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Distilling general

Anonymous Wed 14 Oct 2015 10:20:58 No.888038 View Reply Report Delete

I've been making wine for about 8 years, recently (3months) bought a still and have been hooked on distilling ever since. I'm getting better/more complex flavors than I ever did out of wine.

I need some new inspiration for mash/wash recipes. Please toss in your suggestions and would love to talk to other distillers.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 14 Oct 2015 10:28:31 No.888043 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>888047

Wow jealous - my dream hobby.

From what little I've read it's easy to avoid the dreaded methanol poisoning by throwing out the first and last cups - is this about right?

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 14 Oct 2015 10:39:00 No.888047 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>888052 >>890255

>>888043
Yes.
Another option: mix it all together before drinking. There won't be more methanol than there were in your mash. First option is still better.
What you should never do: drink the first cup.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 14 Oct 2015 10:42:50 No.888049 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>888050

Great, now that that's out of the way -

How much does it cost to get started? And is the leftover mash etc hood for anything after the process?

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 14 Oct 2015 10:45:39 No.888050 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>888049
I bought my alembic from copper brothers in Portugal for $229 US. All my fermenters and such cost a total of roughly $85 US at my local brew store (price includes tax and fruit for first gaoolon run).

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 14 Oct 2015 10:47:19 No.888052 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>888059 >>888302

>>888047
Never keep the head unless you're doing a second distillation. Methanol evaporates at a lower temp than ethanol does. I toss about the first fluid ounce per gallon when I start my second distillation.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 14 Oct 2015 11:14:00 No.888059 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>888052
I was just trying to illustrate the actual hazard. I agree that it is better to get rid of methanol.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 14 Oct 2015 19:49:22 No.888295 Report Delete

Quoted By:

Bump

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 14 Oct 2015 20:29:38 No.888302 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>888052
Old Irish poteen legend is that if you don't give the first few drops to the fairies in thanks, they'll curse you and send you blind.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 15 Oct 2015 10:32:14 No.888514 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>888531

Thinking about putting a mashbill together for an apple pie moonshine.

List so far as follows

2 pounds cracked corn
1 pound apples
Half pound apricots
Quarter pound cherries

2.5 pounds brown sugar
1.5 pounds cane sugar

Distillers yeast

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 15 Oct 2015 11:50:10 No.888531 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>888728

>>888514
Just realized I never added the volume of water as 1.5 gallons.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 15 Oct 2015 20:11:11 No.888724 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>888731 >>889189

Illegal.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 15 Oct 2015 20:20:32 No.888728 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>888732

>>888531
And then what?

Not only that, but what heat source do you use to distill?

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 15 Oct 2015 20:24:27 No.888731 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>888724
Maybe it's illegal in your country but not in mine.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 15 Oct 2015 20:25:30 No.888732 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>888728
Let ferment until its ready to distill?
I have a small still that fits on my gas stove in my kitchen.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 16 Oct 2015 18:07:39 No.889170 Report Delete

Quoted By:

I'd like to do a rum with honey instead of cane sugar and maybe throw in a few sugar canes

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 16 Oct 2015 18:48:50 No.889184 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>889256

>>888038
Since it's illegal where I am I'm gonna live vicariously for a while here.

You thought about doing herbal infusions/diffusions?

Anonymous

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO tumblr_inline_nhq3xeCmYn1ruaykv.jpg, 6KiB, 261x320

Anonymous Fri 16 Oct 2015 18:55:10 No.889189 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>888724
Fuck off.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 16 Oct 2015 21:09:44 No.889256 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>889184
Wouldn't even know how to start, honestly haha

I've gotten brandies down pretty well. Done a couple grain/vodkas. Next big step for me is going to be rums/malt whiskeys.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 16 Oct 2015 23:45:44 No.889305 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>889879

Simple vodka recipe? I have potatoes and water.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 18 Oct 2015 10:57:14 No.889879 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>889305
Vodka can be done a lot of different ways. Potato is simply one of them. General rule for mash is usually 3 pounds of fruit per gallon of water and 2.5 pounds sugar. That's as simple as it gets.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 18 Oct 2015 13:00:11 No.889944 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>889966

>>888038
My favorite by far as been a mango brandy my buddy told me about.

Two large containers of Jumex mango juice.
Two 29 ounce canned pears in heavy syrup
Two 29 ounce canned peaches in heavy syrup
32ounce honey.

Puree fruits in blender in their syrups until smooth. Mix everything together reserving about 2oz of honey for later.

Add sugar to reach a brix appropriate for your yeast. Ferment with lalvin 1138, or red star premiere cuvee. (I prefer the cuvee for this fermentation)

Distill with a pot still.

its amazing as is. But it makes a FANTASTIC dessert drink if you mix it 2:1 with a simple syrup.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 18 Oct 2015 13:29:53 No.889966 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>891646

>>889944
How much water for this, how big of a fermenter?

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 18 Oct 2015 14:21:56 No.889988 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>889992 >>890014

Distilling.....

wine?

Sure, whatever.

