Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Appreciate any replies guys
My question is to do with oaking
I'm reading most are advocating 10 ish grams per liter to age long term.But do those 10 grams apply to oak chips which potentially have a much larger surface area collectively when compared to staves / dominoes ? Or does it apply to both or doesn't matter
Regards G

I had lots of end grain closure in my chips mate and they produced lots of trains after about 8 weeks so I believe you need to be far more of what is happening flavour wise with chips

No does not apply to chips. :hand:

Hey gang, I've just found an infection in my 3rd gen. Its ready to run so its in the boiler, but my question is regarding a next gen. Would it be ok for me to use the same fermenter and grain and add backset, although I know I will have an infection still or should I just clean the tub, do a fresh batch and then run those gens with these 3?

Will be fine boiling will kill infection(lacto?). If you dont want it back star san the fermenter.

I’m running my first generation now. Is it meant to smell pretty funky? No visible signs of infection, but the wash tasted like piss and the smell off the still ain’t really pleasant. No smell of vinegar really. I got the mrs to smell the wash and she is saying it smells like her muesli with apple, and it does, fruity, sweet, oatsy?? Is that right? She’s a vinegar fan and says no vinegar smell at all.

Should be a good run

See what it tastes like after the run, that's what counts, ive ran some shocking smelling stuff, some of the tastiest drinks yet :teasing-tease:

It’s first gen so it’s getting neutralised. More concerned for what’s left in the fermenter for gen 2. I can’t smell any real corn to it. What is it meant to smell like?

I must add I have only added corn thus far, I do have malted barley and rye grain sitting here to add, but I am waiting until gen 5 then I’ll split the yeast bed and and do a single 6 fermenter gen 5 with the barley and rye, I don’t know why, but I figured why waste the barley and rye in generations where everyone says it doesn’t get good until 5-7.

So far it’s been an hour since I mixed up gen 2 and no yeast action yet, everything was at 27C when it went back into the fermenter, as was the corn and yeast cake from gen 1, thanks to my ferment cupboard.

Stand by to stand by, like everything in this hobby. Hurry up and wait!

I stripped my Gen 2 today and 2 tiny pieces of corn got in the boiler, the didn’t look burnt at all, but my distillate is cloudy and there are floaties in it, is it scorched, or something else? I don’t really care if the distillate is thrown away, but what about the backset? I’ve already started Gen 3. This is a straight corn UJSSM at this stage.

Looks like it puked or you stripped deep into tails

I don’t think it puked, was only a 20ish litre charge in a keg boiler, I did go all the way to 5%, maybe lower. Really deep into tails.

There ya go , it’s manky tails and all the oils an muck that goes with it .

Assuming rolled wheat n barley and flaked maize is ok ?

I will start with a 40L wash to get the backset for a bigger batch.
What does everybody do with the low wines from first gen, use it with the eventual spirit run or throw it ?

Just started another batch of this today mate, it makes a lovely drop.
For me I brew in a 60 litre fermenter so do a double batch cos it suits my 50 litre boiler.
I simply used first through to fifth batch low wines together for a spirit run. Last time I ran it through to about 13 batches and only stopped to try a different recipe.

How much did you get from the spirit run of gen 1-5 low wines ?

From memory it was around 40/45 litres low wines to get me approx 8/10 litres of keeping spirit at approx 75%

But that is all from memory mate

Going to buy the ingredients to give this a crack. The recipe is in litres, can i get a rough idea what this is in kgs. 1L = 1kg ?

It varies by the grain a fair bit and how crunched up it is.

I will consult my written on 5l jug this arvy for ya. From memory raw barely was the worst ratio at 3.5kg per 5l

Thx. I dont want to purchase 10kgs wanting 10L of grain and having to go back cos i didnt get enough.

Funnily enough, I dont have any loose corn, but here are the whole grians I have handy, weight per litre

Malted barley 800g
Malted Rye 720g
Feed wheat 845g
Feed Oats 645g

No doubt there will be variations from there, but these should get you ball park