StillSmart

A word of advice: it will undergo a chemical reaction (from the humidity in the air?) and tend to become a solid mass. If you are using it the same day, this does not matter. I make up a lot and store it. I keep it in a large bowl and stir it with a spoon for a couple of days. This helps to keep it a powder. Then I put it in a stout plastic bag for storage. It will still tend to harden and clump, but you should be able to loosen it easily.

Chuck

Chuck, I mixed up the buffer as per your instrs and added to new 50lt TPW - WOW! that stuff foams up a lot but it did the job as even after the addition of the tomato paste the pH was 5 - so far so good plus the only nutrients in this one is the tomato paste so fingers crossed

AM

Oh. Yes. The foam. I did forget to mention that, didn't I? I knew there was something...

blagged a bargain altho it wasnt intentionaly see here >> viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1872&p=12985#p12985

Not today, But as I had Friday off, was skint from being out the previous 3 weekends, and had a stupid amount of low wines in storage, I did 3 days on the trot distilling.

Friday and Saturday, each day I tipped a 19L corney of 50% neutral strip (+15L water) into the still for a spirit run.

When doing the strips I must have poured more heads into one container and more tails end stripps into the other. So although the ABV was roughly the same, I had quite a bit more heads on friday but hardly any tails, and on the saturday, half the amount of heads, but hit tails quicker than I'd like.

Over the 2 days, I collected 10L of 95.6% good hearts, + a couple of litres either side of the cut that will be used for macerations (Heads side has a slight sweetness that I don't like in my gin, and the tails sight has a very slight flavour, both are still good and I use both these portions for fruit macerations, and other trials)

Yesterday, I tipped my 30L keg (about 45%)of watered down heads collected over the last year. From this I got about 2.5L of heads (wont be recycled, will be used as solvent or as disinfectant), and 9L of good hearts, and left minimal tails in the boiler.

I now don't want to see the column for a while, bored senseless.

watching that much grass growing tends to numb to mind senseless

I currently have 180l of TPW and 60l of all grain to be stripped and I'm hoping to get a start today if I don't get any interruptions Wish I was at the end of this too

AM

Began the fermentation for an order of 360 bottles of final product. Will keep me off the streets for a while. Its hotter than hell and dripping with sweat at 8.00am.

Yesterday added a length of sugar cane to some bottles of cachaca to get some feedback. Looks good but I dont think it will work. Too many bits will come off the peeled cane and float around. Bugger.

Nothing like summer in the tropics to work up a sweat!

Today I watched 5 litres of this drip through various filters three times, really exiting!



Exciting or not, it's tasty stuff.

YHB,

Nice High Fibre Diet. lol.

Where did you get your labelling software and labels from.

I ran a 35l lowwines TPW spirit run through my potstill.
I collected 12l (post fores); then put the first 2l into the Airstill and collected 1l (post heads);
then I put the last collected litre (not-too-sure = tails probably) through a slow, activated carbon filtration...
All up, 11l of double distilled 'neutral' @, or around, 70%....airing, for future potential use.

Also, I put down 2 x 22l washes of 'Fine Scotch Whisky' ...this time using Marris Otter and Golden Promise cracked barley and Pilsen LME....(so much nicer smelling when starting a grain wash compared to a sugar wash IMHO ). My whisky yeast was prestarted and pitched at 32degC as the nights are cooling here now...its fermenting already....all good.

Anyway, I reckon its time for a drink!!.... so cheers.

(@YHB, what's bran/weetbix recipe did you use?...and the labels look good too IMHO)

3 X 25lt TPW started yesterday. One with Allinsons Bread Yeast, one with Vinoferm Champ Yeast and one with a French Bread Yeast I got in my local health food store.

I made yeast starters for all and got the yeast really active before pitching. Even though they were all pitched within a few minutes of each other there was a substantial time delay between them in terms of bubbling the airlocks. However, all three are chugging away nicely and I've had to top up the airlocks twice as they keep blowing the water out

Stripper is on the go today as well so busy, busy, busy

AM

Aiden, are you planning on doing a flavour comparison? I'm keen to hear what you find.

No, I am running these to see which yeast performs best in terms of finishing & clearing times and yield.

I keep hopping from one yeast type to another and different wash recipes with varying results so I decided to settle on TPW for sugar washes and just trying to find the best yeast to run with then I'll stick to that recipe.

AM

Just finished racking off my sweet feed wash and restarted it again for a 5th generation, alan