New stiller to site

[Choppadick]

Hi all, It has been a very sobering experience reading your forum & all of the skills & techniques used to build & still your products. I have been trying to absorb all of it & will take some time to get it together. I have been brewing for some years now with the beer & Stouts, not grain yet & also with an air still. It really stands out in what you say with the Turbo yeasts not being to good, I am now stilling off 80 lts of my last batch of Turbo & the stench from the fermenter is like drain wash. The air still was ok when nothing else was available but have since purchased a Keggomax CM reflux which is on a 50lt keg heated by 2200w element. I am also lucky to have a bore in the floor of the shed & pump with an orange pump running more water than I need & return back to the bore. The water temp is constant temp all day. Stripped 24lts on Wed off the 80lts & topped it with water down to 30% abv. Ran it for 7 hrs yesterday & the still was refluxing at 79.5dg @ 85% for 6.5hrs then it went to 81 degrees & was still doing 83% so had to shut down for the night, will crank up again today. We also have a 5klwatt solar system on the shed which is very handy. I have made the kellogs recipe of Odins which has turned out ok & used the weetbix, rice bubbles & rye bread ( grabbed the wrong loaf one night, it was the missuses flaxbread & the seeds blocked the fermenter breather & cornflakes pooped out up the laundry wall. :laughing-rolling: ) Now do it in the shed. I also make a bit of cheese when the weather is kind & would like to get into the grain malts & do some single malt whiskey.There is a pot still at Timboon putting out some good malt whiskey at the Railway Distillery restaurant. We live in the sth west crn of Vic for the last 10 yrs & farmed for a living all our lives so have done home kill meats & now have a Primo charcoal griller yummo slow cooking & smoke.
I would like to thank you all for this site & hope I can contribute something back in some way & will let you know when I start to build something out of copper soon. Cheers Choppa

[peterhobit]

Hi, nice to hear from you, love all the things you do. Sounds a bit like me with what I do .

[Sam.]

Welcome Choppa :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Kimbo]

Hi Choppa :greetings-waveyellow:

[Smbjk]

welcome choppa. you didnt loose your crown jewls did you?? :teasing-tease: love the sound of your shed mate :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Choppadick]

Thank you all for the kind welcome. it seems there are so many of us with similar interest in life.Thats what makes it so good . Mates helping mates in what we do. Still have the family jewels smbjk but will have to sacrifice some neutral towards a bottle of cointreau for the lady of the house :smile: . Finished the brew today with a good result , it appears that running with the reflux water on the main tower at 6lts a minute & the product condenser cocked open to get 50 drips a minute it will stay at about 79 - 80 degrees column temp & the product comes out at 21- 22 degrees. Sometimes the column has gone back to 77 for a while & then settles back to the old temp 79.5.Got 10 lts of really good product & decided to shut the reflux condenser off as each has its own valve & see what happens, woof straight into a pot mode again stripping it off at 5lts phr. Thought that I read somewhere that Mac said you can alter them as you go. Didn`t matter as I was getting into the tails? Think I was anyway. Noticed everything changing quickly in this mode as temps upped & 500 ml in 7 minutes with an oily look on top @ 40% abv & 94 temp in column. Ended up with 13 lts total. Any way we are on the go so will see you all in the forum.

[Chips Molasses]

Welcome mate.