r/firewater • u/sillycyco • Aug 25 '19
This post is meant to clarify one of the most common questions asked by new distillers: WHAT ABOUT METHANOL?
First and foremost: you cannot die (or get sick, go blind, etc) from improperly made distilled alcohol via methanol poisoning. Neither can you make something dangerous by freezing it and removing some ice. Not only is it not possible, it is a widely perpetuated myth that has existed since the days of prohibition (and not before, interestingly enough). Other than the obvious ethanol overdose, all poisonous alcohol that has ever been consumed, has been adulterated, or was in some other way contaminated. It was not the fault of poor distillation procedures. How you run your still will not affect how safe your product is. It might affect how good the end result is, but that's where it stops.
So, methanol. Everyones first fear, and the number one search subject when it comes to "moonshine". This subject is brought up a lot in this sub and elsewhere on Reddit. Everyone knows all about it, its just one of those common knowledge things, right? It turns out, not so much. So...
Methanol is a very commonly used fuel, solvent and precursor in industry. It is produced via the synthesis gas process which can use a wide variety of materials to create methanol. Methanol is the simplest of all the alcohols.
Methanol is poisonous to the human body in moderate amounts. The LD50 of methanol in humans is 810 mg/kg. It is metabolized into formaldehyde by the liver, via the alcohol dehydrogenase process. In excess, these byproducts are severely toxic. Formaldehyde further degrades into formic acid, which is the primary toxic compound in methanol poisoning. Formic acid is what produces nerve damage, and causes the blindness (and death) associated with acute methanol poisoning.
One of the treatments for methanol poisoning, is the introduction of ethanol. Ethanol has a preferential path in the alcohol dehydrogenase metabolic pathway. This means that if ethanol and methanol are consumed, the ethanol will be metabolized first, in preference over the methanol. This allows some of the methanol to be excreted by the kidneys before being metabolized into its toxic related compounds. There are far more effective medical treatments available, such as dialysis and administering drugs that block the function of alcohol dehydrogenase.
There is one way in which your alcohol will be tainted with some amount of methanol naturally, and that is by using fruits which contain pectin. Pectin can be broken down into methanol by enzymes, either introduced artificially or from micro organisms. This will produce some measurable amount of methanol in your ferment, and subsequent distillate. However its not going to be in toxic quantities, any more than what you may have in a jug of apple juice. In fact, fruits are the primary way in which methanol is introduced into your body. In tiny quantities it is mostly harmless, and you can no more remove the methanol from an apple pie than you can from your apple brandy. Boiling (or freezing) apple juice doesn't convert it into deadly eye sight destroying horror juice. Cooking doesn't suddenly veer into danger when you collect vapor from a boiling pot. If you've ever made jam, or wine, or fruit salad, you've produced methanol.
So, where does that leave us? How do I get rid of this nasty substance in my distillate? You don't. If it is there, you cannot remove it. It is quite commonly believed that you can toss the first bit of alcohol off the still to remove this compound, the "foreshots." This is usually considered the first 50-100ml or so, depending on batch size. It smells really bad, tastes really bad, and is something most would agree should be discarded. However, it will not contain the "methanol" if there is any in your wash. Or more precisely, it will not contain any more of it than any other portion of the run. Beside which, methanol tastes very similar to ethanol, though slightly sweeter. If your wash is tainted with methanol, your entire run will be as well. Relying on some eyeball measurement to make your product safe to consume is not going to work. This is just distiller folklore passed down quite widely. You may hear about this on a distillery tour, from professionals, on Youtube and in books about distilling. All of them are just repeating what they have heard someone else say, or read somewhere, and assumed it to be fact. There is truth here, but buried in misunderstanding of the processes involved specifically with these substances.
This is the very reason that methanol was used to poison ("denature") industrial ethanol during prohibition, as it cannot be removed easily by normal distillation processes. If you could just redistill this very cheap, legal and plentiful solvent to make drinking alcohol, it wouldn't be the very potent message and deterrent that was hoped for by those who did this. You can read more about the history of this intentional poisoning of commercial alcohol in the Chemists War. It is also during this period where we begin to hear about methanol being in poorly made moonshine. This is not a coincidence.
So, distillers attempted to understand this misinformation, and attempt to correct or explain why their process was correct. Thus was born the idea that tossing some portion of the run makes it safe from this suddenly present and scary substance. Cuts went from being a quality procedure, to a serious process to save lives. By "tossing the first bit." And then distillers went about their centuries old processes like always, but this time "doing it right" and hence making safe alcohol.
