Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

After a year of 4 litres of 60% on three oak domino's..

Such a smooth drink.

I am struggling to get mine to last that long! :)) It keeps "evaporating" into my glass

I am playing around with the base recipe with the addition of a tin of Saunder's malt extract that I had lying around. It's been amazing how fast it has fermented. rather violent in fact :)

Interesting so far. Hoping to the first run later today.

Just put down my first Macwhisky wash, exactly to the recipe, Local HBS guys are actually pretty helpful in these parts. When I picked it all up the guy asked "you're doing whisky?". Told him I'm playing around and he gave me a knowing nod.
This is also my first wash with any proper grains so that's cool too. One thing - in all my haste to put it on, I didn't crack the grain (and they didn't mill it for me because if forgot to request it!) - will this be an issue or should I just leave it, and crack the next lot?

Have you put it on yet? If not break it up bit with rolling pin or meat hammer. If you put it on it will be fine..
You get slightly more flavour cracking the grain but will work whole...your not actually converting the grain so it wont make much difference.. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

bluc wrote:Have you put it on yet? If not break it up bit with rolling pin or meat hammer. If you put it on it will be fine..
You get slightly more flavour cracking the grain but will work whole...your not actually converting the grain so it wont make much difference.. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

If you mash the cracked grain in the FV at 67C or so for an hour then you will get conversion although you won't be sparging the sugar off the grain in the traditional beer way. That's what I do anyway :handgestures-thumbupleft:

:text-+1:

I have my first wash of this almost ready to go, 27l which I will be stripping in my 50l keg boiler through a pot still.
Would you guys recommend running this as a "1.5" distillation by pouring the first gen low wines into the boiler with the 2nd gen wash and doing a spirit run, or would it be better to strip both washes and then do a spirit run?

I am just a little concerned that the low wines from 2 stripping runs might not be enough content for my boiler to cover my elements well enough.
Is the 1.5 distillation better done only with rum, or would it work alright here as well for a bit more flavour?

Puk

Never mind my previous post. I asked the question because I don't have a lot of storage (demijohns etc.) but I am going past the HBS on thursday to get more ingredients for my second wash of this. I guess it isn't going to hurt to grab some more demijohns/carboys as well, so i can store low wines from a few washes.

I know I will end up needing them. :)

Maybe I should look at grabbing a second-hand 19l corny keg as well for storing low wines etc...??

Stripping and spirit runs it is. :)

Puk

P.S. that's a long 35 pages of thread when you read every post, but worth it.

I like the corny kegs for large storage , easy to handle and small footprint .
Glass Demi’s are good for small amounts but fragile .
You might find down the track that you have a small congregation of both :-B

You can never have enough storage vessels :)
Just wait until you try aging some of your product for a couple of years, :laughing-rolling:

The Stig wrote:I like the corny kegs for large storage , easy to handle and small footprint .
Glass Demi’s are good for small amounts but fragile .
You might find down the track that you have a small congregation of both :-B

I see what you did there. :) :laughing-rolling:

I just couldn’t help my :happy-partydance:

I know I'm very late on this discussion.
On the original recipe it stated running thru a bubbler, does this not pull the flavour out of the wash?

JustChilln wrote:I know I'm very late on this discussion.
On the original recipe it stated running thru a bubbler, does this not pull the flavour out of the wash?

Na mate using a bubbler is usually one run straight from the ferment to 90%+ with full flavour :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Will this work on an alcoengine reflux?

No , your reflux still will strip all the flavor out leaving you with a neutral spirit

Thanks
I wasnt sure if a bubbler was a type of reflux still
Would I be better doing just a sprit run in the pot still or strip then spirit yo get most flavour through?
Does a taller column help?

JustChilln wrote:Will this work on an alcoengine reflux?

I was answering this question , an Alcoengine is a reflux still not a bubbler
A 3 or 4 plate bubbler would be perfect for this application

Thanks for that
I have a modular pot still similar to your FSD one
Can I add bubble plates to that?
If so, what price are they?
I may need to get some cash together to incorporate them
Cheers