Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

I hope this is the right forum. I did a search but couldn't find a previous thread on this topic, which I thought was strange.

I visited a gin distillery recently. They don't make the raw spirit. They buy in grain ethanol and then re-distil with botanicals to add their unique flavour. It seems like an easy way to go. Can I buy grain alcohol in Melbourne without being a licensed distillery?

Regards,

Steve C

generally grain alcohol means 96% alcohol. and you wouldn't want to put it through a still at that strength.

you are basically buying vodka to turn into gin. easy and hugely expensive.

This is a sad way (while economical for small distilleries) that some of the new distilleries that have popped up are making Gin's and Vodka's. Being a bulk buy neutral there are 2 types; grain based (sometimes wheat) and grape based. They buy them in 1000l lots at about 94-96%. You can get them from Asia very cheap but enjoy the heads, methanol and tails they leave behind :scared-eek:

The other "practised" bulk buy is purchasing beer wort from the breweries.

Whiskyaugogo wrote:This is a sad way (while economical for small distilleries) that some of the new distilleries that have popped up are making Gin's and Vodka's. Being a bulk buy neutral there are 2 types; grain based (sometimes wheat) and grape based. They buy them in 1000l lots at about 94-96%. You can get them from Asia very cheap but enjoy the heads, methanol and tails they leave behind :scared-eek:

The other "practised" bulk buy is purchasing beer wort from the breweries.

You could re-distill it yourself and take those out...real question is how much hearts you get from cheap 96%.

Obviously I would re-distil it, just like the commercial distillery. It would just allow me to work on the end product without having to make the raw spirit.

By the way, I'm interested in finding a micro brewery in Melbourne who could make a few hundred litres of wort for me. I don't want several thousand litres.Any suggestions? There's one on the Ballerine peninsula I thought of trying.

Regards,

Steve C

Did you go to four pillars at Healesville they get theres from nsw
Did you buy a bottle of there gin $99.00

You can buy grain based ethanol as a consumer but you will be paying consumer tax at somthing like $78Per ltr of azeo ethanol plus GST on that. Just make it, its not that hard

Yes, four pillars. I've bought their gin previously. Can't I buy grain alcohol for my car and avoid the tax? :-)

Guess I'll park the idea of gin for a bit as it'll just distract me from scotch, which is why I bought the still

Regards,

Steve C

stevefzr wrote:Yes, four pillars. I've bought their gin previously. Can't I buy grain alcohol for my car and avoid the tax? :-)
Guess I'll park the idea of gin for a bit as it'll just distract me from scotch, which is why I bought the still
Regards,Steve C

What still did you get?

stevefzr wrote:Can't I buy grain alcohol for my car and avoid the tax? :-)

yes, there will be no tax. but if you drink it you die. so there is that minor problem. it will be mixed with iso propanol, acetone, or methanol.

crow wrote:

stevefzr wrote:Yes, four pillars. I've bought their gin previously. Can't I buy grain alcohol for my car and avoid the tax? :-)
Guess I'll park the idea of gin for a bit as it'll just distract me from scotch, which is why I bought the still
Regards,Steve C

What still did you get?

Don't laugh.... one off Gumtree. Before you tell me how crap it is, I have modified it. I've added a cooling water outlet at the top of the condenser and blocked the one at the base of the column. It now works like a pot still with no reflux, and it works really well. So well, I've decided against upgrading. I recycle cooling water from 2 200l containers using a $30 pond pump. I use $15 temperature switches to turn the cooling water on only when the vapour temperature reaches 40C. I use another one to stop the boiler reaching boiling temp, and run everything through a timer switch. I'm doing rum at the moment. I've also set up a system using ping pong balls as floats to cut off different size chambers and do my cuts. It takes me 11mins to drain the still, recharge it with low wines, collect the output from the previous run and set the timer (typically for 4 hours for s stripping run and 6 hours for a final collection run). When I come back, I've collected 2.5l of heads, 7l of hearts and the rest has been collected as tails. The system has turned itself on and off, and controlled the heating and cooling as well. Basically, first run of a new product I do cuts. I then air and blend to select the final product, then tune my system to collect exactly the right amount from the following runs. Adjustment is simply raising or lowering the collectors in relation to the floats. So far I've used this system to distil 300l of champagne down to cognac/brandy. Wow, is it good! I thought I'd have enough to last me the rest of my life, but my friends keep drinking it. It makes magnificent orange and lemon liqueurs, as well as a really good brandy. It'd mellowed so well in the 6 months since I made it that I don't want to waste any more making liqueurs. My eventual aim is to make whiskey, which means making a wash. As I've never done homebrew or distilling before, I thought I'd prectice first with something cheaper that malted barley. I decided to make rum. Just because it was my first go at fermenting, I wasn't going to waste time with a 25l fermenter. I bought a 200l food grade steel drum and 3 200l plastic olive containers (20 ea). Add a $2 air lock and a $5 digital temperature gauge, plus two 2kw drum band heaters I already had and $20 of old sleeping bags for insulation, and I soon had 800l of rum wash on the go. I'm pleased to say it all worked fine. I'm going to add a couple of $15 temperature controllers and I'll be ready to go with my whisky wash.

I'm putting the last of the strip run from the rum through the still today. I'll end up with 50l at cask strength, which will equate to about 110 bottles at drinking strength. I had a bit of luck as I found someone clearing out their shed and got 500kg of blackstrap molasses for $150! I use 2kg of molasses to 1kg of raw sugar as I'm aiming for a carribean style rum. I used bakers yeast from the supermarket for the same reason.

