Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Sounds like you didnt have enough reflux, towards the end you were almost running in pot mode, you should be able to get 92-94%. Next time instead of turning water down to get the output, turn the power up to push through the reflux. U will get the output rate you want but at a higher abv%. Fractions should compress too.

I ran the last 30 litres of wash as you suggested, switching from full reflux to a thin stream of product by increasing power worked quite well, by the time two plates had fogged up the glasses i was on full power and collecting tails. It is easier to adjust the power level than a small adjustments to a needle valve.

I made the domino's from a French oak barrel I was gifted from a local vineyard that had been used for Pino Noir. I placed the domino size pieces of oak on tin foil and put in the oven at 210c for three hours. These were then toasted on one side with my butane burner.

I have two 5 litre glass vessels with the product at 65% abv, and about 24 oak domino's in each.

After a week the caramel colour is slowly spreading down the vessel. I have just tasted both vessels and am loving the flavour's so far, I will keep tasting each week until the domino's are no longer needed.

One of the 5 litre vessels has a slight bitter after taste, I guess i was greedy with the cut's. Should I stop ageing this and re-run via a pot still to remove the slight bitter after taste or would leaving it ageing change the after taste to something more pleasant like the other 5 litre vessel ?

Gatorade wrote:I ran the last 30 litres of wash as you suggested, switching from full reflux to a thin stream of product by increasing power worked quite well, by the time two plates had fogged up the glasses i was on full power and collecting tails. It is easier to adjust the power level than a small adjustments to a needle valve.

I made the domino's from a French oak barrel I was gifted from a local vineyard that had been used for Pino Noir. I placed the domino size pieces of oak on tin foil and put in the oven at 210c for three hours. These were then toasted on one side with my butane burner.

I have two 5 litre glass vessels with the product at 65% abv, and about 24 oak domino's in each.

After a week the caramel colour is slowly spreading down the vessel. I have just tasted both vessels and am loving the flavour's so far, I will keep tasting each week until the domino's are no longer needed.

One of the 5 litre vessels has a slight bitter after taste, I guess i was greedy with the cut's. Should I stop ageing this and re-run via a pot still to remove the slight bitter after taste or would leaving it ageing change the after taste to something more pleasant like the other 5 litre vessel ?

You could leave it oak for a while and see what that does with the aftertaste. If it doesnt improve you could chuck it in with your next run (remembering to dilute to 40%).

Did u weight the dominos ? How much grams per litre are you using ? With them being small you will get similar effect as chips so they will work quickly so keep an eye on them.

My dominos are approx 4" × 1" x 0.5" and i like to use 7g/L for 6month oak (2 per 5L jar).

Hi Gang,

Question for you all.

If I was to put 15L of water into my PD boiler (no exposed elements) and heat the water up to 65ish degrees then dump my malt in to try and extract and convert out of the grains what I can would that be a bad thing to do?

my thoughts were I can dump the content of my PD boiler (grains and all) straight into my fermenter after adding the sugar. Just wondering if the time to do so would be worth any extra sugar/flavour I might get out of it.

Thanks in advance.

Yep absolutely :handgestures-thumbupleft:
Take gravity reading before adding sugar :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Is french or american oak better on this ?

The general rule of thumb is the French is for whiskey and American for bourbon but if we listened to the rules we would not be doing this :)
I found the French colours up super fast where the American takes longer. So it may depend how patient you are :)

Yeah i am using french on rum and this at the moment. Smells a little sweet similar to the rum, thinking about swapping it out for USA oak, see if it "un sweetens" it a bit.

Bigrig it gets even more complicated as the tempt the oak is toasted at changes the flavours it imparts as well as the abv you oak it at. I Oakes same NGW at 50% and all I could taste was caramel, it was amazing. I will be mixing this with something else to bring the flavour back a little

Wellsy wrote:The general rule of thumb is the French is for whiskey and American for bourbon but if we listened to the rules we would not be doing this :)

Also depends if your talking new oak or used oak. 80% of scotch whisky is aged in once used american oak bourbon barrels

:text-+1: i see more sherry, brandy and rum from french then anything else..

Using the 5 star medium french dominos. Not sure if they are used or new. Catching up with andrew friday so will get some american dominos for the whiskey.

French has only been in for 5 days so will pull em out and throw some yank dominos in.

BigRig wrote:Using the 5 star medium french dominos. Not sure if they are used or new. Catching up with andrew friday so will get some american dominos for the whiskey.

French has only been in for 5 days so will pull em out and throw some yank dominos in.

Pretty sure the dominoes will be fresh oak.

Best is to split your batch in two and age one on french and one on american, at the end of the day its your personal preference not what is "supposed" to be used :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Wellsy wrote:The general rule of thumb is the French is for whiskey and American for bourbon but if we listened to the rules we would not be doing this :)
I found the French colours up super fast where the American takes longer. So it may depend how patient you are :)

its the other way round,american oak for whisky(scotch),french for rum.
although whiskey may be different to whisky.

since the scots have been making whisky forever have often wondered what they used before America was colonised-and why they changed.

Yeah i swapped the French out for american at it has picked up already.

Put another 2 washes through the bubbler yesterday and this morning. Have a nice little stock pile now.

Almost six months of ageing on the oak domino's, I had to have a taste.

Smells like whiskey, look like whiskey and hits your mouth with the whiskey envelope of surprise. Great throat feel, and instant warmth. The oak flavours together with the amber base work so well. Caramel, vanilla's, slightest suggestion of smoke, with that feeling of warmth. The slight sugar head, and the tingle at the tip of the tongue after the pleasant flavours from the oak dissipate.

I have filled a bottle watered down to 45% abv from the 60% on oak as it is so damn good, I want to drink it now.

Has anyone else left this longer than six months on the oak domino's ? What would I expect if I left it another six months ?

Thank you for this brilliant recipe, I am going to make another batch tomorrow. :clap: :clap: :clap:

this might be a silly question, so bear with me; should the 1kg of malt be unmilled or milled? I am guessing unmilled but wanted to make sure

Mill it so you can extract as much flavour as possible

Cheers Bigrig!

Unfortunately I could not get the Caramalt. The helpful team at Grain & Grape mixed in an equivalent of the LME in with the milled 1kg malt grain.

(From the recipe:
1kg Ale or Pilsner malt
1 tin of caramalt liquid extract)

Hopefully it turns out ok. I will let you know how it goes.