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.
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
stevefzr wrote:Can't I buy grain alcohol for my car and avoid the tax? :-)
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?
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
Woodsy71 wrote:We each conduct our own risk assessments.
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