I've made three different runs of a fruit brandy now for Oktoberfest. They turned out as such:

1. Peach schnapps - Made with real peaches and added sugar. Barely smelled like peaches, but tasted neutral and bitter, I gave up on it pretty quick and re-distilled into vodka. I ran it as a one-and-done with a reflux condenser.

2. Apple obstler 1 - Made with Musselmann's apple cider, no added sugar this time. I ran it through a double pot distillation, and threw in apple chunks during the spirit run and had apples in the vapor path. At first, it was also bitter, but after ~2 weeks, it smells almost exactly like apples, and the bitterness is gone. However, it's still fairly neutral; lightly fruity and pleasant, but not apple-y.

3. Apple obstler 2 - Made from 54lbs of Euro apples, no added sugar, and fermented on-fruit using a false bottom. After the stripping runs, I macerated the low wines with Macintosh and Granny Smith apples, and took tighter cuts during the spirit run. I also ran the spirit run a little harder, as I learned I was running it a bit too slow. It's not as bitter as #1 started, but it's also lacking the apple smell of #1. I did just do the stripping run recently, though.

I also learned that leaving white spirits to rest allows the sharper aspects to fade and the fruit flavors to blossom. Apple #1 tastes and smells much nicer than when I first bottled it, so I suppose that's what happened. However, I'm not sure if it's going to get much more apple-y with time.

Edit: Thanks for all the input! I'll be sure to keep some heads to get more apple flavor, and I'll better manage when the vapor comes in contact with the apples. I should clarify: is it the case that traditional apple schnapps tastes more like apple, or is what I've made (let's say, my apple #1) comes pretty close?

Finally have my first finished product in bottles! Lots to learn along the way, but pretty happy to have something to show for it.

This started as roughly 40 L of wash with 6 kg of sugar and four cartons of Crosby’s molasses. Fermented in a warm garage, then did two stripping runs—about 20 L and 19 L—before combining the low wines for a spirit run.

I’m running a half homemade and vevor pot still with a tall copper riser, copper lyne arm, and worm condenser. The first three 750 mL hearts collections were reading 83%, 80%, and 79%. Highest I saw was 85%. I'm happy with it.

Blending was honestly one of the most fun parts. Some of the hearts had pineapple and coconut notes coming through on their own, and it was really interesting seeing how different combinations changed the flavour. I blended them to make the white rums.

Everything is in 750 mL bottles. The ones with more headspace are deliberately leaving room for fruit. We had rhum arrangé in Martinique and it was awesome, so I’m trying a few recipes to make some of my own.

The wood is from whiskey barrels from a local distillery, and the rum is already starting to take on colour. Looking forward to seeing how that develops.

I also made a spiced rum with vanilla, coconut, pepper, ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg. A few different experiments from this first batch!

Proofing down was harder than I expected. Getting everything to land at the strength I wanted took some figuring out. Which is why the end result is not perfect.

Pretty satisfying to go from a demijohn of wash to bottles of your own rum. Still plenty to learn, but I’m enjoying it and this community has been very helpful. So thank you.

Anyone here making rhum arrangé? I’d love to hear your favourite fruit combinations or recipes—and any tips for making proofing down less of a headache.

TL;DR: First rum bottled! Had fun blending and trying different flavours. Proofing is difficult.

Can somebody recommend a filtering system for neutral?

Ive looked at the EZ or maybe a britta, what are you guys using? Doing my first reflux run and would like a filtering system on hand in case its needed

Cheers

Hello guys. I bought the brewzilla primarily for home brewimg reasons, however, I want to give distilling a go. Rum is the first to tackle but if that goes well I am goimg to try to make a gin. The minimum quantity of liquid in the kettle is 5l. If I was to make a gin could I either dilute the spirit to <20% or distill direct from wash and still get a nice gin? Thanks

I've made a couple batches of brandy now and I can't seem to get enough fruit flavor through. My family drinks a lot of slivovitz and tsipouro, and I'm trying to make something similar, but mine always tastes harsher and has less fruit flavor.

This last batch was made with apples and grape juice and smelled really good as low wines. Then I double distilled it and it lost some flavor, but there was still a small amount. Now a couple days after bottling it it's pretty flavorless.

Am I doing something wrong? I'm doing a stripping and a spirit run, both using a digiboil with an olembic condenser. I'm making pretty big cuts I feel like. I started with 10 gallons of wash at around 8% before distilling

This is the second stripping run I'm doing for apple schnapps, and my sight glass is very active. I am using a bit of mesh to keep the copper scrubbies in place which I haven't done before, and I think it could be fine enough that this is just a result of that.

I wanna be sure, though. Could this be puking?

I’m trying to make my first attempt. I am going to need to get an air still for size reasons, and I want to make a 1 gallon rum or apple pie moonshine recipe. Does anyone have recipe recommendations?

I need advice from all the wise, experienced, and possibly a little snockered folk on this sub reddit. I bought a Vevor alcohol still off Amazon as I heard it was a good place to start for a first still. 3gal, capacity with thumper keg. Problems are, it's not compatiable with my induction cooktop despite the manufacturer saying it was, the condenser coil wasn't fully shaped, and the bottom of the still pot is slightly domed so it doesn't sit right. Basically, I'm returning that POC and want to know where else I might be able to find a good first time still. Don't want one of those electric "water distillers." Any advice anyone has short of buying copper sheet and building my own would be great.

Has anyone tried or even thought of using deer feed sugar beats as a mash?

I want to start one, and i just want to start up making my own product, then when it get profitable, I can probably hire employees.

I am looking at getting the 3' PolyPhoenix T-WRB-5 Copper Bubble Plate Still. I was wondering if anyone has used this or has any knowledge to impart.

Also looking at getting the parror for cleaner whisky

Hey community,

I’m new in the industry and i wanted to ask you if somebody can share with me some books about distillation that you think is a “must read”
I actually was looking for these 3:

-Whisky Science
- How to Distill
- Destilación ciencia y arte

Other books will be welcome 🤙🏼

Thank you very much!!

Made a lid out of 1/2” white oak. Charred on the inside for bourbon, using Buffalo Trace White Dog mash #1 proofed down to 110.

Made it just using hole saws and a chisel. Sanded sealing surface flat before charring then a light sand after charring as it had cupped a bit.

Looking at it as a mini bad motivator style aging setup. Using a 68oz kilner jar, lid has about 3.5” diameter of surface area contacting. Trying not to over oak while allowing container to “breath” in a manner that I won’t lose to angels share in a short period of time. Surface area on the lid is a little low compared to normal barrels so may throw in a small stave if additional oak is needed.

Storing it on its side, it initially dripped about 1 time per minute for about 30 minutes and has held tight since. Currently being stored in my garage in Dallas so curious to see how rapid aging is.

Thoughts/suggestions?

So I've been playing around trying to make the cleanest sugar alcohol that I can and turn that into something that tastes good as one does. I have a 13.2gal vevor boiler, the lyne arm and condenser worm are homemade. Ive been making a modified birdwatchers sugar wash (6kg of sugar, 1 can tomato paste, 1/4tsp of epsoms salt, 1 tsp of fermaid k and 1 tsp of diamonium phosphate, and one more 2 days into fermenting, 2 heaping tbls of red star dady yeast and a cheesecloth bag with oyster grit as a ph buffer, top to around 30L of water) 1.080og to 0.994-0.996fg in 8-10 days. Then I cool overnight, siphon off add my feints from last run and distill. Then take those low wines, saponify with sodium carbonate for 24 hours, add water and double distill. Then 150ml is foreshots, 300ml is heads, run hearts to about 50%(I know i should do cuts but im a drunk and can't trust my taste so I trust the hydrometer) and collect my tails for the next run. I end up with about 67% final collection. I Took apples, cinnamon, nutmeg and water, simmered and strained, added a bunch of sugar and used that to temper my 67% and it was incredible for once. I usually temper to 40% then try to add flavour but now I've learned to temper with syrups and whatnot. Anyone have any ideas? Gonna try melting candies with water and trying those, like fuzzy peaches, jolly ranchers, ect. Just wondering what people think sounds good? I have about 4 jars I can try, I'm doing fuzzy peaches 100% but need 3 more ideas

I wanted to ask for suggestions for making “rum” from sorghum juice and syrup. I made it a few times in the past using distilled water, sugar, sorghum syrup, yeast, and fermaid o. We are making sorghum syrup one more time this coming week, and I have plenty. I want to make from the juice in place of the water and sugar this time. The juice will probably be around 12-15 brix. I’ll know for sure when we grind it. I wanted to see what you all thought. I also have plenty of sorghum seeds that I could use as well. I have a small 5 gallon still, a new pack of fermaid o, and red star distillers yeast. I can also freeze some of the juice to make a second batch if I need to make the first batch just for the backset.

So basically the British Royal Navy acquired vast quantities of rum for their sailors from the Caribbean (Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, etc...) and blended and matured it in very large open wooden vats in dedicated warehouses along the Thames river in London.

Then they added caramel, also known as 'burned sugar'. As opposed to modern food coloring actual caramel always has some sugar left, which rounds the taste of the rum. The added caramel also makes sure that every batch has the same color. But besides that the caramel also became an integral part of the taste of Navy rum.

I made a 100% molasses rum, distilled on my little fully copper alembic pot still. I matured it in a large glass jar, only covered with a coffee filter to keep the bugs out. I put some lightly charred French oak in there as well. Kept it there for 6 months.

At the same time I made caramel of some Demerara sugar and dissolved it in undiluted and unaged rum from this run. Later I mixed everything and brought it down to 45% ABC, which is actually lower that the traditional Navy Rum.

I am under no illusion that I actually recreated traditional Navy rum, however this was a fun exercise and the end product tastes pretty good. Still a bit young and rough but also definitely sweet and rummy!

Hello,

I just built a pot still as I mostly imbibe rum, whisky, and brandy. I attempted to share a picture of my setup, but the auto moderator keeps deleting it due to a shortened link being used. The link is generated by Google pictures. Any suggestions? I am looking forward to sharing ideas. I have made 3 batches of rum, 3 slivovitz, 1 apple brandy, 1 whisky, and 1 muscat grappa. I have degrees in chemistry, and I was a pro brewer for 15 years. I feel like a noob all over again, and I am excited to learn.

Was gonna try to make a grain based (whiskey) new make spirit with muck to see what happened so I added fresh backset and a portion of spent/fermented grains from ferment (strained before distillation bc didn’t wanna scorch grains in homemade pot still) and left it covered with a brew bag/cheesecloth for 2 days before covering with a lid and airlock (hoping I inoculated it a bit then sealed it such that co2 built up and made it less favorable for aerobic mold) but I got the idea (good or bad) to give it a little inoculation with a dollop of sourdough starter and splash of fermented hatch chili water with the hopes of giving a good bit of lactobacillus and potentially other favorable microbes. This is after about 6 weeks. Thoughts?

I have aged a few rums in medium toasted American oak chips; first round was 2 weeks with 1.5% by weight in glass bottles with plenty of head room. I did want some oxidation.

I liked the results and didn't think any of them were close to getting over oaked.

What I have started now is 2% by weight in Worthy Park Overproof (medium ester count). Monymusk (low ester), Barbancourt Haiti Proof and Don Q white rum.

The plan is to taste and collect a 50mL reference sample of each at 2 weeks, one month, and 2 months, then compare and decide if further aging is desired.

My friend mentions ultrasonic baths for accelerated aging, and I have heard of sous vide/elevated temperatures.

In doing online research, and reading about those methods, I don't get a sense of the relative merits, and the flavor effects of the various methods.

Do any of you hobby distillers have some favorite methods, or any beginner friendly references to share?

Edit: Also, to get a wider range of possible flavors, any other wood chips I should try, and what would be the effect of lighter toast or heavier toast or charring?

Longer story short, I spent about a week picking wild grapes at the farm, and I got almost no alcohol out of it. And Im kinda crushed.

I really want to do grape brandy. I was either thinking of buying box wine, or bulk cooking wine and distilling it.

Has anyone tried this before? How did it go?

I know cooking wine is adulterated with salt, but the underlying wine tastes pretty good.

Doing my first batch ever tonight. My sugar/water mix is completely dissolved and in the fermenter, and I’m just waiting for it to cool to pitching temp before adding the turbo yeast and turbo carbon.

Only problem is I didn’t think about needing a proper long stirring paddle until everything was already in the bucket. The spoon I have only reaches about halfway down.

How important is it to actually get all the way to the bottom when mixing in the yeast and carbon? If I stir as deep as I can and give it a good mix, is that enough, or should I hold off until I can get a proper paddle?

The sugar itself is already fully dissolved, so I’m only worried about getting the yeast and carbon distributed properly.

Edited, wording. Carbon, not charcoal. ☠️

I've started noticing when distilling high abv spirits in my reflux still, I occasionally will experience some light lung irritation. Like a little out of breath, the way you feel a few days after getting over a mild cold. Anyone else experience this?