Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

So I visited a gent tonight who has been stillin for about 10 years.
He's 4 different whiskeys were just off the show nice.
He only produces neutrals and doesn't take cuts - all goes together.
He does change his aging methods and some essences vs only oak vs barrels.
Some of this stuff was 50% and it was very very drinkable just on ice. Bloody gorgeous and at least as good as some local boutique distilleries are selling, high end.
Here's where I get confused...
"What still and wash are you using..?."
Turbo alcotecs yeast, 8kgs of white sugar. Carbon filter the produce.
Still he's using? Essencia express reflux...25 l.

I am just so bloody confused at present - I was about to scrap my gear and buy what I thought was a kick arse pot or reflux and now, I'm just wondering wtf.
I've done turbos, TPW's, etc with proper cuts(I won't go back to lumping all together ) and I think the turbos have an acetone flavour over tpw's but this gent is just bending all the "so called" rules like turbo producrs, stressing yeast with too much sugar, carbon, shitty still and hes getting a really really great product.

Confused.
Si.

Time heals all wounds and forgives all sins?

He is either pissen in ya pocket or

Ya taste buds have gone to shit.

Pretty simple turbo = shit

No cuts = shit

shit is shit.

Well if a fortnight to 3 weeks heals all wounds then imagine what 3 months might do. Unfortunately his product never gets to live that long because quite a few ppl know of this product. Although that might change if he gets some larger oak barrells sooner than later like he's talking about.
I'm completely serious and I do not understand. As a newbie, you hope that people giving advice are fair dinkum and I am sure that is the case 9 times out of 10 but these whiskeys are just...confusing me and breaking all the rules that ppl tell you to not do...
Si.

I would reckon you haven't actually tasted a great home made product.

Beg Mac for a bottle to compare against :-B

And at the end of the day if your happy with it then that's all that matters :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Mate ,all the booze I make(heart cut)tastes fantastic straight from the the still, but just just gets better and with age and oak :handgestures-thumbupleft:
with the advice from this forum you should be able to make shine that will easily out do your mate :happy-partydance:

Haven't i heard this before?

Sam. wrote:I would reckon you haven't actually tasted a great home made product.

Beg Mac for a bottle to compare against :-B

And at the end of the day if your happy with it then that's all that matters :handgestures-thumbupleft:

:text-+1: :text-imwithstupid: good home made product shits all over anything commercial my mate does turbos and yes compared to some commercial it was drinkable in the early days before i knew better. Now ive had good home made i could never drink it again. Also mate how much did you drink ? Bet you didnt drink a whole bottle or you'd be in bed all day :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Sam. wrote:I would reckon you haven't actually tasted a great home made product.

Beg Mac for a bottle to compare against :-B

And at the end of the day if your happy with it then that's all that matters :handgestures-thumbupleft:

This might well be the problem and I think it's an issue for a LOT of new people getting into this hobby. What IS a good product meant to taste like? What should a decent spirit run produce against a 1st stripping run? Part of the issue is that it's so easy to be able to get a better produce than many of the commercials, so as soon as your in front of some of them = awesome product.
I would be happy to ask this gent, if I can send a sample or two of his away to ? I would love to be able to sample something like you guys are talking about - id keep it next to the aging stock for comparisons (currently I use makers and bookers for this purpose, but even the makers has a heady taste too me now).
I will also add because I didnt(and still don't) know what an excellent produce tastes like - I did the Redlands whiskey tour only a couple of weeks ago and tasted some 7 of this states finest. This helped a little.

And WS - I didn't drink a lot, I just sampled a lot of different produce. He had many different essences - but his prime was out of a recently purchased barrell (tas cask co) that he added chips too. It was/is a very nice sipping whisky on ice, very nice. In fact - he apparently dropped a bottle from this barrell to the cask co owner for a sample and even he said the same thing - could not believe the lack of time, the perceived poor ingredients and combined process from a toy still, to get this result.

As I originally said - I'm pretty damn confused how this product is coming out so damn well. I certainly cant replicate what hes making, Maybe today, he will let the cat out and advise his barrel was actually full of Lark that he bought on the quiet...
Si.

I call BS......

I haven't tried very much turbo spirit, but none of it has been enjoyable, let alone 'really really good'...

