Sick of Sugar and moving to AG and BIAB

punkin

Irrigation shops have plastic water tank outlets that work really well in 1/2" through to pretty damn big. You just have to convince a kid to get in there and hold the inner piece while you screw the outer piece on.
My young fella is in his thirties now and still hasn't forgiven me for kicking an ex olive drum down the driveway with him in there and a few litres of olive slop when he was ten. :D

Clickeral

So some updates, I have ordered some bits from china via ebay to get my Chilly bin Mash tun working properly. Moved all my brewing gear to my friends garage where I have better access so will be setting up properly this weekend.

Will be wiring my milk can up with 3 core flex 4mm2 so good for about 30amp, need to get a 20-30amp dedicated circuit installed but will make do with 2x10amp plugs for now (I have 10m of wire to use)

Need to order a new power controller box and another box to house my STC1000 as I now have a brew fridge to use :)

Grain mill and motor will now finally be setup correctly

Ordered a whole heap more gear from Cheeky peak to get my kegerator going again, including a 650ss perlic tap :D

Need to rack my Dark IPA into secondary and cold crash it before I keg it

Still trying to get a chance to pickup some 220L plastic barrels but they wont fit in a normal car from my knowledge :(

Planning on putting a drain on my 50L keg but not sure how I will get my hand inside to do so atm :s will need to do some thinking

Wanting to buy more jars and glassware as well

More updates to come

I have 25L of rum wash to run over 4plates this weekend and need to put on some weetbix washes to build up some more vodka

Once my Mash tun and mill are going I have about 100kg of grain to get through so going to make some more beer, Bourbon, whisky and Vodka

Maybe some apple brandy if I can get some juice.

Want to give Gin a go as well but need to get 2x 90 2" fittings

Smaug

You are a busy worker bee!

grim

220l/55g HDPE drum will fit across the backseats of a big sedan or suv, you may need to jiggle and move the front seats up a bit, but they'll fit. They are not much bigger than a standard (Fat American) sized trash bin. I fit 2 in my little suv with the back seats down. The sides are pretty flexi, I bet you could get one into a small 4 door too.

Now if you live in Europe and drive those little clown cars, no luck for you. It may be easier to actually put the little Fiat into the 220l drum and drive it home like a hamster wheel.

Unsensibel

@grim said: Now if you live in Europe and drive those little clown cars, no luck for you. It may be easier to actually put the little Fiat into the 220l drum and drive it home like a hamster wheel.

Now that's harsh!

Considering that most clown cars are hatchback, I bet that it's easier to get bulky items in them than in the standard US sedan. I did the exercise with Focus hatch & a washer. You can even load and unload that thing with one person...

grim

Yeah I'm just joking around. I drove a tiny Honda Electric Fit for 2 years.

And I'm 6' 2" and 240lbs.

Kapea

There's a lot to be said for driving a canister vacuum cleaner - until you get in a wreck...

punkin

I got a good giggle out of the mental image of it being easier to put the car in the drum. :D

Clickeral

So currently have

• 25L of peachs fermenting
• 25L of plums fermenting
• 25L of Paradise punch just just that I got off the back of a truck (I have about 120L worth haha)

Also have about 12 jars of 800ml 93% neutral/vodka, need to clean it up some more and make some gin

Have some botanical's on the way atm :)

Need to make some more weetbix wash and RUM :D

Will run the fruit over 4 plates, the gin I am still working out how to run

If I run the vodka/neutral again to clean it up more I will be going with 6plates the packed section (with a perf plate each end) so about 8 plates and the packed section, Though I am on the fench about filling up my other packed section with stainless and running 1020mm of packed section with as many plates that I can fit :p

Thoughts comments?

Pics

Still playing around, need to go see yurgle and get some 60L drums

Clickeral

Been awhile since I posted, just put down a 20L batch of extract based DrSmurto's Golden with some cans I had (Woolies had coopers cans on special for $11 and I had a homebrand can laying around) and some minor tweaks due to what I had on hand

1 can Homebrand Lager
1 can Coopers Amber Malt (Was out of wheat, Rye, or Light)
250g crystal 
20g Centennial @ 15 
22g Centennial @ 0 (as I wasn't going to put away 2g)
Kit yeast 
Topped up to 20L (not 23L). 

SG1.050

Correct recipe is

1 can Coopers Lager
1 can Coopers Wheat Malt
250g crystal (caramalt, caramunich, carabohemian, light/medium english crystal)
20g Amarillo @ 15 and 0 (sometimes listed as 15g @ 10, 5 and dry hop, i prefer the former)
US-05
Topped up to 20L (not 23L).

Clickeral

Hmm haven't update this in ages, been brewing lots of beer on my 3v system and haven't been stilling as much. Slowly working through my spirit collection, made some ouzo last year using @punkin recipe and my partner loves it. Think I've used the still once in the new house (garage)

Just put on a all molasses rum wash, it's got leftovers from my last rum ferment and 9L of dunder I've been dragging round for years (the dander smells like rotten sugar cane as I have a peice of sugar cane in it that's rotting) two heat belts on it and lowens yeast for the esters.

Also doing a varient of Brandon's bourbon off Aussie distiller, using polenta instead of stock feed corn ground up so I can skip the cereal mash.

Mashed in at 20c, will heat up via my herms in the morning when my solar is on, I'll stir it as it heats up. I've got enzymes if need be

7.5kg polenta
2.0kg maris otter
1.9kg malted wheat

What I had on hand will use the Dady yeast I got from @captainsmootch

Will do a couple of versions of this to dial in what I want. Also will look at picking up a bag of flaked maize but at $90 per 25kg it's not overly cheap.

