Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Ok. After a quick phone call this afternoon, I'll be doing this.
Single pass over 4 plates for my flavoured product. Keeping my feints to use as a neutral run over 5 plates with a packed section.
Feints will be stored in their own 50lt keg. Rum, Bourbon, & Whiskey feints will be kept separate from each other.
As I only have the pot still configuration at the moment, I have little choice but to do a couple of stripping runs to get my 40%, 40lt charge to do the product run.
Will I be losing a lot of flavour by doing this? I can't get any plates at the moment unfortunately.

Double distilling with a pot will give you plenty of flavour, mate :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Sounds like you've got it sussed! :happy-partydance:

Thanks Zak.... :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Moving on from the cleaning runs & I ran my first strip of Mac's Rum wash today.
I charged the boiler with 30lt of wash & away we went. As previously discussed, the still ran like a dream, no problems at all & I ended up collecting 7.2lt of low wines @41% temp corrected. ( not sure if that's an average yield for a 30lt wash or not ) The collection started @75% abv & I collected down to 20%. I threw away the first 180mls of fore shots & have the low wines in a 50lt keg awaiting my next stripping run. The second gen of Rum wash is in the fermenter & has just started fermenting. It took around 3hrs to kick off but it's on it's way. Followed the Rum recipe to the tee again & added back 5lt of dunder to the lees. The low wines are quite tasty & I'm looking forward to having enough volume for my first true spirit run. I can really see the benefit of the plates after my first stripping run & the single pass sure is attractive.

Well done mate you will have your rum shuffle on in no time :-D

rumdidlydum wrote:Well done mate you will have your rum shuffle on in no time :-D

Thanks rum.
Really enjoyed the run this morning but still a little nervous running it with gas.
I'll have my voltage controller sorted shortly & if the tax man is kind enough to me again this year, I'm going to order one of Mac's 100lt milk can boilers.

It is easy running elements. How come you are running gas? Dont you have 2x elements

tipsy wrote:

Crusty wrote:I do plan on running 4 plates for my coloured spirits but I'm still going to do a stripping run beforehand. I know it's not essential & you can get great results with a single pass with 4 plates which is probably why most people get a bubbler but that's the plan.

I wouldn't, you'd be stripping out flavour. For Vodka I'd say go for it :handgestures-thumbupleft:

For BWKO and UJSM I strip a few generations using the product condenser and other parts of the bubbler to make up a pot still.i then dilute the low wines back to 40% with another wash.
The reason I do this is I can get a larger heart cut of consistent spirit to age and I can quickly strip a wash after work and get another one going leaving the spirit runs for a weekend when I can give them the care and attention that they deserve.
This is probably a habit left over from pot stilling days but it works for me.
On one off seasonal fruit washes like Slovitz or Fejoia I just do a single pass through the bubbler.
I hope that this doesn't confuse people.

rumdidlydum wrote:It is easy running elements. How come you are running gas? Dont you have 2x elements

Yeah mate, got 2 of Mac's 2400w element kits.
I also purchased a 4" SGK & a 4" Ferrule to weld to the top of a 50lt keg boiler but trying to find a decent tradie in this town is as rare as rocking horse shit. I've pretty much given up on the 50lt boiler & a quote I got from the engineering bloke that tig welds was outrageous. For a bit more coin I can get the milk can boiler with everything I need already on the thing & it's 100lts.
On a side note, can anyone tell me if these SSVR's will enable me to see a zero value on my voltage panel meter & actually be at zero on the potentiometer, wound fully to off, & at full power, potentiometer is all the way on & max on the panel meter.
I've had a bad run with SSR's & Pots & want to get it right this time round. The pot is 2W but only 150K, bottom picture.

http://www.auberins.com/index.php?main_ ... cts_id=332

I did my 2nd gen strip of Mac's rum today with a similar result as my first stripping run.
Everything went well & I collected 7.7lt of low wines. I now understand what that wet cardboard taste is like after having a little taste of the end of the run @20% abv. All done & dusted & my 3rd gen rum is now fermenting & under way. A very enjoyable way to spend the morning & a day off work.
As I'm only stripping with the pot, can I use the fore shots ( 180mls ) for fire starting, metho, or in my alcohol burner for my little smoker even though it's only 40% abv.

Your fores should be more than 40% ABV :think:

Zak Griffin wrote:Your fores should be more than 40% ABV :think:

:violence-stickwhack: Yep! They are indeed.... :oops: Temp corrected & I've got 180mls of 69.3%.
All good?

That's more like it, from a strip run :handgestures-thumbupleft:

when double pot stilling does it matter if you take fores on the first run or second? or both?
I thought with a slower second run it could compress a little more with less smearing. Is this a personal preference thing?

curious for when i start pot stilling :D

I take a small fores cut (200ml) on a strip run, and another 300 or so ml on the spirit run.

You're only removing undesirables either way :handgestures-thumbupleft: