Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

hi all
finally got a 2in boka up and running. did my first run today of a 25l tpw. i ended up with 14 x 200ml jars. havent tested the abv yet. hopefully it is 90%+. few questions though. to take foreshots should i leave the valve open until it reaches 78deg or do i equalize for a bit and then take them? i left it about 30 mins at 78.5deg before i collected them. also what percentage am i roughly looking at for heads/hearts/tails? just so i dont fuck it up too much what temp do i stop? i opened it up fully when it got to 79ish and ran till 98 but that jar smells like shit. overall it seemed pretty easy to run although watching drops for six hours is a long time. lucky im pretty stupid so it entertained me. am i on the right track or way off?
cheers

:laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: good to see I'm not the only stupid prick here :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: I watched a fucking cement mixer going round and round for 8 hours today,and the only thing to break the monoteny was me shoveling more shit into it :angry-banghead: :angry-banghead: and quite a few UJ's :handgestures-thumbupleft: :handgestures-thumbupleft:
Sorry mate,got side tracked,I've got no idea about what the question was :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:

That's right :handgestures-thumbupleft: Sorry,can't help,never owned a boka but I'm sure someone will supply the required info :D

I think you are on the right track mate take a sniff and sip of all those jars tomorrow and you will know where the hearts are

darbwah wrote: i opened it up fully when it got to 79ish and ran till 98 but that jar smells like shit.

remember that smell darbwah, thats tails ya sniffen, stinks huh !!
let the jars "breathe" for a day or so then have a go at cutting, water a sample ( a teaspoonful) of each jar down 50/50 with water , it tends to "bring it out" more than straight from the jar. oh, and rinse the spoon before taking the sample from each jar and don't mix 'em up
if you cant smell it in the middle jars thats good, work your way slowly toward the last jar, and when you smell/taste it in the jar , thats where you make the cut, same for the other end ( grab the first jar and smell that, thats the smell of heads) start in the middle again an work your way to the first jar , and when you smell/taste heads , that where you cut it, take your time and you'll be ok, it does get easier ( a bit ) with experience, and you get attuned to it, soon , you will have no trouble :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:

Would using a pot still first speed things up and double distill .

wynnum1 wrote:Would using a pot still first speed things up and double distill .

Yes it Would. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

are you running your 2' at full power ie 2200w? if so, thats too much. Have a look at the calc thread o this site and see what is best for your column

at 2200w your vapour speed is 32.05'/sec ..that is too much.

you need about 1300 w as optimal input into your boiler anything larger will create a vapour speed that is quicker than your column can handle and cause smearing and also make it very hard to get equilibrium.

No matter what the theory says, you can take a very good neutral on a 2" column with 2400 watts thrown at it. I've done it plenty of times, admitedly vm rather than lm, but the theory is the same.

I like to equalise for 30 mins before slowly taking off foreshots.

Smell/taste is the best test for your cuts. The method stubby suggested is a great start. I usually do all my cuts straight off the still based mostly on smell for the heads, and temp for the tails (as soon as it goes up by even .1 of a degree on my thermometer I know it is near the end of the run)

I didn't complete my TRIAC power controller until recently and I've made plenty of bok runs with 2200W on a 2". Quality still seemed impressive to me even if it may have smeared a bit 8-)

did my cuts today. ended up with 8 jars out of 14 which smelt ok. tails seemed easy to detect than heads. yeah i used 2200w flat out. ended up being about 93% so im happy. tastes alright mixed at 40% as neutral. got another batch on so hopefully it only gets better. cheers for all the info fellas. was gonna buy an airstill before i looked on here. glad i didnt

darbwah wrote: was gonna buy an airstill before i looked on here. glad i didnt

don't let Frank hear you talking like that !!! :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:

do i need to add epsom salts to my next run if i want to re run my cuts or just throw them in? they are 90 odd % at the moment, should i dilute them?

Epsom salts are used to help ferments by giving the yeast some magnesium sulphate.

If you are going to rerun the same recipe, ferment the same way you did last time, and when you are ready to distill, add your rejected cuts (feints) to the boiler.

darbwah wrote: they are 90 odd % at the moment, should i dilute them?

Yes you must dilute them to 40% or less before distilling.

I should have added 'I think' and 'maybe' to my earlier post but I was hammered drunk and being a bloody know-it-all. I need a breathalizer on my computer keyboard to stop posting drunk or 'pissting' as it's called at another place.

devotus wrote:I need a breathalizer on my computer keyboard to stop posting drunk or 'pissting' as it's called at another place.

Could well be a market for those things if you start knocking them up Devo ;-)