Brewer in Baulkham Hills, just bought a still

[Jazzafish]

Hi All,

I'm Jarrad, I'm 42 years old living in Baulkham Hills, NSW.

Strangely, I'm not a big spirits drinker but am known to enjoy a single malt whiskey or bourbon from time to time. I've been an all grain beer brewer for half my life and a founding member of the Hills Brewers Guild. I have been drawn to the process of making spirits for some time, many hours down YouTube spirals and browsing topics on this forum... so it is time to join the community and give it a try.

I've ordered a 35L alcoengine reflux bundle from kegland. After a cleaning/vinegar run, I'll do a simple sugar wash to get a feel for the still and get a neutral spirit for hop tinctures and the other benefits :happy-partydance: However, will move to all grain mashes and barrel aging ASAP. A friend of mine has an alcoengine pot still, so plan is to share the pot/reflux column where needed based on what we make.

When confident, I'm hoping to focus on targeting esters in my funky ferments (lacto/brett/kveik/pedio) and seeing how they come out after distillation.

Cheers!

[The Stig]

G’day Jazz,
Sounds like you’re on a path to enjoyment and you’ve already got half the process down.
Have fun and dive in as far you feel comfortable .
Cheers

[BigRig]

Welcome jarrad. This is a great hobby for an AG beer brewer to get in to. I am not a beer brewer myself, but I have made plenty of "whiskeys" from my fathers failed AG beer brewing Put it on some oak and these have turned out to be some of my best drops.

[Wellsy]

Welcome Jazz
Having a friend to take the journey with is great, helps reduce the frustration when things don’t go to plan, as well as share the joys when they do :)

[Jazzafish]

Thanks all,

I'm looking forward to it all. @Rig, good to know about the failed homebrew turning into good whisky :)

[Jazzafish]

By way of an update, vinegar run and sacrificial spirit run is now completed and I'm ready to progress into making consumables.

It was a fun learning process on these runs but I have to admit, I overlooked a few things, which I'll post below for anyone looking to use an alcoengine reflux still... Which is marketed as a reflux still but is probably better called a boka style of still in the way you have to run it.

The product condenser seems to be designed to restrict the cooling water flow speed. Basically, I feel it is best to consider the product condenser as having a fixed flow rate. Manual says:

"The only real requirement is that you reach a minimum water flow speed of about 8 liters per minute. There is no maximum water flow speed with this still design so you can run the water as fast as you like as long as you are meeting the minimum flow required."

I've got a brewing pump that can get ~20L per minute and I nearly blew a hose trying to get a meaningful increase in flow through the condenser. :)) (I realise that flow rate is excessive, was just testing limits) 8-}

Point is I wrongly believed I could increase the knock down power from the product condenser with more flow rate from my cooling water... at least to a certain point. I get it isn't a linear thing but within reason I thought I had more to play with there...

I also underestimated how much cooling water I needed on these shorter runs. Hoped I could do a 4L vinegar run with 40L of water and a pump only... Consequently, the vinegar run didn't go to plan... Not a failure, just not to plan (had to stop the run and use a garden hose and tap water)... Live and learn... Next time I should read a manual before I dive in... :))

Was no major issue though. Shortly after I was able to re-group and do a ~3-4 hour sacrificial spirit run with my 40L mash tun being used as a cooling water reservoir, pumping its water through my brewing copper immersion coil (sitting in 40L of iced water), before feeding the reflux condenser, returning to the mash tun. Water in the mash tun got on the warm side towards the end, but the immersion coil in the ice batch (like a moonshine worm) kept the water colder than tap water feeding the reflux condenser. No garden hose needed. Collected the spirit as predicted at the abv's anticipated. Next run I'll use a much larger reservoir though... I was pushing my luck there. Might be on the lookout for a free working chest freezer like this guy's set up:

https://youtu.be/oBHIc6LwH6o?si=T82jZ0ONHTtn3AGG

Next on the schedule is stripping some old sour beer that didn't age as i'd hoped through my friends pot still to get a feel for that. Then into some full runs.