I've also got 6 boxes of 700g woollies brand cornflakes (will pick some more up) and keen to give them ago as well to compare to polenta and flaked maize.

Not overly keen on doing cereal mashes (unless I have too) have 20kg of raw wheat I'm planning to turn into vodka, also got it for NEIPAs ;)

See how I go will try do some more updates

Clickeral

So I think the polenta definitely needs cooking before it's mashed, currently at 16L of 1.068 taken off and another 10L of water added to sparge with some extra enzymes. Starch test shows unconverted so it could be the malt I'm using didn't have enough diatastic power to convert the corn. Will leave it mashing till tomorrow and see how it does, might just top up with dextrose to the OG I want and adjust for next time. Definitely going to get a bag or two of flaked maize.

Also put down a demijohn of Jao mead with a mix of orange and river gold honey

Rum is smelling amazing fermenting away

Sightless cleared up after 30mins

Unsensibel

I think you’re tight on the polenta. From what I know, it’s just finely ground corn...

Clickeral

@Unsensibel said: I think you’re tight on the polenta. From what I know, it’s just finely ground corn...

Yeah they also sell instant polenta (which I also have some off) which just needs boiling water as they have precooked/gelatinized it

Should have cooked the polenta but lesson learnt I still got

16L at 1.068
12L at 1.050
12L at 1.020 

So roughly 40L at 1.044 or around 7% if it ferments out dry

Should have gotten 1.060-1.065 but oh well

Also found that Kegland sell 25kg bags of malted corn for $85 aud so will get at least a bag, means I can do corn whiskey as well if I want. Will still look into a bag of flaked maize for beer though.

Still have some polenta left (including instant) so may do a smaller batch (25L) with that and see what results I get it when it's cooked

I've got 19L stockpot to cook it in but may need to look at a pressure cooker long term

Hopefully find time to do a batch with cornflakes instead of the polenta and see how that goes

Clickeral

Cornflakes done, got 52L at 1.052 into the fermenters cornflakes also a pita to use, really needed rice hulls

Will let cool down overnight and pitch in the morning

Tipping I'll have lots of sediment so will see how much liquid I get once it settles

Clickeral

4" hybrid pot setup to strip some stuff I had laying around, have 2x old style bubbles plates and then 2x plates with the bubbles removed just to get some copper in the vapour path. Will run at 4800w and see if the 2" shotgun can handle it.

Need to redo my milk cans insulation

Ignore the messy garage

Clickeral

Running the polenta Bourbon through 4plates today 4800w for heat up and then 2400w once she's in reflux. Aiming for the typical couple of drips a second to take off fores and compress the heads then a pencil stream take off till I hit tails properly (wet dog/cardboard) will run down to 20% in pot still mode then

Clickeral

God I hate doing cereal mashes for corn, next time I'm just buying flaked maize. I've also got a bag of malted maize that I wouldn't be doing this with. I ended up with a bag of corn grits because the place I brought the malted maize from sent me the wrong stuff.

I'll get 150L of bourbon wash out of it but it's lots of effort. May end up using it for UJSSM at this rate, or buying a keggle so I can use a bigger vessel.

Got to do 3 of these pots for a 50L batch

Clickeral

Just for notes sake I'm gelatinizing the corn grits as they come out of the bag and haven't milled them further into a flour. Will see how yeild/conversion is and next batch I'll mill further for comparison

Also tweaking my mill gap (currently 1.03mm) and think I need to go wider as its shredding my grain. Thinking 1.1mm

Clickeral

Currently letting it mash with extra enzymes, not using my herms will leave it till 8ish tonight then transfer off into the fermenter. May sparge depending on the volume, currently sitting at 1.048 so hoping to gain some points

grim

You shouldn't need to take typical grits down to flour to get good yield, especially with enzyme.

Clickeral

@grim said: You shouldn't need to take typical grits down to flour to get good yield, especially with enzyme.

Thats what I thought, just seen a few people do. I got just under 60L at 1.054 OG so should turn out ok hopefully

Clickeral

Cheeky stripping run of the cornflakes all grain mash I did, 2 copper plates without bubble caps in the bottom and one orginal bubble plate at the top, along with my newish copper 4-2" adapter so I have some copper in the vapor path

Running about 3600W as the 2" shotgun was having issues with 4800W

Distillate temp is about 32C

Might have to invest in a 3" shotgun or use my 4" RC as a pre condenser. Not sure if I can turn the hose up much more.

Edit turned the hose up alittle more and seems to be running cooler, may have to do some more trial and error there. (22c)

Collection speed is about 4.5Lph so not running slow

Clickeral

Just to confirm, looks like lacto infection on my back-seat?

punkin

Why have you got the backset on your back seat?

Clickeral

@punkin said: Why have you got the backset on your back seat?

Dam auto correct :s

Smaug

I just assumed that her indoors gets the front seat?

punkin

@Smaug said: I just assumed that her indoors gets the front seat?

Nah, someone's gotta keep the bucket from sloppin' around.

grim

Backset looks good, just make sure bring your wash to pasteurization temps. If its for bourbon, add it to the cereal mash/corn.

I'm serious.

Clickeral

@grim said: Backset looks good, just make sure bring your wash to pasteurization temps. If its for bourbon, add it to the cereal mash/corn.

I'm serious.

Yip have been adding 1L of backset and 9L of water to 2.5kg corn grits when I cooked/cereal mashed and gelatinized the corn so it's been boiled before I mash in

Pretty sure I have a lacto infection in my current wash ferment but that should add to flavour and its only after the yeast has finished fermenting

Just added last night another 10L of Back set from the boiler (at boiling temps) to my backset storage fermenter :p