Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

You blokes are gonna give me the shed building bug....

As the weather is starting to turn decided to put another Apple cider on as the few batchs have been yummy. 2off Brigalow cider tins along with 2kg's of white sugar inverted get around 1050OG and it usually ferments down to the high 90's.

With the overnight temps getting down to low single figures I made up a light box that sits under the fermenter, 100 watt globe as the heating source and it is switched using a 250volt/5amp relay. I wrote a program for my micromite and used 2 DS18B20 temp sensors one duct taped to the upper side of the fermenter and the other at the base of the fermenter close to the 200mm hole I cut in the top of the box.

As the temp will rise from the base of the fermenter there is a temp difference and I set the temp difference to 7, when it reaches that the light is switched off by the micromite and won't start until the difference is less than 2. Every 10 minutes the micromite writes to a .csv file on the SDCard and it's easy to see the days figures in excel.

That’s very cool.

Have not heard of a ‘Micromite’ before... is that like an Arduino?

EziTasting wrote:That’s very cool.

Have not heard of a ‘Micromite’ before... is that like an Arduino?

Ezi the micromite was designed by a guy over in WA and is the alternative to the Arduino. It started it's days as the Maximite where the circuit, a vga monitor and ps2 keyboard is a stand alone computer there is a basic interpreter(based on the old TRS80) that can deal with the outside world and control what ever you want ( within reason :laughing-rolling: ).

The micromite uses those new tft dispalys the range from 1" square all the way upto 7" screens. with the bigger screens they can be setup as a standalone computer that uses a ps keyboard and SDcard for the hard drive.

Cheers Bryan

G'day Guy's,

Well I decided to set this weekend to finish off this flash boiler I started making years ago. I made it originally to try and power that 5hp B&S engine I converted to stroke and had running off compressed air. The hose I used had a custom fitting and didn't seal so getting the engine to start was a no go.

So changed the burner over from the cheap bunnings green can burner to that cast iron burner I got for free and made a new jet for it. The feed for the water is gravity fed from the 5,000 gal tank.

Well with no luck with the engine I dragged over that old boiler which had about 10 litres of water in and stuck the hose in. The water was 18C when I started and after about 1/2 an hour the water was 63C.




Cheers Bryan

In the shed today I did something completely unrelated to still'n. I had a father son day where we started building a motorized scooter. He's been bugging me for months to do it so we made a start today.

I had a wipper snipper that was lying around the shed so going to use that to power it, hacked up an old chonda 50cc motorbike for the wheels and gears and an old bmx for the forks. The rest is just scrap I had lying around. I have no idea if this thing is gonna work but what the hell we gave it a shot and the boy has had fun in the process.

I see many a busted knee and elbow in your imediate future :D :teasing-neener:

Son's of Anarchy here we come. :laughing-rolling:

I recon I could squeeze a 100cc on there.... :laughing-rolling:

woodduck wrote:I recon I could squeeze a 100cc on there.... :laughing-rolling:

Extend the frame and drop a gsxr engine in it :laughing-rolling:

Beautiful weather here today so I'm enjoying the last of my most recent batch of cider whilst stripping 2nd gen ujsm. Accidentally had the power controller set to min for the first hour and wondered why the vessel wasn't heating :think:


https://m.imgur.com/a/NOzEww2

Gave the girl a jumper and wings.

A&O wrote:Gave the girl a jumper and wings.

Nice mate! :handgestures-thumbupleft:
A good solid piece of timber makes a top notch working bench. Ive got myself some thin foam as well, to make a jacket for my boiler too.
Running it outside on a cold night with a slight bit of breeze just takes too much heat out of the job.

Bottled up 70 throwdowns of apple cider to keep swmbo happy and had 3 litres left over to strip in mini me. Warmed the first with the gas doing a good flame and 10 minutes later got a major puke :angry-banghead: :angry-banghead: :angry-banghead: So shut down the gas and gave it a few minutes then put the gas back on nice and low and now got that magic thumper sound going. The output was only 60% so stripped until 205 and now the second of 3 strips going. if i don't have enough for a spirit run i'll add some feints and put some 905 in the thumper.

Onto the second strip run and while collecting the foreshots got some foamy bubbles out :scared-eek: O'well only foreshots and it wasn't much and now the mini me is outputting around 65%.

This still certainly got a life of it's own and makes sure you got 100% attention :)) The smell of this apple cider thru the strip is going to make a nice drop when I do the sprit run this arvo.

Pardon my ignorance but what is 205 and 905?

Sticky shift key on my laptop mate and I should be wearing glass's :laughing-rolling: I keep putting the number instead of the % key


Onto the third strip now and with only 300ml @ 45% i reckon i'll add some 40% neutral for the spirit run

Not sure putting 90% in your thumper is a great idea mate. Would be better with 40% max for safety's sake :handgestures-thumbupleft:

woodduck wrote:Not sure putting 90% in your thumper is a great idea mate. Would be better with 40% max for safety's sake :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Onto jar 5 now taking 50ml cuts and it's coming off @84% and well into hearts. The D.P is just :happy-partydance: and after I've finished the run I'll upload the video I made.

Point taken WD this thumper is a big learning curve so next time i will go with 40%

Cheers Bryan

Glad she's working well for ya mate :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Who would of thought Murphy would come and visit as the wiper motor finally gave out. :angry-banghead: So got the old fuel pump motor of my old subi, cut the end barb off and now back to heating up.