In The Shed Today

[Wellsy]

When do you start buy sugar by the pallet and how much cheaper is it lol

[hjubm2]

Already buying sugar by the 25kg bag so pallet wouldn't be a huge stepup haha no cheaper (up to about $30/bag atm) but a lot easier to handle... ... ... malt by the bulka bag though is a different story :laughing-rolling:

[RuddyCrazy]

G'Day Guy's,
Well finished the last night shift for the year and don't go back until new years day night shift so time for some fun :laughing-rolling: :obscene-drinkingchug:

Got a 6 pack of Sparkling ale in my shed fridge keeping company with the last of my lager and real ale and the fridge may just get a birthday with a slab of sparkling ale this xmas :laughing-rolling:

A few weeks ago scored 3.4Kw of solar for $1,100 :handgestures-thumbupleft: then splurged out $600 for a 100 metre roll of 4mm solar cable and 5 packs of MC-4 connectors along with the crimping tool so i make my own cables.

Had a look at commercial MTTP's and decided I'm just better off making my own so got all the electronic parts for making 2 of them, gotta get busy with my heat gun to liberate a bunch of caps to use and this time I bought some 100 amp fets as one of those 30 amp fets did let me join the blown fet club :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:

Got a homebrew of sparkling ale to bottle this weekend so it will be interesting to see how it compares with the real thing. 8-}

So let the fun begin...

Cheers Bryan

[RuddyCrazy]

While sipping on a sparkling ale I did get the urge to get the second inductor made for those 2 MPPT's I'm making, just like distilling if one can make a still when working with copper it is an addiction :teasing-tease:

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Now after the second sparkling ale time to go grab the heat gun and liberate about 20 capacitors off a few circuit boards and after that I may just have to decant a bottle of my barely/rye whisky that been aging now for quite a few months. The soldering part can get done after a few caffines in the morning and hopefully I'll be testing both of them on my shed array this weekend. Then the fun will start sober of course :laughing-rolling: getting the roof to mount the solar panel mounts.

Cheers Bryan

[BigRig]

Bottling a tonne of 3yr old rum, bwko and 2 yr old All grain for xmas.

[harold01]

big day today, ran 45L of AG, put down 60L AG sugarhead, put down another 60L AG and bottled some rum

[Beerswimmer]

I have been a bit busy lately. Learned a lot. My rice whiskey that I made in August is a real bummer. There's nothing wrong with it, just very plain like a vodka. I put 20L in a barrel and the spirit from it tastes like barrel and maybe a hint of rice. Or a severely watered down whiskey with no character. If I was to make it again, and I probably will, I would not sour mash and treat it like vodka. I'd also make a small ferment just to blend with the spirit. The blackberry shnapps was a bad failure. Putting the whole, but blended, berries into the thumper caused the more tannic flavors to dominate. White, and aged in jars on sticks, taste more of the leaves and branches and roots than the berry. Need to read more about fruits.

Since the rice I have been fermenting and stripping to make rum. A high ester rum. The washes were 25 kilos of brown sugar and 4L of blackstrap. The first wash was enough water to fill to the 113L mark. After the first strip I used 38L of dunder and water to fill. I kept the first 3-7 L of higher proof strip from all 5 strips in their own container to keep them separate, they went into the thumper and a few cups of sulfuric acid was added right before distilling. I used the heads & tails of my DOK that I kept for a few years sealed up and put into the pot on the final distillation with the low wines. Big bright powerful esters! This is no DOK, but damn it's not too far off. I split this with my neighbor that paid for half of the ingredients and propane, we each ended up with 24.6L @ 85%. I just filled a BadMo @ 65%, currently soaking a 20L barrel that previously held Chocolate Sundae bourbon, and then DOK. Thinking about using red wine instead of water to proof it down for that. The rest I'll keep white!

[MattSmith]

I squeezed 55ish litres of feints into my 50lt milk can this morning and I'm currently pushing it through a 500mm packed section with the RC on full. Coming out at 93%

I'm interested to see just how neutral it will turn out.

