Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

EziTasting wrote:
So, Bryan, you still a Virgin? :D

Or are you cursing the corn mash (really not a good first AG mash, IMO - it’s hard work!)

Yep still a virgin :angry-banghead: the external heating element gave up the ghost and i lost the heat in the AG mash which in turn became a thick sludge I fed the horses with. :angry-banghead: :angry-banghead: :angry-banghead:

Anyway today put down a TPW and for heating the water to use for inverting I used my little BD747 burner which got 3 litres of water to the boil in 3 minutes or less :)) Put one of the 30 watt heating belts i bought off 5 Star and the TPW is currently 30C and bubbling away nicely. It started bubbling within 2 hours of adding the bakers yeast too. :happy-partydance:

Decided to age distress that orange mulled wine mix I put thru my minime last weekend and the taste difference is amazing :obscene-drinkingdrunk:

I liked it that much last weekend after the DP taste today I decided to get a 5 litre coolabah dry red goon cask and i'm currently mulling it now, sliced a navel orange and added some fine ground mulling spices. Heated it to 70C and I'll repeat that several times to fully infuse the botanicals in the wine. Then tomorrow do several stripping runs and a final sprit run to make more Orange Brandy.

Cheers Bryan

Finally got a day in the shed today and noticed my 60 litre ferment had stopped bubbling so opened it up only to find it still fizzing and sitting on 1003 sg :angry-banghead: the temp was showing 14C so the yeasties decided to go to bed :laughing-rolling:

I do have a 60 watt 5 star heating belt wrapped around but I did find just leaving it on the ferment did overheat and foam up thru the airlock :scared-eek:

So with having the shed fire going decided to have the heating belt going and also put my 12 volt computer fan setup on the back of the fire and it didn't take long it do more heating than the 60 watt heating belt. Now i do have a micromite hooked up with 2 off DS1820B temp sensors and before I hooked the fan the upper temp was 17.5C lower temp 14,5C. now with the fan setup powered by my N70 converted alkaline battery the upper temp is 18C and the lower temp is 20.25C.

So being off the grid here having a bit of Sunday fun in the shed should get this ferment up around 28C so it can finally finish. There is a good reason not to ferment in winter here as it can take 2 months to do a ferment. One job on the list is hooking up a relay and few more lines of code so the micromite can control the temp of the ferment.

cheers Bryan

30 watt

Bryan1 wrote:Finally got a day in the shed today and noticed my 60 litre ferment had stopped bubbling so opened it up only to find it still fizzing and sitting on 1003 sg :angry-banghead: the temp was showing 14C so the yeasties decided to go to bed :laughing-rolling:

I do have a 60 watt 5 star heating belt wrapped around but I did find just leaving it on the ferment did overheat and foam up thru the airlock :scared-eek:

So with having the shed fire going decided to have the heating belt going and also put my 12 volt computer fan setup on the back of the fire and it didn't take long it do more heating than the 60 watt heating belt. Now i do have a micromite hooked up with 2 off DS1820B temp sensors and before I hooked the fan the upper temp was 17.5C lower temp 14,5C. now with the fan setup powered by my N70 converted alkaline battery the upper temp is 18C and the lower temp is 20.25C.

So being off the grid here having a bit of Sunday fun in the shed should get this ferment up around 28C so it can finally finish. There is a good reason not to ferment in winter here as it can take 2 months to do a ferment. One job on the list is hooking up a relay and few more lines of code so the micromite can control the temp of the ferment.

cheers Bryan

Sounds like you had some fun. Winter is the best time for me to do most ferments (drops down to a crazy 9 degrees, freezing my nipples off :laughing-rolling: ) anyhoo, there are some ferments that just don't work for me (like the Kale wash, but I go on... :roll: )

Talk about a throw away society :laughing-rolling: Got my weekly email from Repco and saw a 1900psi 4hp petrol powered water blaster for $299 so just had to get one as they are the best for trenching 3/4" ag pipe and I do have a few long runs to do. It is a messy job but as far as cutting a 1" wide trench 18"'s deep it is the way to go and on a hot day it's a nice cool job.

anyway to the point I unpacked this water blaster put some oil and fuel in then when I went to turn it on found the start/stop switch was broken. The switch still works but the plastic mount on the rear of the switch had broken when I reckon the unit was tested. So went into Repco this morning only to find they couldn't supply a new switch so they will replace the whole unit.

