Anybody here make whiskey? I'm gonna be making some scotch soon as this rain fucking quits up. Any good tips...

Anybody here make whiskey? I'm gonna be making some scotch soon as this rain fucking quits up. Any good tips? Any shiners around?

Popcorn Sutton! I've met him when I went to Thunder Valley to see the motocross nationals and spent a few nights there. A buddy of mine who lived down in Tennessee bought shine from someone who bought it from him and we ended up meeting him one night at that guy's house. Funny bastard.

...

Pretty sure he's my uncle or something. I live in the town that he was from though, and everybody's fucking related here

First tip I have for you is forget everything you've seen on those moonshiner shows. Once you've been in this hobby for a while you'll realize how ridiculous they are.

Yeah no shit, I don't even know why those shows still run. Do people even buy bootleg whiskey any more?

>I'm gonna be making some scotch soon

lol

For the prices they say they're getting I wouldn't touch it. I've never even seen any of the mention making cuts. It's got to be nasty.

If you're using a reflux column still, be sure to disregard the methanol that comes off first as well as the "tails" near the end of the run.

Also, avoid that Turbo yeast and sugar garbage, it has an awful flavor.

You know anything about roasting malt and the flavors it causes?

I find it hard to believe that it does impart any flavor, but maybe it's because my goal is essentially pure ethanol anyway.

Oh yeah I've gotta know, what's the most effective way of taking cuts? The only method I trust is monitoring the scent of your liquor -as- it's coming outta the still. None of that "Dump the first 75 mL" bullshit. Know anything about how methanol smells?

Sensitive temperature control (maintaining ~150F to distill all methanol) is gonna be a BIG bitch for me too, but maybe doable. I'll be heating my still with a small gas torch outdoors

The only tip I know is to keep a pitcher of pancake batter handy, in case you need to patch anything up in a hurry. Just plop it down, and let it dry. At least, that's what the old traveling man told me. I can only imagine how well this works in practice.

You could mix it with kitty litter, and now you've got bentonite clay plaster. (Bentonite is a clay that holds temperatures up to 3000F.)

i been making my own for years id never tuch shop stuff now. 75 kg suggar 200 liter watter, doubble distill with only stainless steel pot still no pressure one gets me 33 litters at 75% flover with home made wood chips karnuika marnuika or oke last me half a year

You can never remove all the methanol with constant temp. fractioning. When you boil the mash, everything in the mash boils. Water, ethanol, methanol and oils all go up at the same time to condense and be collected. The temp and composition of the mash at any one time decides the proportions so earlier on, yah, you get more methanol and later more water. Alcohol comes off in between, for the most part.

I've got some refractory (probably bentonite) clay already laying around, I'll keep a bit ready to go when I start brewin.

I'm pretty decent at making shit out of metals though, I wouldn't expect my still to bust a seam. I'm not gonna use solder to join the copper either, I'm gonna braze it because I'm lucky enough to know how

'Scotch'

Ain't fucking Scotch if it ain't Scottish water and ingredients dummy.

Yeah but like I said it may be tricky to control my temp by that ~20 degree (fahrenheit) difference between methanol's and ethanol's boiling points, so I'd like to have some idea of how to go off scent, taste, and texture just in case

Whoops, I guess I meant to say Scotch style there

Now piss off, that's twice you've shitposted now

Ohhh you said you *can't* do it like that. Whoops.

Mind giving me a good rundown of how to make the cuts? Above all else, I -really- don't wanna fuck that part up

Ayyy that's Popcorn

Just once but w/e

Here's what I'm weighing out in my mind.
Either that's total bullshit, or it's not and I bet Popcorn wasn't that 'funny'. Just his personality was a little different from yours'.

Maybe they were just drunk

Use natural Spring Water.
Purify it if you want, but if you find the right stuff you won't have to bother.
You need something to keep the product in of course.
Stop confusing scotch for whisky and whisky for scotch. Stop worrying about the correct spelling too...

When I say scotch, I really just mean I'm gonna use some barley malt

What kind of still are you running op?

I went through a serious moonshine phase as a teenager for some silly reason, maybe for being Kentuckyian. I was excited and ready.
I had schematics for a still. I was going to make a simple and delicious mix of shine and dragon fruit. Lizardlick Shine. 25, 35 bucks a jar.

I'm gonna build my own out of copper, probably gonna braze parts and then solder others with a torch out in the field.

See priority #1 is portability. I'd like to be able to take it all apart and fit (most of) it into two backpacks; one for me and me girl.

You'll smell it. Do yourself a favor and check out home distiller.org. go to novice distiller section and there is a sticky about how to make cuts properly. Cuts are the hardest part and it takes experience to do it well. Took me about 5 runs to get the hang of it.

Mind describing the smell?

it smells sweet

If you're not making huge amounts and mix all your distillate together methanol is no big deal. The real problem lies in accidentally concentrating the methanol. Methanol occurs naturally from fermentation but in small amounts. The reason it's not an issue with beer and wine and stuff is it's not that concentrated. Methanol boils off before ethanol though, so if you distill say 800 gallons of mash, the first jar of whiskey you get will contain nearly all the methanol from that 800 gallons. If somebody were to drink that jar, they'll probably be poisoned from it. If you don't make ridiculous amounts there isn't enough methanol to do anything more than maybe make a hangover slightly worse. Just toss the first couple oz and you'll be fine

so if you can control the temperature well enough and keep it at methanol's boiling point for a while, it should be in theory safe to let it boil out then distill and repeat a few times to guarantee its all gone?

Yeah I'm only making a small batch, Not even close to an 800 gallon mash