One of the advantages of emptying all the demijohns that were full of low wines meant I had empty demijohns to fill with low wines..
Did a stripping run on a 5th gen sour mash I started fermenting pre #1 lockdown... Opened the fermenter and it just smelled incredible, had a cheeky taste about half ...

Noticed I was accumulating a lot of demijohns of low wines so today was a spirit run. boiler on at 0930 and still running @ 1900.
25 jars @ about 94/95 so far.
Managed to crack my test jar.. Was taking a temp reading to correct the reading and stupidly dropped the very pointy temp sensor in.. 94 on ...

gaza the instructor wrote: Thu May 21, 2020 9:43 am It is just fascinating watching the product dance, better than T.V.
My bro said that looks like a mad laboratory experiment, so we have
called her, Frankenstill.

Can't wait to see some photos !! Congrats on your new setup

Easydrinker wrote: Fri May 22, 2020 1:56 am A quick update for those that may care.
Nest finished, being lined with soft stuff today.
The least aesthetic swallows nest of all time, maybe.
Birdies happy, I'm happy.

Robert.

Ace

Fun day today - I had to do an online training course - basically watch a video presentation, write stuff down, watch more stuff, take test, watch more stuff etc etc.

Figured I could do it on my laptop as I didn't need the multiple screens etc I need for client support. And if I can use my laptop ...

After looking up how to use my water distiller to make alcohol several weeks ago, and thanks greatly to this forum and it's members. Today I am currently at the stage of quaffing my first and very acceptable microwaved, JD chip aged, faux bourbon and coke. :D


Much aceness !!!

It's a downward ...

I figure the great stilling gods were smiling on me

Finished off - did the measurements (with a calibrated bucket... lol) and I must have had 55 or 56 litres of wash - the fill port on the boiler is just over the 45 litre mark and 50 litres is just under the neck of the boiler. I'm not going to run 50 litres but at least I know now just to aim for ...

It went ok to be honest, collected 12 litres, powered off, popped a fill port off, syphoned the rest in, added some more conditioner, port back on, power back on and we are running again. Head temp is down three degrees so I guess I've got one demijohn left to collect.
There is a reasonable amount ...

Stripping 50 litres of neutral and realising two things..
My 50 litre boiler is slightly less than 50 litres.
My 50 litre mark on the inside of my 60 litre fermenters is slightly more than 50 litres..
Oh well, I've filled to the bottom of the fill port and when I've stripped 2 demijohns worth I'll ...

Interesting weekend. Work has been real challenging lately so took a day off and made it a four day weekend. Thur/fri were stripping runs on UJSSM and a molasses wash. Disappointed with the UJSSM - very little smell in the low wines - just smells like neutral. No corn at all in it. put 15l of bakset ...

Oooh - fellow coffee addicts...

I used to have a pump machine (and strictly speaking I still do) but I swapped over to a lever machine about 18 months ago.
Coffee_corner.jpg
Work's coffee machine started to leak water last year and said if anyone wants to fix it they can have it - a week and one ...

gaza the instructor wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 8:55 pm You don't have to keep your still in the box it came in. I just sit mine on the

My still room is my garage - when I'm getting the push bike out the garage door is open to the street so everything gets put away...

legged it to my local health food store today (which doubles quite nicely as a homebrew shop) as I had quite unexpectedly run out of CO2 for my kegs.

The shop was shut but there was an old guy outside that said the owner would be back in a min. whilst respecting social distancing he was telling me ...

oh why oh why oh why do I think I'm going to be this thread a lot...

Oh, I know - 'cos I'm an idiot...

So, new boiler, cleaned thoroughly, sacrificial run, cleaned again and put away...

Next day I thought "I know - I'll do a stripping run"...

Got the boiler back out of it's box, set it up for ...

I can work from home which is good and bad... good as I have a job and get paid, bad in as I have to do my job to get paid...

But it meant I was at home when my new boiler arrived today - a 50 litre s/s milk can.

and a four day weekend means a cleaning run, sacrificial run, stripping run and ...

My take on this and no one is wrong with their approach (unless you have already gone blind from drinking your spirits and then you were way wrong..)

In a normal wash (sugar / corn / molasses / grain etc) you know it's not generally possible to get methanol - the required "ingredients" (?) aren't ...

I wait to be corrected but I thought the pectin in apples was more likely to increase the amount of methanol fermented.

While you'd need to drink a lot of cider to ingest enough to have to worry about it to me distilling it isn't worth the risk given how cheap it is to make.

And to bring Happy Sad to a conclusion ...

Two of my kegs are full so my brew room is once more a happy place !

Kegged the ginger ale a week last sunday and tonight I kegged the cider. Split 5 litres of cider into a bag in a box which is in the fridge. The cider is about 13/14 % and not quite as ...

Mash wrote: Thu Apr 02, 2020 4:50 pm I bought a pack of coriander seeds today, while planting them I thought "these look very similar to the ones in 1kg bag of coriander seed I use in the gin"

bugger bugger bugger bugger bugger

yep - that's a facepalm....

Yeah, total facepalm moment when it started to leak, I've got a few barrels and this for a few years was my "go to" barrel

It spend yesterday in the bath being filled / refilled and it's now holding water again. Going to leave it for a week and see if it will behave itself next weekend !

Did a search and didn't find a topic with this title so thought I'd start..

THis morning I got a nice little wooden barrel off shelf - a little 5 litre barrel that I've not used for a while. Thought I'd throw a bourbon into it for a couple of months. Put the funnel in the top, poured about a litre ...

I've thought about a safety razor a few times - but I'm on my 35 year old gillette contour plus. I bought 40 packs of five razors about 10 years ago and I go through a pack of 5 razors about every 8 months (daily shaving) so I reckon these are going to last me till the undertaker is shaving me ...

She'll have to soak stuff off the surface - she's been warned...

Genuinely she is really chuffed with it I've earned some brownie points !!!

You never clean the hob, you always spill stuff on it and I spend blah blah blah cleaning it up...

Sound familiar ?

We have a stainless steel gas hob, it was scuffed and marked when we moved in here and a few years later with repeated scrubbing with pan scourers .. well you get the picture.

Mrs ...