O'well had a bit of fun yesterday cutting some weeds around the shed with 1900psi of water blasting them :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:

Now with the wifes sewing machine the base plate had warped due to constant use and the sewing machine rep said they isn't any spare parts so best to just buy a new machine. I did offer my wife the use of my 100 year old walking foot singer sewing machine then the fight started..... :laughing-rolling:

Cheers Bryan

Putting a Turbo onto my old pootrol, had to disassemble the front suspension in order to get the sump off.... for cleaning...
Only to find an oil jet... now to solder it back in place and add the oil return before I can load her up with oil again!
Turbo will have to wait a weekend or 2 before the whistling can be installed.

GO FATHERS DAY!

Bryan1 wrote:Talk about a throw away society :laughing-rolling: Got my weekly email from Repco and saw a 1900psi 4hp petrol powered water blaster for $299 so just had to get one as they are the best for trenching 3/4" ag pipe and I do have a few long runs to do. It is a messy job but as far as cutting a 1" wide trench 18"'s deep it is the way to go and on a hot day it's a nice cool job.

anyway to the point I unpacked this water blaster put some oil and fuel in then when I went to turn it on found the start/stop switch was broken. The switch still works but the plastic mount on the rear of the switch had broken when I reckon the unit was tested. So went into Repco this morning only to find they couldn't supply a new switch so they will replace the whole unit.

O'well had a bit of fun yesterday cutting some weeds around the shed with 1900psi of water blasting them :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:

Now with the wifes sewing machine the base plate had warped due to constant use and the sewing machine rep said they isn't any spare parts so best to just buy a new machine. I did offer my wife the use of my 100 year old walking foot singer sewing machine then the fight started..... :laughing-rolling:

Cheers Bryan

Would be good to get water blaster out of the bin.

In the shed today, putting on a new TPW, because the one I did yesterday had NO SUGAR...

Yup.... I have made this a few hundred times, but my brain was on autopilot and when I was finished I remember thinking "Fark, that took no effort at all!" later in the day I was in the pantry and found 12KG of sugar sitting there and it clicked....

:laughing-rolling:

Shit.....came up in my shed today..when the septic blocked up and the shower drain in shed was the lowest point :crying-blue:

Well thats a bit crappy

My largest spirit run ever. Keg boiler and thumper, 12 gallons of low wines in the boiler and 8 in the thumper plus 4 gallons of backset. Shoiuld get over 8 gallons of hearts and take 10 hours :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Damn, scorched it :angry-banghead: At 8 and a half hours into the run, about 3/4 through, smoke started coming out. I learned a lesson on my new rig, keep the boiler from going dry! I had it set up backwards, I had the boiler loaded with 40% low wines only and the thumper had 40% low wines plus a bunch of backset that brought it down way way less. The boiler ran dry while the thumper still had plenty to go. I missed out on about 1.5-2 gallons of keeper spirits :doh:

Damn mate, could have been a lot worse. At least you were there and didn’t burn the place down

Run about a six gallon charge of SBB’s all molassas rum. Me darlin’ wife said the house smelled like candy all day. Airin’ our now! Hope it’s as good as it smells. :D

Its rum...it would have to be :D

Been a damn busy week here for me in the "shed"... aka my kitchen.

I finally organised a sparky to get my boiler wired up... really pleased with how it turned out. Then cleaned the boiler with a PBW soak to get it ready for action.

Zipped out to my local homebrew shop... picked up a 60L fermenter to serve as a vessel for some TPW. Then got all the ingredients I needed.

Just laid down my first TPW today... and its already bubbling away happily. This batch will serve as my cleaning run... but I bulk purchased ingredients so I can follow up to make some neutral.

And also ordered a few bits and bobs from 5 Star to get mailed over the ditch to me in NZ.

I'm knackered... but happy I made some real progress on getting the still operational.

Almost there... almost!

:D

If you're making a full ferment in your 60 L fermenter then you don't need to use all of it for your cleaning run, it doesn't need to be a full charge of the boiler. Maybe go with half charge and then you can run the rest for product. If you know the volume required to cover your elements then add say 3 or 4 L more and run it, collecting at most 75 % of the volume that you added above the element volume. Just means you're not wasting a perfectly good large wash.

Sound advice... thanks mate.

I must admit... I'm quite impressed how well the TPW ferments. That bakers yeast really gets the job done!

I took my bubbler off the keg boiler and wheeled the boiler around the house. Filled it up with about 45 L of water from the hose and got it up to about 96 degrees. Then used my high temp pump and drain hose to water some weeds and grass growing down the side of the house in the gravel that we spread out last year. One boiler charge only did half the job, boiling up another batch now. I'll have to wait and see if it was worth it. Hopefully we'll have no more weeds and unwanted grass soon.