I DID IT

Lloyd

A place for you to mark your personal milestones in distilling and if your peers deem you worthy can issue an Attaboy.

Most seasoned distillers with many years of personal milestones have never had a place to say, "Damn I finally did it!" and for complete noobs to the craft who are afraid to say anything to be open enough to post their successes.

I invite everyone, from first run newbie to award winning pro, to post their latest accomplishment here.
+1, Attaboy, congratulations, and other accolades from your fellow distillers are just icing on the cake. The cake is your accomplishment.

We have all read the drama of getting things right and the details are not important here - the simple fact that you finally got your ferment to complete, made a perfect hearts cut, blended a great rum, aged an all grain whiskey for 3 years in a new charred barrel, sold your first case of booze, won an international award, or simply run your very first still through it's cleaning run will help everyone here to know you a bit more.

And for that, I give you the first Attaboy.

Please don't be intimidated by others who are ahead of you in experience. They still have their own Attaboy moments. Regardless of your experience Please share your I DID IT.

punkin

Great idea for a thread Lloyd. I often have those moments when I've been aiming for a goal and unexpectedly find I've reached it.

Sometimes it can be a realisation, i remember i have had a few ahhhh! moments in distilling.

dad

After years and dozens of trials...I got the inversion, temps, nutrients and yeast correct for a rum ferment to complete (1.07-1.0) in 60 hours.

grim

Don't forget about her, "You Go Girl!".

brewsmith

@dad care to give the rest of us a shortcut on all your hard work ;)

Lloyd

@dad.
Attaboy.
Rum = yum.

rossco

Made 28liters of contreau clone with my carter head. The screwed it by using water I filtered. Bloody council must have been cleaning with calcium carbonate. Went cloudy at 55% bugger.

CothermanDistilling

I sold a motorcycle and bought an xpressfill XF460 filler and a Primera AP362 Label Applicator...

punkin

Commiserations to both of you. They use the carbonate to make the water hard and stop the mains from rusting Rossco. Pretty sure that's part of my problem with floculating floaties here.

rossco

They use the carbonate to make the water hard and stop the mains from rusting Rossco

Cheers for the explanation I'll use distilled water next time. It is really good!

DistilliTraK

Got all my washes ran before surgery break.... It'll be a month or two before I can use that hand again....

Gotta love the Dash II SG.. Half the time, double the washes.... awesome

Lloyd

Good luck @DistilliTraK and next time keep your hand out of the cookie jar :))

Lloyd

Sourced platinum cured, alcohol safe, FDA and ROSH approved silicone hose for the Baby Dragon. It only took about 10 tries, OK maybe a few more. But now done.
Hose barb surge breakers? Done.
Little alcoholmeters? Done.

Can't crow success yet until the little glass parrots get produced... not likely to happen anytime soon ~X(
@Punkin said it is more important to get them right than to get them fast.
But I'm reminded of the vulture in the tree saying to the other vulture, "Patience my ass, I'm going to kill something".
Some projects take a lot longer than expected.

Jung

Running my first 3 plate spirit run of whiskey (from beer that didn't turn out quite right). Combined low wines from 3 strips (all different beers), so what was 30 gallons of beer, made it to ~4.5 gallons of low wines.

With 11kw in a keg boiler, I had the plates loaded in under 20 minutes. In full reflux as I type at about 3kw...

Mallion

Some firsts for me: Joined this group (G'day everyone) My Ace of Hearts arrived yesterday (thanks punkin) Spent the day setting it up in the various configurations I wanted ( thanks again punkin) Was going to do the cleaning and sac run tomorrow but my wife tells me there's something important on! Good times and lots of firsts ahead.

punkin

You are very welcome. They are all out of stock for a while now.

I wouldn't bother with a sac run if it was me. A good wash of the machined parts in some soapy water or a run through the dishwasher to get the machine oils off.

Lloyd

Welcome aboard @Mallion.
You're in for a heck of a good time as the wonders of this craft unfold before your eyes.

TheMechWarrior

Today I finally did my first all grain mash.

For future reference I'd like pumps, heaters and chillers/coolers, agitators. Hot sweaty work. Tomorrow will tell if it was worth it.

Lloyd

A well deserved Attaboy, TMW.

TheMechWarrior

Thanks Lloyd!

I'm so proud right now, I really didn't expect it to pan out as well as it did.

I got about 100L at SG >1.090, diluted the lot down to 150L @ SG1.064. Very sore and happy man today.

Cheers,

Mech.

vooharmy

After 5 hours I finally tuned my PID to within 1 degree!!!! I couldn't be happier, auto tune is utter crap, I'm so glad I persisted, its running beautifully. I will qualify that my understanding of PIDS is woeful but who cares, its working great!!!

Kapea

A bit late to the party, but a couple of weeks ago I finally got up enough balls to solder the slip to FPT adapters to my precious, hand-wound VM reflux coil. Then I screwed on the push connectors to my coil. Now I've got push connections for ALL of my cooling water lines. No more Tygon tubing and worm clamps! Woo hoo! Damn I like those push connectors!

And I finally pulled the trigger on buying a Carter head gin basket. Enjoying the shit outta figuring out how to make tasty gin. It appeals to my botanist, cooking, distilling and chemist sides all at the same time.

Lloyd

Attaboy to @vooharmy. I've also found 1 degree damn hard to consistently maintain. Congrats. As you say, auto tune does not do it for me, either. It re-sets parameters that seem to make no sense at all.

WayToGo to @Kapea for getting push connect fittings on his wound coil but saving the "attaboy" on his GB4 til he produces his perfect gin. There is no doubt he will succeed.

Hurt my shoulder today (by patting myself on the back) because I finally cleaned up my distilling area and organized all the bits into some semblance of logic and sense, a long over due project. Like-items together and that sort of thing.

vooharmy

@LLoyd Setting that PID was a labour of love, I swear to god I am staring at it right now and its within 0.5Degree. I haven't been this happen since my last daughter was born :))

@Kapea Congrats, Cant wait to hear more about your journey with Gin. I love the look of these GB4's, I've penciled it in for after my boiler, but before my Baby Dragon (Small batch development still). Stop making stuff LLoyd!!!!

CothermanDistilling

post your PID numbers..

vooharmy

@cothermandistilling

p = 205
i =  10
d =  15

Works great for me.

CothermanDistilling

@vooharmy - next run, I would increase the Integral, 10 is very fast (unlike P and D, action is faster when i is decreased).

if your max is 2000, maybe try 100 or 500.. I get .1C swings each way is all and I think I have mine at 500 or 600

Lloyd

So what are your PID settings @CothermanDistilling?

CothermanDistilling

30,1000,120 were the setting I started with in that thread.

I since lowered the i to 500 or 600, and the D to 60

Lloyd

Thanks to you and @vooharmy, I'll try to fine tune my settings next run.
PID settings are quite confusing to me.
What works OK for hearts does not seem to work so well for heads but I'm a noob at it and still trying to figure it out.

Lloyd

0.1 degree swing each way is a huge Attaboy.
Can't imagine that level of precision yet.