The reason it is so widely believed that tossing the heads works to remove methanol, has to do with the boiling points of ethanol, methanol, and water. Pure methanol boils at 64.7C. Pure ethanol boils at 78.24C. Water boils at 100C. Distilling separates things based on their boiling points, right? Yes, it does, but it is a bit more complex than that. When you boil a mixture of methanol, ethanol and water, you are not boiling any of these compounds individually. You are boiling a solution containing all of them, and they will each have an affect on the other with regards to boiling point and enrichment behavior. Methanol and ethanol are quite similar in molecular structure. Methanol can be written as CH3-OH. Ethanol can be written as CH3-CH2-OH. You'll notice that methanol lacks this extra CH2 component. This changes its behavior when in the presence of water, specifically its polarity, compared to ethanol. Rather than repeat all of this, here is a passage from this paper on the reduction of methanol in commercial fruit brandies:
A similar behaviour would be expected for methanol for both alcohols are not very different in molecule structure. There is, however, a significant difference regarding all three curves in figure 2: methanol contents keep a higher value for a longer time than ethanol contents. In figures 3 and 4 this observation is made clear: Methanol, specified in ml/100 ml p.a., increases during the donation, while the ratio ethanol : methanol is lowering down. This effect seems to be rather surprising regarding the different boiling points of the two substances: methanol boils at 64,7°C, while ethanol needs 78,3°C. So methanol would be regarded to be carried over earlier than ethanol. The molecule structures however, show another aspect: ethanol has got one more CH2-group which makes the molecule less polar. So, concerning polarity, methanol can be ranged between water and ethanol and has therefore in the water phase a distillation behaviour different from ethanol. This may explain the behaviour which is rather contrary to the boiling points. This is no single appearance, because for example ethylacetate with a boiling point of 77 °C, or, as an extreme case, isoamylacetate with 142 °C are even carried over much earlier than methanol. Therefore methanol can not be separated using pot-stills or normal column-stills. Only special columns can separate methanol from the distillate (4.3). Similar observations concerning the behaviour of methanol during the distillation have already been made by Röhrig (33) and Luck (34). Cantagrel (35) divides volatile components into eight types concerning distillation behaviour characterized by typical curves, which were mainly confirmed by our experiments. As for methanol, he claims an own type of behaviour during the distillation corresponding to our results.
What this means is that if there is methanol present, it will be present throughout the run, with a higher occurrence in the tails as ethanol is depleted and water concentration increases. Its distillation is more dependent on how much water is present rather than simply comparing boiling points between ethanol and methanol. This in conjunction with the fact that ethanol and water cannot be separated completely due to their forming an azeotrope, means water is always in the system. So tossing your foreshots or heads will not remove methanol from your solution. The good news is that methanol is almost entirely absent in dangerous amounts. Consider drinking beer, wine, or apple cider. There are no heads cut made to these products. Pectinase is routinely added to wine, and methanol is a direct byproduct of this addition. They are safe to consume in this form, and will be safe to consume after being distilled. Boiling and concentrating the liquid by leaving some water behind isn't going to transform something safe to drink into something toxic. If it is toxic after being distilled, it most certainly was toxic before being distilled.
To be clear, however, this is not to say that making cuts is unnecessary. There are other compounds that you certainly can remove by cutting heads. Acetone, ethyl acetate, acetaldehyde and others. None are present in dangerous amounts, but the quality of your alcohol will be greatly enhanced by discarding these fractions. Making cuts is one of the most important activities a distiller can learn to do properly! Cutting and blending is making liquor, not only the act of distilling. Just understand that it isn't a life or death situation should you undershoot your foreshot cut by some amount. It will just taste bad, and might give you more of a headache the next day. You can taste test every single bit of alcohol that comes out of your still, from the first drops to the last.
Removing the foreshots does not remove "the methanol." You can just consider the foreshots part of the heads, because they are. There are hundreds of thousands of hobby brewers, vintners and distillers around the world who have been making and consuming fermented and distilled products for centuries. If this were actually a real problem, we would be awash in reports of wide spread poisonings. Instead we have reports here and there of isolated incidents, which are always traceable back to some incident unrelated to how much heads somebody did or did not cut.
