In The Shed Today

[Wellsy]

Just done my third stripping run of BWKO, 1 more and I will be able to do a spirit run.
Already making plans for a full day in the shed next Saturday :)

[wynnum1]

Start early can get a lot done early in the morning when others are sleeping.

[Wellsy]

The boss is working next Saturday and starts at 7:30, so the plan is that everything will be set up the night before.
Including double checking the abv of the spirit and dilution ratios so that it will be a simple pour it in turn it on and wait for the first drop and then adjust the voltage to get the correct flow rate.
I have a few 1 litre bottles for the first litre, fore’s already taken, and then the very end of the tails.
I have 48 stubbies to cover the bit after the first litre and will be taking 300 ml cuts. With 40 litres of 40% low wines I am expecting 22 litres and at 2 litres an hour that will take me 11 hours.
Lots of theory at this stage so will be pleased to get a real run under my belt. I guess the first rule is don’t panic close
Y followed by not everything goes according to plan lol.

[RuddyCrazy]

Ended up fitting 5kg's in that new malting tray and with the cover finished it had it's first day in sun and I installed a temp gauge at the drain where I duct taped it up to seal it and just cut a small section to fit the temp gauge in. The max temp in full sun was 35C which I reckon isn't too high and I will be checking the moisture content everyday.

Well to some 5kg's at a time aint much but as they say in the game time isn't a factor so doing a more malting runs will soon get enough to do a full 50 litre run.

Cheers Bryan

[Wellsy]

How do you check the moisture Bryan, by feel pr have you invested $12:00 in a moisture meter.
Thanks for sharing the results mate

[RuddyCrazy]

How do you check the moisture Bryan, by feel pr have you invested $12:00 in a moisture meter.
Thanks for sharing the results mate

I wet the sheet under the grain thoroughly and I'll check on the moisture level this morning and drain out any excess if needed. The cover serves a couple of purposes, one to keep the temp up and other to keep those bloody mice out that seem to eat everything. How they managed to get into a sealed steel filing cabinet have me stuffed :angry-banghead:

Cheers Bryan

[Wellsy]

Maybe you locked them in there and that was why they were so hungry :laughing-rolling:

[RuddyCrazy]

Maybe you locked them in there and that was why they were so hungry :laughing-rolling:

Found one in one of my bins so put a lid on it with a weight and it can stay on for a month or so.

Anyway work got canned for today so went and did a bottle run and grabbed 4 buckets of apples which is about 20kg's, got just over 14 litres so diluted it down and put 2kg of simple syrup in and did a yeastie starter of EC1118 yeast. Just gotta have a apple cider at xmas and I'm running low on my apple brandy so I will make somemore with this ferment.

Cheers Bryan

[wynnum1]

We had rats come in through the windows at night and would leave early in the morning so shut that window and had another open that had a fly screen and ate through the fly screen like it wasn't even there so if you want to stop rats need stainless screens.

[Beerswimmer]

New boiler arrived! Looks great, except one side has a huge label that says MOONSHINE DISTILLER. I'll be polishing that off tomorrow.

Next to a 60L keg that be it's thumper, with a 2"-4" reducer added: https://imgur.com/a/U12A5dJ

[dans.brew]

New boiler arrived! Looks great, except one side has a huge label that says MOONSHINE DISTILLER. I'll be polishing that off tomorrow.

Next to a 60L keg that be it's thumper, with a 2"-4" reducer added: https://imgur.com/a/U12A5dJ

Sweet looking boiler mate... looks soo shiny :D
I'm guessing its 100ltrs.. at a second glance it looks bigger than that :think:

[Beerswimmer]

100L I can't wait to fill it a few times!

[Wellsy]

First spirit run is now 9 hours old with 16 litres collected so far. ABV now down to 60% so getting close to tails :) been interesting so far and tomorrow will be a tasting day :)

[hgwells]

The boss is working next Saturday and starts at 7:30, so the plan is that everything will be set up the night before.
Including double checking the abv of the spirit and dilution ratios so that it will be a simple pour it in turn it on and wait for the first drop and then adjust the voltage to get the correct flow rate.
I have a few 1 litre bottles for the first litre, fore’s already taken, and then the very end of the tails.
I have 48 stubbies to cover the bit after the first litre and will be taking 300 ml cuts. With 40 litres of 40% low wines I am expecting 22 litres and at 2 litres an hour that will take me 11 hours.
Lots of theory at this stage so will be pleased to get a real run under my belt. I guess the first rule is don’t panic close
Y followed by not everything goes according to plan lol.

