PeteB

Your above theory seems to be the opposite of what DucatiGuy is observing.

I am going to build another whisky still soon, so I am very interested in the recent posts above regarding the placement of copper. John obviously has vast experience in the industry but I am still not sure where the copper should be. I have been lead to believe that the copper should be in the vapour path! Is that correct? or should it be in the pot as your above post seems to suggest? maybe that is not what you are saying John, where is "only one place" that copper is needed? Thanks Pete

I do have quite a bit of G beer left after the festival so I am about to wind up the ABV It has been suggested to add 17grams sugar per litre per 1% Does this sound correct? If it is, then my original recipe had more alcohol than I thought! I would like to get it over 12% then double distil it in my alembic pot still. Thanks for any help Pete Ps I got a PM from Ned about our bush fires in Tasmania, so far all is well with my family and our homes, but not so lucky for many others

I am after some help with the amount of sugar to add. But firstly, I am brewing 600 litres of (almost) non-alcoholic ginger beer. It is for a food and drink festival to mix with my newmake rye as a cocktail. I have no idea how mugh ginger beer I will need but I think 600 litres will be way too much. If I have too much left over I might add some more sugar and start the fermentation off again to produce some alcohol. I plan to run it through my still to make some spirit, guess it would be a ginger RUM because of the cane sugar. The question is, how much sugar per 100 litres should I add to the leftovers? Also does anyone see any problems with this idea?

I still haven't had any replies to my question Does a sugar/water solution have the same contraction as a pure water when alcohol is added. (especially with high sugar content)?

That is interesting, have not heard that before. Acid to water, yes, I remember that from school chemistry--long time ago. I think it could be a bit impractical if you had say 1,000 litres of alcohol and needed to add only a few litres of water Has anyone else heard of this? If it stops clouding then it might be worth the trouble.

Internet alcohol sales with delivery via our postal system is a big and legal business in Australia. The postmistress in our little country post office can hardly move behind her counter sometimes because of all the boxes of wine.

Just a curiosity question. We have single phase 240 V in Australia, I believe US households have 110 V In what situations do you have 230 volts single phase?

I did raise the question of a continuous stripping still on this forun some time ago. With my one alembic pot it takes me 3 wash runs then one spirit run, ie 4 days per batch of spirit. If I had a small continuous stripper I could get 4 batches of spirit in 4 days ie. quadruple my production. I shall watch this thread with interest.

Welcome to the forum. Please keep us posted about your progress. I am particularly interested as you will be farm based, as I am. it is a great way to be environmentally friendly. PeteB

In my personal opinion, keep it going. It will most likely have a different taste, probably quite fruity. You are a "craft" distiller so experimenting is all part of the experience. Your alcohol yield might be lower. I lauter rye which is notoriously very slow. My mash always sours before it finishes running off. I think that is part of the reason for the unique flavour of my spirit.

JarHead, where were you when Will issued a challenge of a similar nature see http://adiforums.com...topic=769&st=40 No one had worked it out after a couple of years. I stumbled across it and posted several ways of solving the problem. Your approach is slightly different again, but still using algebra. I checked your answers with Alcodens and your algebra is quite correct 10/10 Firstly I have no practical experience with adding sugars to spirits so I am just trying to learn. If I understand your post just above, you assume that 1 volume of sugar (calculated by density) + 1 volume of water + 1 volume of pure alcohol will give you the same total volume as 2 volumes of water + 1 volume of alcohol !! By referring to density tables, when adding sugar to water there is very little total volume change, (sometimes a very silght increase) so for practical purposes that takes one complication out of the equation. But I am still suspicious that a sugar/water solution will not have the same contraction as a pure water when alcohol is added. (especially with high sugar content) Brothers Vilgalys PM'd me their exact quantities (I won't post them here without their permission) and I did the calculations several ways. When I assumed there was normal volume contraction with the efhanol+water but no contraction with the honey, I came up with almost the exact ABV they found in their test sample. OK, one batch made by a noobie doesn't "prove" anything but it is enough to make me ask questions

Hi Curtis. I currently lauter my mash before fermenting, but I have occasionally considered fermenting with the grain in then dumping that into my mash tun and then lautering before going into the still. Do you have a lauter tun? If so, have you tried post-ferment lautering? I currently lauter rye which is notoriously slow, not sure if the fermentation could speed it up or slow it.

Thanks Smaug, but they are the same ones Swede suggested, not nearly accurate enough, or more importantly, not sensitive enough. They only indicate to 1 whole degree of proof.

Thanks for the lead Bluestar. When I pull up the link the prices are in Aussie dollars and their currency conversion is a rip off. Currently the AU$ is worth a few cents more than US$ but these guys appear to have it worth almost 50% less. I might get someone to buy them in US for me then post to Aus. I will send Coleparmer a query before I commit H-B Instrument Alcohol Proof Ethyl Alcohol Hydrometer 75-95% $55.69 AUD/EACH

Looking forward to a bit of brain excersise I have been sent some density tables of various honey sugars dissolved in water. With a few random calculations it appears as if there is very little volume change when mixing, in some cases a very slight expansion but not enough to worry about.

Mr Vilgalys, If you give me a bit more information I will have a play with some calculations to see if I can sort this problem. I think it will be a bit too complicated to work from the current density. I am pretty sure there is volume contraction with a honey water mix. If it is not a trade secret, how many lbs of honey are you adding to your spirit? What was the ABV of the spirit before you added the honey? If it was 40% then the water in the honey is what caused the dilution. Honey is about 18% water so if I know original ABV and lbs honey I can check. It should then be quite easy to work out how much more 190 pr to add. IF that all works then I should be able to show you how to calculate amounts for future batches.

Thanks Swede, but I contacted them and they only have hobby hydrometers. Good price but not nearly accurate enough. So has anyone else got any good suppliers?

Are we talking about pressure vessels as in steam generating boilers, or stills running at at close to atmospheric pressure? If it is low to zero pressure then what certificates are needed, it obviously depends on the importing country. A "MIL Certs" for the materials used for manufacture might give peace of mind to the purchaser, but is it essential?

I have broken several expensive hydrometers and hope someone can tell me where to buy a set of cheaper hydrometers for everyday use. They don't need to be certified. I will keep the good ones locked away and only use for calculating taxes. I have had a bit of a hunt on line but I am sure there must be some good deals out there that I haven't found. They need to read to about 0.2 abv or 0.4 proof. Calibration temperature doesn't matter as long as it is indicated Thanks

Just to make sure we are on the right track here, I assume when you say "liqueur", you have an alcohol solution that you have added sugar and flavours to. To test the ABV you appear to have run a sample through a bench still to leave the sugar etc behind. Am I correct? For anyone reading this who is new to distilling, a hydrometer is useless when trying to measure alcohol content of spirits containing sugar. JarHead, would you mind posting the calculations, assume we start with say 100 lbs of liqueur. I think the calculations are not quite as straight forward as you suggest.

Chris, welcome this forum and to the distilling world. I am particularly interested in your operation because I have a similar attitude to the environment, and a similar farm based distillery. A quote from your web site " Every glass you drink comes 100% from ingredients grown, cleaned, processed, distilled, blended and bottled by our family" Well done Peter Bignell

You can find previous discussion on this subject at http://adiforums.com...?showtopic=2153

The very slightly oily air is separated from your liquid being pumped, by a diaphragm, so no oil should get into your spirit.

Passive evaporative cooling, Before domestic refrigeration that was a very common practice in Australia, a wooden frame covered with hessian (burlap) and a water trough on the top that wicked the water down the sides. They were called Coolgardie Safes. I did use that technique last summer but thought pumping through the heat exchanger might be neater