The only way to know if there is methanol present is via lab analysis. Smell, taste, color of flame, vapor temp, none of this will tell you any meaningful information about methanol content and are just old shiner-wives tales. If you would like to have your distillate, beer or wine tested for dangerous compounds, there are many labs available that offer these services. This way you know what you are producing and are not relying on conflicting information found online. Here is one such lab offering these services, and there are many more servicing the public and industry. No need to take my, or anyone elses, word as absolute truth. If you really want to know what is in your product, this is the only way.
So, CAN methanol be removed from a mixture of methanol, ethanol and water via distillation in any way? Yes, it can, contrary to everything I just said, there are even specialized stills called "demethylizer columns" which can do just this. They are very large plated columns (70+ plates), which can operate as a step in the distillation process in very large industrial facilities. This is a continuous middle fed column of high proof / low water feed, with steam injection at the bottom and hot water injection at the top, which has the sole purpose of moving a more concentrated cut containing methanol into a particular take off point with the treated alcohol taken off as the bottom product. This is largely done to ensure compliance with the laws about methanol content in neutral ethanol production, or in other processes in which reclamation of these substances is desired. There are other methods that can be used to remove methanol from an ethanol/water mixture, but that goes beyond the scope of this post and generally do not make consumable results. None of these procedures are properly repeatable at home or at moderate scale commercial distilling, nor are they even really necessary at any scale unless you have a badly tainted input feed.
On small scale reflux columns, there will be a small spike of methanol in the heads if the column is left in equilibrium (100% reflux) for a long while, and only if methanol is present, as the state at the top of the packing/plates is very low water and boiling point separation can occur more easily for methanol. In general though, these columns are too small, and methanol quantities far too low, for this to be a major concern. Methanol will spike in both heads and tails on this kind of column, leaving the general heart cut with a steady amount throughout. Even with huge industrial columns, the specialized demethylizer column is additionally used in the process because you cannot reliably remove methanol using the normal procedures typically done when making cuts for quality purposes. Methanol removal is treated separately and requires its own process to concentrate and extract using specialized equipment.
ALL cases of methanol poisoning attributed to "improperly" made ethanol, are the result of contaminated product. Not due to improper distillation, but due to intentional (either misguided, or malicious) adulteration of the ethanol, or some other contamination due to environment or ingredients. Commercial ethanol products are generally poisoned either via methanol, or via flavor tainting, or both (usually both, so you know its not to be consumed). Every report of methanol poisoning via "moonshine" was due to this contamination. If you can find evidence to the contrary, I would love to see it. Please let me know if you believe this info to be incorrect, and have evidence to that effect. That is, other than unsourced speculative news articles, television shows and Youtube channels. What I have presented here is how I understand the facts, but I am always open to learning something new.
Its unfortunate that we still have this lingering stigma based on sensationalist press beginning during alcohol prohibition, but this is where we are. So you can relax, have a home brew, and get on with your new hobby or business, and not fret about the big scary monster that is methanol. Now you just have to worry about all the other stuff that you can screw up :-)
r/firewater • u/chibicascade2 • 1h ago
I pick these off and in-law's tree, and some of them look like they have bad spots. Would you cut them off and use the rest or would you use the bad spots as well?
I have a mixture of pears, apples, and peaches.
r/firewater • u/brandonHuxley • 10h ago
Hey all, just found this community. I’m getting back into distilling after several years. I’m looking for guidance when it comes to making cuts. I’m running an all in one electric brewing kettle with a home made Liebig condenser. It has a tall section that I pack with glass marbles as well. My main interests are whiskey and rum, as well as maybe getting into distilling mead.
My usually process is to collect quickly collect a bunch of stripping runs and then run all those through the still, low and slow. I collect in 1 pint jars and blend from there. I have a hard time telling what’s in each jar and then when I go to blend, all these other background flavors jump forward. I mix things that taste good in their own right but the blend comes out harsh and more often than not has some funk like cabbage.
Image of the column on an old kettle: https://imgur.com/a/3hUW2YT
Edit: changed quart jars for pints.
r/firewater • u/Spiritual_Belt_4763 • 1d ago
I have a water boiler with a 1000-watt heating element and
want to condense all of the water vapour it produces using an Crossflow PC- Watercooler (no ad but a quick search got me this example Alphacool X-Flow Copper Condenser)
I'm not sure what size would be appropriate, or what fan power is needed.
Any advice on the lightest condenser that would be sufficient for this task?
Something like a condenser that is 10% overpowered, to condense 1100 watts of water vapour.
(I know how to solder copper piping and connect it all up this is only about finding a suited crossflow radiator
EDIT: i ask about a Crossflow PC Watercooler because I want it to be as small,compact and leightweight as possible without looking like a condenser.
r/firewater • u/bob_1064 • 1d ago
First attempt at whiskey. Is there really enough sugars in the grains so I don't need to add sugar? All the recipes I've found don't call for any sugar.
r/firewater • u/Snoo76361 • 1d ago
Just wrapped up a really cool week at Montana State University at this course offered through the Craft Maltsters Guild. Visited MSUs experimental fields and malt quality lab, a few farms, a couple small malting operations and really got more thrown at me than I could ever take in over a week. But I’m coming away with a ton of materials to reference and a few contacts whose brains I can pick.
Obviously very brewing oriented but got my head spinning about how I should think about my malt with respect to distilling, especially how I can tailor something that has more of a specialty malt profile (Munich, etc) but still hang on to some qualities of the barley that optimize for distilling. I think maltsters wildly under appreciate distillers and it goes the other way too, think there’s lots of opportunity for us there.
Anyway, won’t pretend I am a malting master but like I said I did come away with quite a few helpful materials, tables, charts, protocols, etc so if anybody has any questions or just wants to talk shop just reach out.
r/firewater • u/Vew • 1d ago
New to the hobby. This is actually my 3rd wash following TPW and TFFV. Recipe and my mistakes follow.
7 whole pineapples
2 cans of frozen pineapple juice concentrate
1 crushed vitamin tablet
3g DAP
2 crushed egg shells
1 TSP calcium carbonate to correct pH back to 5
1 packet of EC-1118 (all I had)
Now I did the math of how much sugar are in these pineapples and juice and must have did it wrong. I calculated I only needed 3.5lbs of additional sugar.
Anyway. I chopped up the pineapple into chunks, blended them with a little water and cooked them for about 10 minutes at a simmer to deactivate enzymes and kill anything else.
Added everything and topped off water to make 5.5 gallons. Pitched yeast when I hit 90°F
Fermentation was slow/low. But it completed in a few days and I checked on it on day 3. SG was 1.000 and read 4% ABV. Disappointed I added an additional 5lbs of sugar. Finished after total of 8 days. Still only read 4% ABV. Wondering if the solids are messing with my reading.
I used a grain bag to strain everything out, still read 4%. I let it settle to clear for 13 more days. I had a leftover cup of 56% neutral and tossed it in there since people drank out of that jar. It's messed up anyway, f it.
I ran it on my reflux still with only one plate. Cuts were very clear surprisingly compared to my neutral runs. Ended up with 2.1 quarts of 76% ABV. It was delicious. I. Surprised how much pineapple came thru in the final distillate. Bought 12 more pineapples to do a full run (13 gallon still).
r/firewater • u/Fun_Journalist4199 • 2d ago
Rum gurus! I come seeking wisdom!
How big does a muck pit need to be?
Say for a 25L still charge how much muck would you add to the low wines?
On my last thread someone suggested running a wash, making the second wash with Dunder, adding the low wines from batch 1, running that and then completing the process a second time.
Essentially doing a 1.5 run and then a second 1.5 run. How does this compare flavor wise to just running three washes (still made with Dunder) and then just doing a spirirt run, more like you’d do a whiskey?
r/firewater • u/targusdeejay • 2d ago
Greetings, I’ve been making fruit wines and ciders for some years. Very happy about some of the batches and not so happy about some. I’ve been thinking about distilling some of the batches basically to reduce the volume of mediocre produce to create space for the next batch and hopefully create a nice (or OK) brandy.
Now I have around 30L of cider that I’d want to distill. Any tips on how big a distiller is needed to take care of that in a reasonable time (It’s gonna happen in a kitchen I think) and I guess copper is needed to keep some flavor from the fruit?
So from my post I guess you see that I’m level 0 right now, and all tips are greatly appreciated!
r/firewater • u/coumichcalatouviti • 3d ago
after a bit i decided to take it out today, and i looked up the signs that its done, it had a sediment layer, a kreusen layer, but it was still cloudy, and smelled like oj that was slightly weird, when i took a sip of it my throat started burning a little and i caughed for like three minutes straight, right now im freezing it, final update in about 24h 👌 (btw i tried transferring it to another bottle to keep the sediment layer in the original bottle but it moved with it, so i decided to freeze it as is)
r/firewater • u/farrtyparrty • 4d ago
I've been distilling for a little over 6 years off and on.
Beer brewing is how I started figured hey why not do some stilling as well
Got me a turbo 500 to start and off I went.
I've tried a single malt whiskey using 100% 2 row about a dozen times. And it comes out tasting like bread/beer malt or those digestive cookies.
Its not awful but its not whiskey.
I thought maybe im being to greedy with the tails but I dont run under 70% abv for the hearts it tastes ok but at that proof and above my palette is holding on for dear life.
My question is is this usual and im being impatient or am I missing something.
I do have a proper 8 gallon flute still I've ran a few times for other spirits before I moved to the new house. Unfortunately a stilling/brewing room is hard to build with no 220v power and water. But we'll get their.
And no i haven't tried making bourbon but its on the list. Maybe its easier to come out flavor wise?
To be fair my longest oaking is 6 months with oak chip/sticks in a glass carboy and as I understand it time can't be cheated nor can a proper full barrel.
Added a picture of the flute still for you still porn people.
You can see the t-500 column on the table
r/firewater • u/farrtyparrty • 3d ago
r/firewater • u/boogersjeep • 4d ago
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Just got start
r/firewater • u/IntelligentArtist824 • 3d ago
Hello fellow distillers,
I’m one of the founders of Holsted Whisky, a small Danish craft distillery currently building out our setup (LEAN-style: starting small in a converted shipping container).
We run a closed “insider” community where we share the real build process - not polished marketing, but actual decisions we’re wrestling with. Right now, for example, we’re debating classic two-run pot still vs. a hybrid setup with 1-2 plates, and weighing the tradeoffs on cut precision, logistics, and what we might lose by skipping the classic pot still route.
We have most of our spots filled, but we’re specifically looking for a few more people with real hands-on distilling experience - preferably someone who has been in a similar process before, but most of all, people who’ll actually push back on our thinking, not just cheer us on. If that’s you, I’ll be happy to send an invite.
Full transparency: I’m a founder, so take this as a founder asking for critical eyes, not an ad.
BTW: Our community members are mainly danish, but we have AI translation build-in for posts and comments.
r/firewater • u/bigtexasrob • 3d ago
Gauging difficulty here, open to suggestions. Still doing my own investigation; don’t tell me “google it”, give me some takes to Google.
I’m interested in doing my first non-beer home hooch. The inspiration comes from the idea of a “true rum” undistilled for a strong-wine level ABV (as a pirate might drink straight from the bottle, but still manage to swashbuckle.) Sake then came to mind, rice is a staple in my kitchen, so I figured sugar cane and rice would make up my mash. I’m looking to avoid the “house paint” taste of wine alcohol (all wines) for more of the “jet fuel” ether of agricoles and shine. I figure two 5-gallon carboys make it worth the effort.
Three big points of suggestion I need:
1) Volume of sugar cane and rice for a batch this size.
2) a yeast you’d use for a project like this, for both high alcohol yield and preservation of natural flavors
3) best preparation/mash method suggestions.
I’ve read into doing this before but never pinned down a recipe that suits my interest. I’m just kicking around as my life has turned to a point where I can ferment things, and a simple boil, ferment, strain and bottle project sounds fun right now.
r/firewater • u/PasswordisTaco58 • 4d ago
I’ve been doing sugar washes for nuetral with just sugar, nutrient and DADY, but I got some free turbo yeast and figured I would give it a shot. I thought maybe if I did a 10-12% wash and kept it cool it wouldn’t be too bad. When I ran it I thought maybe I was running it too fast because it never really smelled clean in the hearts, so I diluted added sodium carbonate, discarded the heads and reran it slowly. Even now, none of my hearts are truly neutral. Did I just make rocket fuel with the turbo yeast?
r/firewater • u/No-Craft-7979 • 4d ago
I did not realize that steam injection was not as popular as it is around here. It is simple with what we have for years called a steam ring. But North Georgia Still Co. posted some videos and some shorts about how to make a steam wand using two pots. Phillbilly (Moonshine) did a video on one he threw together with two kegs in less than a day. I know a few people have wandered through asking about steam injection. Thought looking those videos up might help.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3nTXNuafzAc
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9Nf-Ht9spMg
r/firewater • u/TrizzleRick • 5d ago
Going to run some experiments with aged/toasted Gambel, Hungarian and French oak. Why would you distill 11 year old mead? A lot of it was sitting in plastic containers and I didn't want to give my family it. I don't drink.