So, long answer to a short question on my still type. I'm collecting a lot of heads from the rum run and thinking of switching the still back to a reflex (just means swapping the outlet hose from one fitting to the other) so I can run the heads through to get a neutral spirit to use for liqueurs or gin instead of wasting my fine (biased, but supported by many others) cognac.

Regards,

Steve

Steve, did I read correctly that you leave your still while its in operation, using a timer for your elements and using ping pong balls in alcohol. :?

Yeah you've got to park that shit up and get reading mate. Fuck me, there's so many things wrong with your method I don't know where to start.

Leaving your still while running a batch is a no-no.

The idea of using a float system to "automatically" take cuts is an interesting one, and i would like to see more of what your are talking about.
Ping-pong balls really should not be in contact with high proof alcohol with all the nasties in the plastic and not being food grade, swapping them for something else that is alcohol safe could be a winner, i wonder how much some press dies would cost...

Throw up some pictures of your still and maybe we can help with efficiency.

stevefzr wrote:Don't laugh.... one off Gumtree. Before you tell me how crap it is, I have modified it. I've added a cooling water outlet at the top of the condenser and blocked the one at the base of the column. It now works like a pot still with no reflux, and it works really well. So well, I've decided against upgrading. I recycle cooling water from 2 200l containers using a $30 pond pump. I use $15 temperature switches to turn the cooling water on only when the vapour temperature reaches 40C. I use another one to stop the boiler reaching boiling temp, and run everything through a timer switch. I'm doing rum at the moment. I've also set up a system using ping pong balls as floats to cut off different size chambers and do my cuts. It takes me 11mins to drain the still, recharge it with low wines, collect the output from the previous run and set the timer (typically for 4 hours for s stripping run and 6 hours for a final collection run). When I come back, I've collected 2.5l of heads, 7l of hearts and the rest has been collected as tails. The system has turned itself on and off, and controlled the heating and cooling as well. Basically, first run of a new product I do cuts. I then air and blend to select the final product, then tune my system to collect exactly the right amount from the following runs. Adjustment is simply raising or lowering the collectors in relation to the floats. So far I've used this system to distil 300l of champagne down to cognac/brandy. Wow, is it good! I thought I'd have enough to last me the rest of my life, but my friends keep drinking it. It makes magnificent orange and lemon liqueurs, as well as a really good brandy. It'd mellowed so well in the 6 months since I made it that I don't want to waste any more making liqueurs. My eventual aim is to make whiskey, which means making a wash. As I've never done homebrew or distilling before, I thought I'd prectice first with something cheaper that malted barley. I decided to make rum. Just because it was my first go at fermenting, I wasn't going to waste time with a 25l fermenter. I bought a 200l food grade steel drum and 3 200l plastic olive containers (20 ea). Add a $2 air lock and a $5 digital temperature gauge, plus two 2kw drum band heaters I already had and $20 of old sleeping bags for insulation, and I soon had 800l of rum wash on the go. I'm pleased to say it all worked fine. I'm going to add a couple of $15 temperature controllers and I'll be ready to go with my whisky wash.

I'm putting the last of the strip run from the rum through the still today. I'll end up with 50l at cask strength, which will equate to about 110 bottles at drinking strength. I had a bit of luck as I found someone clearing out their shed and got 500kg of blackstrap molasses for $150! I use 2kg of molasses to 1kg of raw sugar as I'm aiming for a carribean style rum. I used bakers yeast from the supermarket for the same reason.

So, long answer to a short question on my still type. I'm collecting a lot of heads from the rum run and thinking of switching the still back to a reflex (just means swapping the outlet hose from one fitting to the other) so I can run the heads through to get a neutral spirit to use for liqueurs or gin instead of wasting my fine (biased, but supported by many others) cognac.

Regards,

Steve

Hi Steve, you've got some seriously dangerous practices there mate.

The cardinal rule for distilling is to never leaving the still unattended when it is running. Ever. Period.

If the boiler is on, the water should be flowing through the condenser. Always. Imaging if your sensor failed and the coolant did not turn on. You would have ethanol vapour flowing freely out of the still creating an explosive situation.

Seriously mate, stop running your still right now and have read up on how to do it safely. The last thing we want to see is you as the subject in a newspaper headline...

Cheers,
Prof. Green.

Steve you're obviously an inventive and creative fellow and could certainly contribute good ideas to the growth of this industry, BUT, any good idea can use fine tuning. Plastic and leaving a still is no good.
Like said before, no one wants to read about your still fire in the paper.

While I can see a lot of problems with your safety procedures I like the brain work with the ping pong balls doing your cuts for you(yes should use ethanol safe product). I assume you put them in tha appropriate sized jar and let them float up blocking the inlet to the jar thereby redirect in the stream to the next jar with a ping pong ball in it?
Smart but not necessary as most stills (if not all as I don't know how the commercials do it) have a person sitting next to it making cuts or changing jars to maximise the hearts. Not all runs are the same.

We each conduct our own risk assessments.

Woodsy71 wrote:We each conduct our own risk assessments.

Does that mean you agree with what the OP is doing?

Ethanol 100 HG requires an Australian Taxation Office (ATO) license to transact.

http://www.recochem.com.au/index.php/pr ... yl_alcohol