New 2.5" Pot Still Setup!!

[victorski]

Ah yes, then my angle is shoite ;) No wonder it was coming out so hot :angry-banghead: Ah yes you should definetly get one ;) a little bribery might help :handgestures-thumbupleft: I'm sure i'll be in trouble soon :laughing-rolling: I still havn't told the missus about the new 220L barrel, 50L maturing barrel and keg boiler which will be living in her laundry :laughing-rolling:

Ah awesome, looking forward to buying one, might just have to wait till after exams though! :handgestures-thumbdown:

Whats the difference between heavy/dark toast, what would be best suited for UJSM ?

Cheers,
Victor

[Modernity]

Thanks kimbo! I'll start collecting some small 500ml jars to make cuts! Yeah matey, it's been great fun so far can't wait to get something I can finally drink though ;)

I was hoping to get a large plastic drum to cycle water through the liebig, what size drum should I be looking for ? I'm limited for size, it needs to fit in the laundry and I'll also be using it for 2.5" reflux still :) any suggestions ?

Cheers,
Victor

I thought you might be able to freeze up a few 2ltr milk bottles filled with water and salt. Load them into your cooling drum before toping up with cooling water. They should go a long way to keeping the cooling water cold during a run. If they defrost/melt too soon then add a few more to you cooling drum next time. You can then just re-stack them back into the freezer for next time. It might make ice cream and frozen peas a bit scarce at your place though! :text-lol:

[victorski]

:handgestures-thumbupleft: That was the plan Mod! Although my freezer is tiny, might only fit one or two at most in there :sad: not sure if I can sacrifice the space at the expense of losing some connoisseur ice cream :laughing-rolling:

[victorski]

Hmm, was just reading over the UJSM recipe and it seems to say that it takes 3-4 days to ferment out.... i'm on my 5th generation and its taking 8-9 days :? it seems to increase to about 31-32 degrees for like 5-6 or so days then drops off to room temp and still tastes sweet till the 8-9th day. Is this normal ?

Mind you I think my recipes abit fucked, I originally aimed to make 60L batches but did not consider that corn/wheat takes up space in the fermenter :laughing-rolling: So I think i've got corn/wheat upto the 15L mark (remove 25% each generation) 25% backset inwhich I invert 7.5 kgs of sugar and add the replacement corn... end up with 45L of wash and 9-10 litres of 40% low wines.. anyway I'd love to have this ferment out in 3-4 days is there anything that i'm doing wrong ? :-)

Cheers,
Victor

[SBB]

Ive never had one ferment out in 3-4 days either Vic.......mine seemed to get slower as generations went on, I ended up cutting back to about 20% on the backset, I found this helped to speed up the ferment.

[R-sole]

That's normal. it ferments quick for the first gen or two.

if you want to do more just run another fermenter. As said, you can cut the backset to 20% for long term stability.

[victorski]

Ok sweet, i'll drop down to 20% for the next generation :handgestures-thumbupleft: Quick question, when I do my spirit run do I have to collect foreshots if i've been collecting 300ml on 45L stripping runs ? If so how much do I need to collect for a 45L charge? Also can I throw feints back into the low wines keg or is it best to keep it seperate ?

Cheers,
Victor

[MacStill]

Ok sweet, i'll drop down to 20% for the next generation :handgestures-thumbupleft: Quick question, when I do my spirit run do I have to collect foreshots if i've been collecting 300ml on 45L stripping runs ? If so how much do I need to collect for a 45L charge? Also can I throw feints back into the low wines keg or is it best to keep it seperate ?

Cheers,
Victor

That's 3 questions, your maths is fucked :teasing-tease: :laughing-rolling: :teasing-tease:

[audistiller]

That's 3 questions

And your only paid up to get one of them answered. 8-}

[R-sole]

I can only tell you what i do, which is no foreshot cut ever, except to take 1l of heads and put into my reflux keg on spirit runs. Recycle all feints into my strip and add wash at 10%.

[SBB]

I do it another way.....rather play it safe......I take 300-400ml of foreshots...each strip run.........then another 300-400 on the spirit run......you only have to smell that stuff to know you dont want it in there in my opinion.
Heads n tails all go into a seperate container and at a later stage get added back to a spirt run if or when I feel like it.

[crow]

probably a dumb question but why bother with cuts on the stripping run , why not just sort out ya cuts on the spirit run and clean it up in one hit .Shortly I need to start running the figs and was thinking can I get away with just doing the cuts the once , be neat if I could just turn the still on and just let it do its thing

[SBB]

Its a matter of personal preference.....some take a foreshots cut on a stripping run...some dont.
As far as taking cuts on a strip.....the only reason I could give is for a little practice if your new to potstilling. You might just learn a bit from it........nothing like getting into your spirit run after all that work stripping and suddenly thinking "I have no F%&#ing idea what Im even supposed to be tasteing or smelling here"
A strip wont taste or smell exactly the same.......but things can still be learnt.

[crow]

Fair enough , ok how close is the taste and smell of a spirit run compared to my reflux runs as this will determine weather I will have the skills to make an accurate cut or not . I always collect in jars half filling the first and last couple so if I fuck it I don't waste heaps

[SBB]

If you have already done reflux runs you will go ok.....The comment I made was more directed to anyone who may now be stripping in preperation to do thier first spirit run with a pot. Id done a fair few reflux runs and was happy with my cuts.....the same with my bubbler. I was confident Id go ok with my first pot run and stuffed up .....lots of tails.

[crow]

Cheers for that only done a test run on the pot but I'm really starting to get my cuts down pat on the reflux unit . pot still test went great BTW :handgestures-thumbupleft: I might leave all but the very start of the fore shots and just see how that works out , seems I'll just have to be quite careful on the spirit run . After all this I don't want to fuck that up

[victorski]

Alrighty took out 5L of wash to add to my spirit run and stripped my 5th gen :smile: I also put down the 6th gen with only 20% backset this time as suggested to try to reduce fermenting time :handgestures-thumbupleft: Should be doing my first spirit run later this weekend yipee!

If I do a 40L, 40% low wines + 5L wash spirit run, how much product will I roughly have when I water it down to 65% to put in the barrel?
Also once I take all my cuts and i'm left with the feints, can I throw that into the UJSM low wines keg or do people store them separetely ?

Cheers,
Victor

[victorski]

Howdy everyone, finally doing my spirit run! Collected all the heads and now well into hearts!

Only problem is the temperature of the product is coming out at 33 degrees! I've always had problems with the product being to hot but I thought it was due to me being stingy with the water on the stripping runs.

I cranked her up to increase the flow but it's made no difference.... Only thing I could think that could be causing it is that I have my hose inlet on of the laundry basin faucet, it definetely does not flow the same as a garden tap on full so maybe the waters not passing through fast enough?

My starting ABV was about 78% and its now hovering about 74% (tastes really bitey but maybe just because its hot), not sure why theres such a big drop in ABV but anyway i'll keep tasting and smelling and monitoring ABV until I start sensing tails then swap to small jars again :handgestures-thumbupleft:

hope I don't fuck this up to much :pray: :pray: :pray:

Cheers,
Victor

[SBB]

Might be a silly question............but you do have your water lines around the right way???.............cold in the bottom...........warm leaving condenser at top???
I was in a hurry once and hooked mine up arse about.............couldnt work out why i was getting warm output for a while :doh:

[crow]

Just thinking that myself , pot still I guessing a standard run of the mill Liebig . I can't turn the water DOWN enough thinking about getting one of those tiny Aquarium pumps , if ya taps on full blast and its hot I doubt water pressure is the problem :twocents-mytwocents: