Short story of how I ended up here. My old man has been making beer for years with the Coopers cans bought from the supermarket, just smash it together, make cheap beer and get drunk simply because he hates his job. After years of watching him I said I wouldn't mind giving spirits a go...two days latter he came home with the whole SS t500 relux kit(the all copper one) with enough to do three runs. I didn't know anything about making likker and I wasn't gonna let him run it with his 'smash out the booze' approach...so I read the manual that comes with it and away we went.
The first wash came out at .880 FG and after distilling ended up with 4.5litres at 96%, running at 56.5 degrees celcius...minus the foreshots ofcourse. No bad smells or tastes, just clean neutral spirits. We've done about 20 - 25 runs through it and it has dropped gradually down to 92%...I suspect a cleaning is due.
Im not impressed with using essence to flavour so im gonna look at buying a pot still and try CFW and a rum, probably looking at the copper alembic pot dome thingy to go on top of the t500 boiler as I've just ordered a voltage controller for it....lets see what happens.
So basically that's where im at, just doing a lot of reading while im abroad getting married(yep, alcohol can make you do crazy things) and when I get home, I'll get into it.
Cheers,
Ohbilly.