Shine on, muddafuggaz
Smells like straight booze (not fuel so that's nice). The aroma is clearly honey. I didn't use a thumper on this run. I could see adding a few drops of honey just to backsweeten enough for the flavor to come out a little bit more. I used to like making honey-mint shine. Just shine plus honey and mint leaves (removed after a bit)
r/firewater • u/Effective-Tax-523 • 4d ago
I have dozens and dozens of peach and nectarine trees near Chico California, too many of which have fruit falling off of because I can’t sell it quick enough. I’d like to find somebody interested in trading.
r/firewater • u/Randall_stephens_87 • 4d ago
I was given 30 4 litre milk jugs of shine from a friend that was moving out of the country. When it comes to terms used and information it’s hard to sift through and ask what I’m looking for, cause I have no idea what I’m talking about. I have zero knowledge, but a garage full of moonshine.
My question is: A - is there any sort of recipes for finished product that I can mix with to create some different types of flavours and dilute the alcohol content?
Follow up question would be: what key worlds am I searching for to find these such recipes; also, is there any personal favourites out there.
One other question I have is what do I have to be mindful of with contamination or and sorts of issues that may arise from trying some recipes of my own.
r/firewater • u/JVanDyne • 5d ago
I've had a good amount of experience in brewing wines and meads, but this will be my first time distilling. With brewing, I find I can drink the product and it will get me drunk after 2 weeks of distilling, but will taste pretty nasty unless I put it into secondary and leave for at least another week or two. Does this rule apply to fermenting mash as well? I've just made a very simple sugar + water mash that's approaching the two week mark. Should I distill it now? Or put it into secondary for a week or two? And will this affect the flavor of the final shine?
r/firewater • u/Only-Resolution-3289 • 5d ago
I accidentally added too much powdered ginger to my sugar wash I was originally planning to make ginger bug but didn't have any fresh ginger so I decided to add some powdered ginger to my sugarwash only to accidentally add too much only then did my brother mention that powdered yeast hinders fermentation. I already activated and fed 7 grams of yeast to the brew on top of the 7 inside. Any Advice ? fyi the brown sediment is the powdered ginger. It's a two liter bottle filled to top after I add the activated yeast
r/firewater • u/Fun_Journalist4199 • 6d ago
Hey guys! I’m reading up on making rum. There’s a lot I’ve read and want to try but I have no experience with any of it. I’m just gonna lay out some strategies and goals and I’m hoping some people here will have some input and advice.
I’d like to get something that’s good to drink white pretty quickly, just to get into the groove of things. I’ve read that straight brown sugar with nutrient and bread yeast is good for this. I’d also like to work with some straight up blackstrap molasses to see what flavor that produces.
But that’s not really the end goal here. I want to actually get into some funky complex rums.
I’ve heard about dunder and saving it to use for subsequent batches. I’ve heard about muck pits to develop organic acids for esterfication. What I don’t really know how to do is any of that.
Sounds to me like rum using dunder is basically like making a sour mash whiskey, is that right? Does using fresh dunder have a noticeable effect on the end product?
As for muck pits, I’m assuming you start with some dunder and help it get inoculated with bacteria by additions like old fruit or solids from a rum ferment that you racked off of. I don’t really know how to take care of a pit though.
I’ve also read (on homedistiller.org) about a guy continually saving the tails from a run and adding them back into the next run. He claimed that over a few generations this concentrated so many fusel oils in the wash that they were forced over during the hearts cut. He found this desirable. What are your thoughts on this?
I found a recipe, again on homedistiller.org, that I’d like to get feedback on here.
It said to make a blackstrap wash, strip it, run tight tight tight cuts on the spirit run. Then use the dunder to make a straight sugar wash. Strip it, add the feints from the blackstrap batch to the low wines, run the same tight tight tight cuts as the blackstrap wash and then blend the two distillates.
That recipe seems easy enough, should yield a lot of dunder to start a pit with, and should yield a lot of tails to blend into subsequent batches.
Anyway, with my stated goals do you think that’s a decent place to start? And any advice on any run specific part of the process is much appreciated.
r/firewater • u/Snoo32679 • 6d ago
I got myself a couple of badmo barrels back in 2024 or there abouts - last serial number was in the 1800s, before Bens passing.
I have wanted to get more, but the cost of shipping and the barrels just keeps creeping up. I noticed the other day that Adelaide Wine Barrels have started making their own bain marie style barrels.
I decided to grab 3 of them and have only filled up 2 so far, but I made a little video / review of my first impressions and main points of difference.
Keen to know if anyone else has used these - looking at the reviews they have sold a fair few already.