MickC wrote:I call BS......

As would have I, had I not seen, tasted, smelt along with a few others.
Si.

Using the old StillSpirits product's and methods I found sugar worked better than dextrose, I'd assume this is because sucrose is harder to ferment. He may have fermented it in a cool environment also which seems to help, maybe he is using a bigger volume of water (low OG) or only pitching half the packet? Airing the product for a couple of days before throwing it through the charcoal helps alot too. As nice as you can make it taste tho do you really want to be drinking all the impurities, it only gives our hobby a bad name when people end up with headaches or possibly even gut rot due to the unsound instructions these criminals are giving everyone. IMO everyone should be cutting the early heads at least.

His ferments are 2 weeks, 8 kg sugar...and get this - the water that is used to cool the still, that comes out at...yep - 40degrees, goes straight into the fermenter to dissolve the sugar. I couldn't bring myself to use that water, as it might have ? In it, but he believes it helps dechlorinate the crappy tap water...
The turbo alco yeast goes in when temp drops to 30, aerated and lid on...two weeks later...
Wish I had of tasted something straight off the still to see if his wins are in the aging, more so than the production.
Si.

I use my cooling water to start the next gen/next wash... What could possibly be wrong with tap water that has been heated to 40°? :think:

I think your taste buds are on the piss, possibly... Or everyone else is really sensitive or something...

Mate, I would 100% agree with you(that my taste is shit) except for fact that so many other people are across this little set up...and as above, the only reason I became interested, is because my mate ranted so much and he already was carrying on that his product was the best.

Tell ya what - you know anyone in the state you trust?
Pm me thir contact details and ill arrange a tasting. I can't do more than that.
I'm as keen as anyone to understand why and how...

Re tap water heated to 40 - that's why right there - because it never reached pasteurisation temp. Depending where you live in this state - you wouldn't drink the shitty water from the tap. After recent works - there are townships everywhere - that have tainted water. I'd also be concerned about what might come loose, perhaps corrosion, pergaps bacteria, From within metres of a coiled copper/stainless steel line that stays wet and dark for extended periods of time...
Si

I drink plenty of water from my tap, and my washes have never had an issue with it. I know that plenty of guys here use water straight out of the hot tap for washes...

Bacteria doesn't like to grow on copper or stainless, and if you've got noticeable corrosion happening on either you've got bigger concerns than whether or not you should be using tap water in a wash.

It's obviously a matter of opinion, but after smelling a jar of heads I don't know how anyone could knowingly drink the shit, mixed in with hearts or not :wtf:

I'm only making assumptions really but 2 weeks is a slow ferment for a turbo which is kinda the point I was getting at. The brewcraft/ still spirit distillation method (using super reflux) would be discarding the most of the tails by stopping collection at 3L and the heads would be diluted by the hearts. The bad smells/ taste and harshness comes about from the rapid ferment I'm pretty sure.

the slow ferment would definitely cut down on any off flavours- its essentially doing a WPOSW from a packet.
as wildburkey said he would be unknowingly doing cuts (poor cuts, but cuts none-the-less).
I assumed he would dispose of the first few hundred mills- the foreshots and the start of the heads, and be stopping before going too far into tails.
plus IMO carbon is pretty amazing

could he improve his method - absolutely, but saying turbo + HBS still = shit alcohol is not always the case... often, but not always.

Good to see some open minds if nothing less. I too am bewildered how he's getting results like this, but I can't really talk to him about yeasts, about cuts, etc cause you can't argue with results.(until I get better....)
It is true he stopping his runs based on temperatures, he doesn't have a parrot and doesn't take abv during the run. Heck - he didnt know what a hydrometer was until a few weeks ago, saw one with my mates pure still unit and thought great idea - Ill get one.
I would love to send some small sample bottles about and get ppls opinions - as Zak, said - I might of killed too many spuds in my youth. Not sure how or if this would be a good idea...but ill restate if anyone in the state...
Would be good if there was an aussie home distill board (6-8 ppl)who once every 12 months, were charged with anonymously rating 50ml samples from all over...as I said from SAMs comment, newbies knowing what good alc is meant to taste like is a real issue...
Si.