Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi all,

I'm a complete virgin to stills, and after years of home brewing (all grain), I'm thinking of joining the mystical ranks of moonshining!

Having joined the forum, I thought it would make deciding how to start easier, how wrong was I! I'm more confused now than ever!!

I'm thinking about building myself a boka to cut my teeth on, with the goal of making stickies for the Mrs, the occasional rum and scotch for me... I'm not too interested in using essence flavored, I'd rather brew from scratch, but will probably do it for the first few to get my head around using a still!!

Any advice would be great - I the mean time I'll keep reading the boards until I think I know my ear from arsehole and take the plunge!!

Cheers
Rolli

Welcome bud and you've got it right. Read with a bit more reading on top.
Check out the beginners sectio where most of your questions should get answered and you'll be away in no time.

Welcome to the forum, Rolli
As a home-brewer you're already a mile a head to most starters as you'll have great hygiene practices and all-grain experiences that'll set you up for making brown spirits!
I'm starting to think I need to learn that as I'm not very successful doing AG :angry-banghead:

:text-+1: with Warra

If you want brown spirits think about perhaps a potstill instead, if you want neutral/vodka and brown spirits, seriously consider a bubbler, which is best of both worlds, they are not cheap but you will save in the long run. Unless of course you want to learn to use a reflux and pot still during your adventures.

If you like a drink then you will love stillin, buy once buy right (money permitting of course)

^ as an equal opportunity alcoholic, I don't mind a drink or 10...

:)

After reading up, I've kind of thought a bubbler is the still that best suits what I want to get out of distilling, but don't seam like the easiest still to learn on!

Welcome mate :handgestures-thumbupleft:
Enjoy the forum :D

A pot still is the easiest still to learn on, but if you're already an AG brewer you'll end up with a bubbler anyway, soupy may as well work towards it from day one.

Do you want to build a still, or are you looking at one of Five Star's rigs?

Welcome :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Nothing like starting at the top :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Rolli wrote:^ as an equal opportunity alcoholic, I don't mind a drink or 10...

:)

After reading up, I've kind of thought a bubbler is the still that best suits what I want to get out of distilling, but don't seam like the easiest still to learn on!

They aren't that hard to operate. I have done 4 runs on mine and it is getting better each time. My last run, last week was a neutral and I pulled 93% ABV over the whole run, that's not bad for my second neutral run, with alittle more fine tuning I should be able to pull 95% ABV.

It is a bit of a learning curve but it is also a hell of a lot of fun :) :handgestures-thumbupleft: .

Oh, and welcome to the forum, enjoy the ride.

Zak Griffin wrote:A pot still is the easiest still to learn on, but if you're already an AG brewer you'll end up with a bubbler anyway, soupy may as well work towards it from day one.

Do you want to build a still, or are you looking at one of Five Star's rigs?

Welcome :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I was thinking of building a boka, purely from a financial point of view - but when it comes to a bubble still, I don't think my fabrication skills are anywhere near good enough to make one! (Having seen 5stars pot still that reads like it can be upgraded to a bubbler later, it certainly has appeal to it. But a $1k spend at the moment is completely out of the question!)

Ok so remove bubbler from equation for now. Could always do a packed section with a reflux condenser going into a 90 degree bend into product condenser then when you want to do rum or whiskey etc remove the packing and run it in pot still mode?

Cheers bluc!

My suggestion would be if you reckon you have the skill/tools/resources to build a boka then do that and while your at it knock together a simple pot still.

This will then enable you to do stripping runs for nuetrel to run through the boka to keep the missus happy and also have the ability to make decent whisky and rum.

Building a nuetrel still to run detuned to try and make brown spirits is a shit idea :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Sam. wrote:
Building a nuetrel still to run detuned to try and make brown spirits is a shit idea :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Curious why is that? How about a modular pc and 180 degree bend a packed section and rc. Than a sperate empty pipe for pot stillin? I dont get why removing packing and turning off rc is a shit idea?

bluc wrote:

Sam. wrote:
Building a nuetrel still to run detuned to try and make brown spirits is a shit idea :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Curious why is that? How about a modular pc and 180 degree bend a packed section and rc. Than a sperate empty pipe for pot stillin? I dont get why removing packing and turning off rc is a shit idea?

So your talking about building a CM reflux still?

That in itself is not the best idea as they are the most difficult to run and get consistent results. (Different for a bubbler as it has plates).

Also are you saying the RC will be like that in a standard bubbler? This now increases the complexity of the build. Building a plate or cup boka is much easier.

What you suggest would work fine for a pot still but it is still not a very good reflux still :-B

Ok cool all good points :handgestures-thumbupleft: Which is why you are a mod and I am a newbie.Seperate Boka and pot sounds like the way to go :handgestures-thumbupleft:

The CM reflux design used to be built a fair bit but VM and LM really had it over them so no one really builds them anymore, you don't really even see VM stills being built now either, the boka has really dominated the relux side.

Can be confusing because a bubbler is a CM but that is a whole different kettle of fish.

Rolli if this is confusing the shit out of you have a read of this it may help clear things up :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Sam. wrote:
Rolli if this is confusing the shit out of you have a read of this it may help clear things up :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Your spot on, it did confuse the shit out of me!! Thanks, I'll have a read now...

Rolli... just a quick one... consider 3''.... bogs on the 2'', a bit more loot but really worth it.
I just upgraded recently and very glad i went that way.(cup boka... way easy to build)
welcome...

I would say a bubbler is a power management still rather than a cooling management.
Over power the RC instead of decreasing its cooling capability.

Then you don't need to focus on trying to build an RC with more than 7 inner tubes.