a brown oily substance on top nearing the end of your stripping runs.

Cheers