From beer to bourbon (and rum!)

[Lecterfan]

Greetings,

I have been an all grain beer brewer for many years. I am pretty comfortable with water treatment, mashing times and temps and so on, but now I need to get my head around volumes (how many post-fermentation litres of wash/beer/whatever will result in X litres of top quality final product etc etc) and a whole new world of jargon and weird terms.

I am looking to convert a 50L keg into a pot still. I am pretty useless on the tools, but luckily have friends who can help (other brewers who have helped me with my exiting brewery so far). I'm not sure whether to try and do a build/design from scratch or to just do the boiler/keg conversion (seems straightforward enough to add a lid from a second keg that is cut to have some overlap and bolts onto the keg) and buy the pot-still attachment that goes onto the keg coupler.

Anyway, I'm excited by the new possibilities and look forward to trawling through this site.

If anyone can recommend any really good introductory-intermediate books, please feel free to do so. My goals over the next few years are to make some decent (forgive my technical naming errors) Kentucky style bourbon whiskey, rum, and finally single malt (in that order).

Cheers.

[Bushy]

Hey there Hannibal, :greetings-waveyellow:
Welcome to the forum mate. You're knowledge of home brewing stands you in good stead for making some shit hot spirits. Plenty of info here so hook in.
Not entirely sure what you mean about bolting a second lid on but you'll sort it out.

[Zak Griffin]

Welcome mate.

Forget the bolt-on style keg still, triclover/triclamp connections are all you need. The standard ferrule on a keg is 2", useful to clamp a 2" column straight onto.

[Lecterfan]

Welcome mate.

Forget the bolt-on style keg still, triclover/triclamp connections are all you need. The standard ferrule on a keg is 2", useful to clamp a 2" column straight onto.

Thanks folks... Zak, are you saying that I can just use a keg as boiler with no mods, like no ball valve etc etc, just the keg as a vessel over a burner (or with elements, whichever way I go)? sounds nifty, can just clean it with sodium percarbonate etc through the standard fitting and rinse with hot water I guess. I'm not used to the idea of not having a gaping hole in a keg haha.

[coffe addict]

Using a keg is pretty easy. Just take the guts out of it and with a trip clamp and seal the pot head will fit straight on. Forget all about sodium perc boiling is very good at sterilising and so is high temp high strength alcohol. Just give it a hose out when you change from rum to bourbon and vice versa.

Here's one that's really going to rock your cradle. When you do all grain whiskey don't bother with sterilising either we just pitch yeast at a rate it'll dominate any possible infection... Sometimes you might get a lacto infection start if it's left to sit for a few weeks after fermentation but don't stress. The lacto doesn't seem to make much difference after stilling.

[Doubleuj]

Gday mate, welcome.
Here's the library and just read through as many build threads as you can.
All the information is here somewhere..

[Professor Green]

Welcome Lecterfan.

Cheers,
Prof. Green.