But you might as well just boil down the grapes into a concentrate and ferment that. It'll take the yeast awhile though because it's a lot of work at first but after it slows down you can kick start the yeast again by stirring in a spoonful of sugar syrup or something. It'll get quite high if you do it right.

You'd be surprised how strong a drink yeast can make all by itself.

As for distilling, it's unnecessary and a waste of fruit... if you still want a stronger drink, just freeze it and pour off what doesn't freeze. It's how traditional applejack is made.

No need to buy any science equipment.

I'm glad you live in a place where you're allowed. Here in America we live under a mafia type system where people try to control the market for themselves, then those same people get screwed over by other bullshit.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 18 Oct 2015 14:38:22 No.889992 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>890249

>>889988
>implying distilling wine is strange
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandy
Do you even know what you're drinking? Fuck man. It's been popular for HUNDREDS of years.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 18 Oct 2015 15:43:17 No.890014 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>890249

>>889988
I don't think you understand how distillation works...

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 19 Oct 2015 03:29:16 No.890249 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>890349

>>889992

Hmm I guess you're right. My bad.

It still seems like a waste of fruit though. Brandy tastes nothing like wine.

>>890014

I didn't say anything about distilling except that it might be better to use freeze concentration instead. If you want to distill you need to buy or make a retort of some kind right? With freeze concentration you don't need to do that.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 19 Oct 2015 04:07:05 No.890255 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>890322

>>888047

You don't even need to make a still to get rid of the foreshots and heads, right?

You just bring your mix up to heat in any cooking pot until it's within a degree of the hearts boiling point for a few minutes then let it cool. That would drive off unwanted chemicals while keeping the rest intact, right? Then you could just distill normally without the heart being tainted by residual foreshot/head in the still.

Am I right? I heard leaving your distillate age a few days with a cloth covering will let even more unwanted chemicals evaporate.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 19 Oct 2015 11:04:51 No.890322 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>890381

>>890255
That's sounds like ten times more work and an extra day of waiting for it to heat up/cool down.

Why would you do that?

Also, as AP mentioned, the fairies still need their share

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 19 Oct 2015 12:10:52 No.890349 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>890383

>>890249
No one said brandy is supposed to taste like wine. The whole point of Distilling is to make a liquor that suits you, wine is fun and all but we're on this thread to discuss general distillation and share recipes. It seems you've missed that point and are seemingly trying to impose your methods as somehow better than a tried, true and proven method. I just don't seem to understand your purpose for joining this thread.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 19 Oct 2015 13:17:00 No.890381 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>890322

Ehh... I worded my thoughts stupidly and didn't say what I meant to convey.

Like, bring the mash to distillation temp and leave it alone for like 10 minutes or whatever and then cover it with your retort.

Technically it would be the same amount of work, I guess. Even if it's not, it'll keep the heads and hearts from passing through the residues left by the foreshots.

Doesn't matter much anyways, the undesirable chemicals are so small in quantity compared to the alcohol.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 19 Oct 2015 13:18:10 No.890383 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>890349

Yea the entire point of alcohol is getting drunk but some connoisseurs like fruity flavors for their palate to analyze.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 19 Oct 2015 15:19:44 No.890459 Report Delete

Quoted By:

Spiced Rum recipe I'm trying to put together

Molasses
Sugar canes
Honey
Vanilla beans
Ginger
Cloves

Looking for some input on this one. Looking to do a 2.5 gallon run just to see how it comes out and to not waste too many ingredients. What portions do you guys think I should do for each? I'm thinking
5 pounds honey
6 pounds molasses
3 pounds sugar cane
4 vanilla beans
3 ounces ginger
2 ounces cloves

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 20 Oct 2015 16:47:38 No.890980 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>890995

>>888038
I read you need to run 2 distillations, one for the low wines (around 20% alcohol) and the other for the actual ethanol. Do you run both on the same still or can you go straight to ethanol production without going through the low wines.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 20 Oct 2015 17:13:20 No.890995 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>890999

>>890980
With my pot still I can go from 20% abv to 70% in a single run.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 20 Oct 2015 17:19:17 No.890999 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>891071

>>890995
So your wash is already at 20% and you only run one distillation or do you run a primary distillation to achieve 20%abv?

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 20 Oct 2015 19:50:04 No.891071 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>891277

>>890999
My wash typically starts out anywhere from 18-23% using distillers yeast

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 21 Oct 2015 10:44:00 No.891277 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>891292

>>891071
Pretty nice tbh, I guess you don't really need to double distill your spirits by having a high abv wash with no grains/thrub in it. Kinda wasteful to achieve that gravity with only malted barley (I want to make whisky), though it can be done with extract.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 21 Oct 2015 11:57:32 No.891292 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>891277
Post your recipe and methods, maybe we can help.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Oct 2015 04:23:07 No.891646 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>889966
No water. You just pour the shit together in your pot then measure the brix. The syrups, fruit, and juice all have a lower brix than a cuvee or champagne yeast will ferment. So add sugar to get to the right brix. You shouldn't need much with the honey in there.

Ferment, distill, enjoy.

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