So you bought a home brew shop still......

[Professor Green]

So you bought a Home Brew Shop Still…

First off, don’t despair. There’s been plenty of good booze made with an HBS still, be that T500 or otherwise.

Before you go any further:
Throw out the manufacturer’s instructions on how to distill and have a couple of reads of the following posts:
• Running a T500, the Proper Way. Although T500 based, the principals should be the same for most other HBS devices.
• Kiwistiller's Novice Guide to Cuts and Fractions
• A Basic Guide To Stripping Runs

On Turbo Yeast:
If you bought the still with the whole turbo yeast schmeer, I’m afraid you’ve been had. All turbo yeasts come pre-prepared with added chemicals to boost the alcohol yield and the production speed. On the surface, this sounds great however the increase in speed and yield comes at a price which, unfortunately, is quality. Pushing any yeast to work harder than it really should will cause off flavours in your final product, especially if your still cannot reach azeotrope. Whilst it is true that you can run the product though a carbon filter, there are other, cheaper, methods to produce good neutral spirits that won’t require a trip to the HBS and it’s best not to generate these off flavours to start with. To further complicate this, the the turbo yeast process requires you to mix in chemical clearing agents (or finings as they are sometimes known) to force any solid particles suspended in the beer to the bottom of the fermentation vessel before the beer can be distilled. We recommend avoiding the whole turbo yeast malarkey and running any of the following: TPW, WBAB or Teddy’s FFV, as they are proven performers that produce excellent results without the need for added clearing agents due to their self clearing nature.