[RuddyCrazy]

Well yesterday finished my last night shift for the week :handgestures-thumbupleft: and decided I had that much going in my head going down for rest wasn't on the cards :scared-eek: so a couple of drams of my Barely/Rye Whisky got the day started :laughing-rolling: Went in and paid the council and did some shopping then when I got home washed 32 longnecks as my lager was over ready for bottling :scared-eek:
While the bottles were drying in the sun to sterilize decided the mullet had to go :scared-eek: as I do have to wear a hair net at work and that mullet did need taming :laughing-rolling: so off to find a clip joint and on the third shop finally got a booking. So went under the clip and got half a doz Pale Ale longnecks and a bag of ice for the Friday night drinks :obscene-drinkingchug:

Well got the 32 longnecks bottled and all of them just fitted into my shed bar fridge :handgestures-thumbupleft: so for the next 2 weeks they can sit at 2C for the second fermentation and get lagered :handgestures-thumbupleft: well after that and one longneck it was clear this body was burnt out so crashed about 4pm :scared-eek: woke up around 2am had a smoke and few drams then crashed again ready for another big day.

Gotta wash a few stubbies to finish off bottling and I'll use them as a control as the stubbies won't be lagared :handgestures-thumbupleft: then time get some clean fermenters and put down both 60 litre fermenters with some TPW to continue my 4 plate stripping for that 45 litre spirit run I'm gearing up for. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Cheers Bryan

[Puk]

Was about to put down to 27l MacStill Whisky washes, but with 2x 40 degree days forecast for the next week i reckon i will hold off for a few weeks until hopefully we are past the worst of the crazy weather.

so i changed the Fuel filter on the young bloke's first car instead. (VT commodore) and am going to sample my Nutri-Grain whisky later in the day that has been on oak for about 2 months now and see how it is coming along. :) (and maybe my MacStill rum that is about 3 weeks old) :dance:

Puk

[Wellsy]

Bit of a clean up day and organising what grains i have left. I discovered 60 kgs of corn and 60 of barley i forgot i had lol.
A messy sherd is the gift that just keeps on giving lol.

Might be time to do some research on that malt muncher 24v grinder. I am not sure the drill is up to all the corn i found. With this heat it would be a good time to get a couple of 200 litre angel yeast brews on the go.

[hjubm2]

Starting about 320L of FFV... hopefully be done/enough to distill next weekend... need the drums empty to start another batch :laughing-rolling:

[Wellsy]

if and when we ever catch up HJ I must have a chat about the advantages of a jacket boiler and the flavour difference it can potentially make.

Also need to know how many aluminium cans you needed to cash in to pay for it :laughing-rolling:

[RuddyCrazy]

Also need to know how many aluminium cans you needed to cash in to pay for it :laughing-rolling:

In my case if my inverter won't take the load I just make a bigger inverter :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:

[Wellsy]

The new maltziller grinder arrived so testing it today.
Ground 20kg of corn and 10kg of both wheat and barley. with this warm weather now is the time to tray another Angel Yeast BWKO.
Last time it was 100% Corn. Lets see how this lot turns out in 2 years :)

[Wellsy]

Maltzilla had a couple of feeding issues but crunched through the corn without to much fuss.
Ground up 40 kg of corn , 20 kg of wheat, and 20 kg of barley without to much fuss at all.
I will get a couple of angel washes in to use up the yeast I have that is getting older.

[harold01]

how long did it take to grind the 80 kg of grain and how fine was the grind

[kaboomxyu]

Im also interested on why you chose the Maltzilla over something like the Ebay electric mills. It might be something I'd look at buying in the future and would value your input / experience Wellsy

[Wellsy]

Harold I recon it too about 2 or 3 hours,I was doing it while heating up water so i was not in a super rush. Corn I had to keep adjusting the gap a whisker (wider and narrower ) to keep it feeding. Maybe doing a couple of passes would worth that issue out. Barley and wheat was no problems at all and I think I could get it to powder if need be.
I lashed out and got the 24 volt transformer for it rather than the battery terminal adapter. The hopper says it will hold 7 kg but I reckon they are dreaming or filling it to spilling.

Kaboom I chose this one rather than an unknown unproven eBay option because I value after sales service more than cheapest price. Why that one, simply because 5 star don’t sell one :)

[hjubm2]

Distilling an Agave syrup wash atm. I was warned that Agave syrup can take awhile to ferment out, it ended up taking about 1.5 days to get down to a final gravity 1.003... if this is slow fermenting I'd hate to see what the fast fermenting stuff is like :laughing-rolling: