This channel is the best home distilling channel on RU-vid, in my opinion. You can really help Randy out by subscribing, liking, commenting, and sharing. It does not cost you anything, but it helps him greatly and will enable him to keep bringing us the best content about our craft that you can find anywhere. Thanks, Randy.
If you are doing a sour mash run, keep some of the lees that is in the bottom of the barrel, still live yeast as well. Put some in a clean jar, some fresh water, and a tablespoon or two of table sugar. Put in fridge, when done distilling to do sour, wait until temps fall down below 90F, and pitch your old yeast in. Keep the same colony (especially if you know the flavors of that yeast work for your mash) and spare some yeast for future new projects OR carry over your yeast colony to a new batch each time. Saves a boatload of money that way on yeast. Also, if you don't have a column still, on your pot still + thumper setup - wrap a cotton towel (wet it first for easier wrapping) around the top of your onion or swan neck (this will act as a dephlag), add a little water to it when it starts to dry out, and you should also get 70%+ coming out of your thumper. I've gotten up over 80% on my refractometer. It still keeps the flavor of your mash better but for about 700 ml you'll be over 80%, give or take on your setup. Otherwise, do a stripping run, then on spirit run, do the same as above with wet cotton towel, you will absolutely get over 80% for almost your whole run.
Have you tried using popcorn? Specifically popped popcorn? Popping it gelatinizes the starch so no cooking needed. And if you grind the popcorn into popcorn flour the yeast should pull ALL the flavor from the popcorn. Which means you may be able to use less corn to flavor the shine. And if the flavor of roasted corn comes through that should taste pretty damn good.
Fun facts: From a 10% mash it takes about 14 vapor to liquid state changes (reflux) to drop enough water from the alcohol azeatrope to get to 95% purity! That's a lot of 'invisible' reflux going on (and the final percentages change slowly). Even a pot still has some reflux (10% wash goes to 55% in a single reflux cycle and 70% on the second).
Another great video Randy, Quick question on this run... Why not leave settings after heads for a bit to cause passive reflux? I understand the delicate dance between cooling and heat inputs...
Nice! 🍻 I personally prefer to make my neutral spirits/"vodkas" out of potatoes 🥔 It comes out exceptionally smooth compared to other spirits I've made so that's what I like to use for neutrals 🥃 I'll use exogenous enzymes for the saccharification then ferment it with a neutral yeast like EC-1118 🧪 After that I strip all the alcohol out of the mash, redistill the low wines a second time with plates & hold it at a steady 180 proof for almost the entirety of the spirit run ⚗ I feel like I get a larger hearts cut, with a higher overall proof, and with less flavor when I split up the distillation into stripping then reflux it afterwards 🤷♂ Then if I absolutely want or need something truly neutral and tasteless for a project, I'll finish the process with activated carbon treatment and a celite filtration 👨🔬 I can be a bit of a perfectionist that tends to take things too far though 😅 Shine on brotha 🤘 --🧿RuneShine, Michigan's Norse-Druid Alchemist🧪🥼🔬
What's the point of the ceramic packing in the first cell? I work in the refining industry. We use packing in the fluid level of towers to force a bit of passive reflux while the liquid is boiling but have never seen packing used in a dry cell/tray.
Good videos. They say that "official" vodka is distilled to at lease 95%, but I know that award winning Tito's corn vodka is distilled to about 85% I've got a big bag of corn and a couple empty fermenter jugs. Might just give it a try. BTW, I've been doing Alen Bishop's vodka recipe using sugar, oats, and raisins. It almost tastes like a brandy based vodka. Have you tried that yet?
Great video, where did you get the glass column? I was looking at getting one from Ali Express similar to the one you have but was not sure if the build quality would hold.
I absolutely love your videos but I have a question while I was watching this one. Would it be any difference on the flavor if you mashed out the corn separately mashed out the rye separately mashed out your barley separately what I mean is let them go through their changing to sugars and then put them together for the yeast and then run it just wondering I mean use flaked and malted grain