How’d the run go yesterday Wellsy?

[Wellsy]

I ran it for about 12 hours and ended up with 19 litres, I will do the tasting in a couple of hours.
The run itself went well, except I did not expect the flow rate to change but it slowed down a little but that is not a major problem as it slowed not speed up.
After this afternoon I will know how much drinkable spirit I ended up with.
Then I get to try different ageing combinations

[RuddyCrazy]

Well started to process some of my barley malt today and in order to dry the barley out put a 18" square of chequer plate supported by 3 empthy bakers yeast tins above my green can stove. Put some 25mm square steel fences at the edges and just had the flame set to a low heat. As soon as I heard the first crack of the grain I turned off the gas as the steel was nice and warm then leave it for 15 minutes or so then turn the heat on again.

I soon leant the hard way to make sure the barley was fully dry as putting some thru my corona mill started coming out solid and it was getting harder to turn :angry-banghead: :angry-banghead: :angry-banghead: So I put the thick mess in a saucepan and used the riser for my bunsen burner above my twin gas burner so the flame wouldn't scorch the saucepan. Mixing with my wooden spoon soon got the malt dry and after cleaning up the corona mill with a wire wheel put the malt thru another run.

The next project is a solar dehydrator so I can just put the grain in and a few days later take out the dried malt :laughing-rolling: May take more than a few days if the bloody sun don't shine :laughing-rolling: but it's gotta be easier than the method I'm using now.

Cheers Bryan

[dans.brew]

Running over 4 plates a single malt sugerhead whiskey that i fermented using kveik yeast.
The wash smells considerable different to that from my normal wash.
Fingers crossed some interesting flavours come across. :happy-partydance:
Filled up my 20ltr ex port barrel with my 'green malt' and malted rye whiskey to age for a bit too. :obscene-drinkingdrunk:

[RuddyCrazy]

G'day Guy's,
Well over the years I've been distilling I have saved most of the foreshots and today I decided to make a burner just to see if it would heatup my minime pot still. Now with the burn in I put my 3" thumper over the burner with 400ml of water and in 25 minutes got to the boil. :happy-partydance:

Making it was pretty easy and I just used a couple of green can tins and cut them down with a junior hacksaw. Had to slit the one that went inside the other one to get it in, and I cut up some insulation and rolled it up so the fumes would wick up. Then I put some fiberglass matting over the insulation. With the inner can I put an eyelet in the centre and ontop of the fiberglass mating put some 30 micron SS screen. I drilled a series of 0.7mm hole with my carbide drills and yes I did brake one due to me NOT centre punching the area first :angry-banghead:

foreshot burner.jpg

Above is a pic of setup I did for the boil test. now in order to put out the burner it's a simple case of putting and old can over the top to starve the burner of air.

Cheers Bryan

[Wellsy]

Yet another BWKO strip run.
Why didn’t someone tell me about bilge pumps?..
Picked one up today from BCF ( had a gift voucher ) best money I haven’t spent. Worked like a charm now I just need to set it up properly with a fuse and a switch. Kicking wire off battery worked but a switch would be much more elegant lol

[RuddyCrazy]

Not so much in the shed today but last week SWMBO came to grief on a ladder and she reckons her left shoulder was put out, after days of pain I said this morning right off to hospital for you so I took her in this morning. Sat with her for about 3 hours then she said you may aswell go home and I'll ring when I'm done here.

4 hours later the phone rang so went in to pick her up where she said yep after the xray there is a break in the ball joint in the shoulder so next week off to down the hill to see the specialist for maybe an operation.

Now to top all this off my local laborhire mob put me for a permanent mine site job paying 130K which I got easily, when I asked just how many people applied the reply was about 600 and you were the only one with the experience and qualifications for the role. I had to cancel this job as there was noway I would take off for a 2 week stretch leaving SWMBO alone. Yesterday I got a call from the guy who interviewed me over the phone and when I told him why he said he would of done the same thing and when you feel you can come onboard just ring and I'll sort it.

Well a job is a job and no matter just how good it is family is more important so I'll stay in my current job until SWMBO is fit again but this may take quite a few months.

Cheers Bryan