making booze

[Freddie AppsHero]

Damn that's pretty. Beats the crap out of mine. That's reflux right? Mine's pot, although I should get/build a reflux since I mostly make neutral spirit.

[ADHD]

It's a design that works as either a pot or reflux depending on how I set it up. I can make nice vodka with it if I double run my wash, single run with appropriate cuts yeilds a great bourbon/whiskey or rum. My drink of choice is bourbon, and this still is a true champ at turning a 60Litre fermented wash into a 10L batch of whitedog in about 4 hours.

[Mr. Viking]

I wish I had a still like that, built a model of a reflux still out of beer cans, tested it on just water and it worked, was a bit slow though

[Freddie AppsHero]

How slow we talkin'? It usually takes me at least an hour to do one 3L batch.

[beerkegbilly]

I make homemade black berry brandy I got pot still.

[frankennietzsche]

I can produce at around 10L of bourbon ....

I ask again: how do you do this? Where do you get all the essentials? Never used, charred oak barrels and the "minerally" water? Even leaving alone the location thing, which isn't a legal requirement, technically, but still (no pun intended.)

[Mr. Viking]

How slow we talkin'? It usually takes me at least an hour to do one 3L batch.

It took about an hour to get any liquid out of the top end and it leaked steam constantly, it really was just a model to see if it would work when scaled up. I've pretty much given up on building a still, saving up to buy a pot still off ebay though. When I looked at the cost of copper tubing, and the tools to put the whole thing together, I thought, I'm not going to beat this

[ADHD]

I can produce at around 10L of bourbon ....

I ask again: how do you do this? Where do you get all the essentials? Never used, charred oak barrels and the "minerally" water? Even leaving alone the location thing, which isn't a legal requirement, technically, but still (no pun intended.)

I have this unit in a dedicated brew room in my basement and I produce my own personal drinking stock, NONE for sale. I do give friends and family a bottle or three whenever they come over, but I never sell.

That being said, I ferment in 50-60L batches and the repurposed beer keg that the still head sits on holds 50L. A single run in this unit will produce 8-10L of 60-65% of drinkable spirits, with at least that much or more in feints to be tossed in the next run. To do a distillation run from start to finish, it takes me between 3.5-4 hours from turning on the boiler to shutdown.

I take these new spirits, and put them in a 7 gallon charred oak barrel for around 6 months or more, and the resulting drink is superior to my favorite commercial bourbon (Makers). I can regularily drink a fifth of it @ 65% in an evening over ice with water @ a 3:1 ratio water:booze, and have no real hangover (dehydrated and tired, but no headache or nausea)

I used to use a smaller unit that ran at less than half that speed, but I much prefer this unit.

Here's a shot of some presents for the kinfolk @ christmas this year, the whiskey is a little light cause I watered it down for them (they aren't used to high proof) and the clear is vodka, and one of my ageing barrels is in the background...

[Jollyroger1210]

Isn't bourbon technically only the first run through a barrel? And anything after that is whiskey? I think that's what he was getting at.

[ADHD]

Isn't bourbon technically only the first run through a barrel? And anything after that is whiskey? I think that's what he was getting at.

When you make your own, you make the rules.

Technically, my stuff is corn-barley-sugar in a recharred barrel that was used once by tuthilltown spirits and then sold as a "used" barrel. I opened it up and recharred it to enhance the character of the end product. I constantly rotate product through it (fill it up here and there, draw off a bottle at a time) and over all, it's top notch stuff. You can call it what you want, anyone who's had it can attest that mine is better than anything that's commercially available.

[frankennietzsche]

When you make your own, you make the rules.

That is not how things work.

Technically, my stuff is corn-barley-sugar in a recharred barrel

Which means that it isn't Bourbon.

If I took cane sugar and made liquor with it in South Carolina with German mineral water, I couldn't call it "Irish Whiskey" and make it so.

[Judge]

When you make your own, you make the rules.

That is not how things work.

Technically, my stuff is corn-barley-sugar in a recharred barrel

Which means that it isn't Bourbon.

If I took cane sugar and made liquor with it in South Carolina with German mineral water, I couldn't call it "Irish Whiskey" and make it so.

But if you told a few Irish guys that if they wanted to drink it for free they'd have to swear it was Irish Whiskey....it'd become Irish Whiskey by approved nomination.

However, this fine distilling gentleman is not making bourbon even if he thinks he is. I may be a lousy drunk but you have to draw the line somewhere. Like over there. Next to that spitoon.

[Patchez]

At the Woodford Reserve tour they stated that the definition of bourbon was barrel charred once and no steps between final distillation and barrel. No charcoal filter, as with TJD, or any other nonsense. Woodford uses three pot stills, the first is the beer still going to 30 to 60proof, the second is the high wine still going 80 to 120proof and the last is the high spirit still foing from 140 to 180proof. After the third distillation it goes into a new, freshly charred barrel and into the aging house. The blending comes after all the barrels are dumped from a particular batch. They blend to a set proof and taste profile.

Again, to be bourbon, straight from the still to the barrel, charred and used only once. anything else is whiskey or whisky.

[Patchez]

OK I was going on memory with my earliers statement.

Straight from the Kentucky Bourbon Distillers page the definition of bourbon:



One of the first things to keep in mind,
and it is said often here in Kentucky, is
that all Bourbons are Whiskey, but not
all Whiskies are Bourbon. To be called
Bourbon, the following criteria must
be met:

(1) The primary ingredient must be
corn (at least 51%);
(2) Must be distilled at no greater than
160 Proof;
(3) Only new, charred, white oak barrels should be used for aging;
(4) Be aged at least two years to be
called a straight bourbon whiskey;
(5) The spirit must go into the barrel
at no more than 125 Proof;
(6) Only water can be added to adjust
the Bourbon to the appropriate
bottling strength...nothing else.

So that means ADHD is indeed makinf Whiskey, but not bourbon.

[PFrank]

anybody else tried making booze, I'm making wine out of marmalade and building a still right now, i'm tired of paying shops prices

Nada, though I have a bud who makes beer and mead (of varying degrees of decency). I'm a test subject. ;)