Advice for new distillers

[busman]

Hi all,

I thought a useful addition to the forum might be a general advice to noobs (myself included :lol: ) thread that everyone can add to for novice distillers, or anyone interested in giving distilling a go, to refer to. I'll start:

It costs a lot of money to make cheap booze - Neither copper nor stainless is particularly cheap, and on top of the tube and fittings you'll need a boiler, a heat source, and collection vessels. Whether you're building or buying a still, don't expect much change out of $300 or $400 (in fact, budget for extra)

Your results may vary from others - Lots of people may rave about how great their product is when they use a particular wash recipe, you might try it and hate it. Some peoples TPW (or UJSM, or DWWG, or whatever) might ferment out in a week, yours might take two, or four, or six. Some people find their 2" boka a dream to use straight off the bat, you might have difficulty driving yours. Natural random variation is a part of what we do, it can be frustrating, it can add to the fun.

Relax - unless it smells bad, tastes bad, or is a funny colour, it's probably OK - A continuation of the above. If it fermented faster or slower than usual, came out a higher or lower ABV than expected, you stuffed up and forgot to add something to it (or accidentally added something you didn't mean to), or anything in between, unless it smells or tastes off or is a funny colour, it's probably OK. If in doubt, re-run it.

No need to hurry - I saw a thread on another forum that went something along the lines of "I want to start distilling, I have some friends coming over this weekend and I heard rum was easy to make, can someone tell me how to make some stuff that will impress them?". Let things take as long as they take, if you try and hurry things up you'll likely just end up with an inferior product.

It's illegal, keep it quiet - Remember the first and second rules of Fight Club? Same goes.


I implore the seasoned veterans of the forum to add to this for the benfit of us new guys.

Cheers :mrgreen:

[R-sole]

Keep good notes - Keep a notebook. In the back have a recipe section where everytime you put down a brew you write down date, fermneter #, ingredients, temp, sg etc. In the front you can have your still log, Run #, start time, foreshot quantity and %, heads jars, jar #, quantity and % and time each was changed.. etc

This will help you recreate what works and deduce what's going wrong if there's a problem. It will help you when you're making cuts etc too.

[MacStill]

Buy the best you can afford - When you do decide to buy a new still weather custom or store bought do some research before you purchase, ask for experienced peoples views and opinions on certain designs.

If you buy some cheap piece of junk you'll most likely end up having problems and perhaps even quitting this great hobby, think of your purchase as something you want to enjoy and last a lifetime.

Dont be greedy - Greed is one of the biggest things that will ruin good hooch, you're better off having nice clean hearts to drink rather than swill mixed with all your cuts. Your making the stuff so why not have the best drinks possible?

Patience - Dont be in a hurry to ferment and distill product, your wash will ferment out and clear by itself.... just let it do it's thing and you will be rewarded... follow the proven recipes when starting out rather than just chucking stuff in a bucket and hoping for the best, the proven recipes are used all over the world and have been developed by some of the real brains in this hobby, and possibly for a hundred years or more.... they work! so just use em as the recipe states ;)

Cheers.

[rumby]

[i]Know your still[/i] Try & set up a good relationship with some who has the same or similar still to yours, so when you are pulling your hair out with a problem, you can get some quick helpful anwser & not be dishearted or put off. All the more experienced members will be able to help either way.

[rumby]

Drinking & Driving your still is highly recommended, you wont have to worry about the boys in blue, because if you run into them, they wont be worried about you being over the limit.

[reknaw]

If you read this don't take offence trying to help others :)

Don't run your still in your garage at 3 am get drunk and fall asleep, if you don't wake up you'll have 95% alcohol everywhere, a spark, pilot light etc and well........... could end up very badly (lucky you woke up).

My advice would be don't drink and run your still. I know I fuck things up when I'm sober :)

[MacStill]

Drinking & Driving your still is highly recommended, you wont have to worry about the boys in blue, because if you run into them, they wont be worried about you being over the limit.

I think we can leave the humor out of this topic, it was posted to help newbies and there's plenty of other areas for joking around ;)

I always have a couple of drinks but never get drunk when running my rig, and I would not recommend any learner to do as I do until you get your work down pat...... and even then you want to on the ball if something goes wrong, and for most here that is just a matter of time, it's how you react when it happens that could determine the outcome ;)

Keep it safe guys n gals 8-)

[rumby]

I totally agree, I always run my still earlry morning on the weekend, so I dont drink at all when stilling, (sorry to the new distillers for wasting their time, as they could be reading another post that would of been helpful).

Definetly have a small safety plan ready proir to the start of a run, if for some reason there was to be an accident, which is very possible.

"Bend the truth, to your partner"- explaining to the wife/husband/partner that you wont spend all your spare time, playing with your new toy (still), because you will, it is a very exciting & addictive hobby. Always something new to build, buy or experiment with.