Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi all,
I have been experimenting with TPW and various chips. Soak recommended amount for recommended time, then use essence (Edwards) with mixed results. Does anyone here just oak a neutral then age it or is neutral best used with essence alone. I know it comes down to personal taste. Am honestly just think of using essence alone with neutral until I have enough CFW down.

Not many oak their neutrals (TPW, etc) for the simple fact that they make it neutral to flavour it - essences, fruit, specs, cream & chocolate, etc.

try age with essense. meaning if you have 3L @65% that will water down to 4.64L @42% so add necesarry essense to the 3L that will be the full amount for 4.6l. if i remember edwards does 3.5L so use a bottle and 3 cap fulls maybe as 2 capfulls are 700ml and that gpoes to 4.2 so one more cap will do 350ml and that will be close enough maybe. then put in 10-15 grams of oak per L, dominos and leave for about 1-3 months. I used to use scrub turkey and i found this to work alright. i sometimes used mellow oak in conjunction with all of the above. Up to you what you like but try aging together (essence and oak)

Only thing you need to remember though is once you add essence the alcometer wont work properly so you cant check ABV % so its important to know your numbers, ie ABV% and volume. you could try chips but i cant comment on those much, been a while since i used them

Thanks guys

Its been a while since i used an essence but i never found something i liked, was always displeased. On flavoured washes now and still on the lookout for a good whisky but the ones i have made have been alright

Best essence I have tried so far is the Still Spirits Premium Classic Tennesse. Quite nice.

How does it throw the hydrometer out?
Mine seems to work ok.

I used edwards essence. it always showed a different abv after adding the essence as it can change the density of the combined liquit

Ezi... From my understanding quite a few dudes oak their neutral... i do with mine with reasonable results, not fantastic though. i think as WT said, its all about personal taste.(even essences, which most of us bag) Oak will just alter/add flavour wether it be white or dark spirit... i think...if you like the flavour, keep doing it, if not...lesson learned.

Kenster wrote:Ezi... From my understanding quite a few dudes oak their neutral... i do with mine with reasonable results, not fantastic though. i think as WT said, its all about personal taste.(even essences, which most of us bag) Oak will just alter/add flavour wether it be white or dark spirit... i think...if you like the flavour, keep doing it, if not...lesson learned.

:text-+1:


I've got some TPW hearts on chips now . Been on for 7 days , had a bit of a tester yesty ,and OMG bloody beautiful and better than any commercial stuff .

As many have said its all about personal taste .

G'Day All
As I only have a T500 it would be a waste of time as far as I have read to do any other than the TPW as the T500 takes all the flavours out. So with the TPW I only use chips and essences and I'm very happy with just using scotch/whisky chips from a HBS in cairns a kg bag of American oak and they are toasted as well is about $20 or so, and about 200g for about 8-9lts. I drink this manly but I do make just rum chips I get the shavings from you know how from HBS in town and it's great. I use aussie gold and tennessee from SS and the scotch I use Essencia walker whisky and single malt whisky. Sometimes I use both like a cap in with the chips.
The gold I string out to about the 3.5lt not the 2.25lt as I find it a little to molosse taste for me. I try to have it on the chip at least a month but I try for at 2 or more the longer the better.
I may have to try to water the aussie red, Blue, Green down as it's very sweet as well. As for the tennessee my brother likes both the essence and the chips from spirits unlimited.
Mum only drinks the gold
I have some Johnny in the cupboard since I started making this stuff and had a drink the other day and did not like it at all the chips are for me now. What a shock that was as at the pub or out I drink beer. I use some other essences as well,but one day I will upgrade my still so I can do some flavoured washes but for now I'm happy.
Looking at some lemon as well for a vodka.

Cheers All

It's been ages since I was using essences but I got reasonable results by using 2/3 of what the essence said and aging on oak for six to eight weeks.

But then I worked out how easy it is to make great rum!

Yes but you are a little smarter than me as you have a better still I wish I found this site before I got the T500 :angry-banghead: .
My mouth waters wanting to taste a better still, oh the endless possibilities if I had that time again buying a still :obscene-drinkingdrunk: .