Amen!!🌷

What a treasure trove of information huh

Patreon!

What happened to George?

@@ivotheg2397 George is running his business and spending time with his family is what I’ve been told. You Tube was taking a lot of time away from him. Too many phone calls and emails.

You are so welcome!

I appreciate that!

Very well done Chuck. George

@@BarleyandHopsBrewing Coming from the King those are high words of honor

And now if a batch of wine or cider doesn't come out the way you like just distill it in reflux mode and turn it into ethanol like i do

I do a lot of Motorsports so I'm also looking into making fuel as well.

@@Stachebilly Just remember that you have to remove the water before you can use it i use those packs that come in everything now days to draw it out l have a friend who owns a shoe store save them for me but you're taking a much larger scale then the bit i use to keep my jets clean

Best to start with a simple sugar wash and then grow from there once you get the hang of it.

Isn't it great that he takes the time to teach us for free when there are others out there that charge thousands for the very same information.

Color of flame is a bad indication. First methanol burn clear to very light blue. The color your flame burns is going to depend on type of still and how hard it's ran taking off the early drops. Alcohols with single carbon molecules is going to burn cleaner than alcohols like Ethanol with 2 carbon atoms. These do NOT come out in a specific order contrary to what many people think and anyone who has looked a gas spectro reports will intimately know this. Methanol comes out the WHOLE RUN. So stop setting your liquor on fire as it's a useless indicator and will burn differently depending on what you used for the mash, ie fruit, grains, cane sugar, molasses, etc. Some flames are hard to see and are an accident waiting to happen. If you don't set you gas can on fire to test it, don't set your liquor on fire either. At least stop doing it in the house.

@@carloayars2175 Thanks for the advice, which I followed before I got it. I admit to being fairly new to distillation, and have gone about it slowly. 1 of George's uploads showed a burn of bright yellow, according to him, as I recall, being mainly methanol. I DO understand that methanol isn't just the first few drops, and will continue throughout the run. I have been making wine for close to 6 years, and beer for around 3 years. As George has said repeatedly we don't worry about the amount of methanol in these fermentations. I ferment corn (flaked and pre-gelatinized) and barley, all barley, and have done a few experimental runs adding wheat, red or white, and smaller amounts of Rye. Using the Mr. Distiller Air Still, a 1 gallon "plug and play", it is nearly an automatic process. I collect 200 ML at a time thru the run and store all separate. I usually ferment 6 + gallons, and never reach 7. The still runs at it's preset temp, so that is out of user control. I have read several books on distillation and watch (ed) many videos concerning higher end distillates, methanol, acetone etc.... As is obvious from me being here. And yes, I am very much away from other flammables when I ignite those 1st 5-10 drops. I do so to give my own mind a line of similarity or difference, between subsequent runs. I am doing all this, probably OVERDOING it, as kind of a base line, just for my own knowledge...or peace of mind....maybe ? If I were to get a major difference in flame, I would probably do my collection a bit different, for that complete run. So far that has not been a problem as all have been very similar. I ignite in a large spoon, in near darkness, WITH GREAT CARE. BTW, the instructions that came with the air still makes no mention of collecting fore shots or heads at all. It says to simply collect the 1st 700 ML and stop at that point. I DO appreciate your input, 100% ! I am here to learn and have learned a lot. I admit to still being basically a beginner, got this still a year ago and have kept it going at a pretty good clip, lol. I am purposely holding off on taking the next step, still wise, as a way of NOT getting ahead of myself and making stupid mistakes. I know that when I do get my next ( and probably last) still, it will be like starting from scratch. The learning process will begin again and be a whole new ball game... But, with what I have learned in the last year, and the previous year of researching how to actually get started in distillation, I will be a step ahead of where I would have been had I bought a "real" still to start. Thanks again for the advice and sharing of knowledge. Happy Distilling 👍👍

@@wldtrky38 I've read a lot about that little still but never owned one. But distillation is distillation more or less. I don't know how you run it but to make a bit cleaner spirit you can do 3 or 4 strip runs. Just run it from your wash. During the strip run maybe dump the first 50 ml as foreshots and then collect it until it's mostly water coming out. Do that 3 to 4 times until you now have roughly a gallon of these "low wines" to put back in the Air Still. Now reload it with the low wines and run it again. The advantage of doing that is instead of an 8 to 10% wash you'll have a boiler of 35% wash so 3.5 to 4 times the alcohol to start with for the spirit run. Now during this run throw out the first 50 ml as foreshots and save each 100 ml after that into separate jars. You'll end up with roughly 7 to 8 jars. You could also save 50 ml to each jar and have roughly 15 of them. Leave jars open and covered with a tower for a day to air out. Now you can start with the middle jars which should be hearts and work down, then up to see which jars have a good taste and which are to "pungent" to make your keep jar. Those that don't make the keep jar put into a rerun jar you'll call feints. Feints still have a lot of useful alcohol that can be reran with the next spirit run or saved until you have enough feints to rerun by themselves. Remember most alcohols ran in a pot still are double distilled (rum, brandy, whiskey) and some are even triple distilled. Oh yea unless you are trying to make pot stilled vodka remove the carbon block/filter for "flavored" spirits and you don't want the carbon in it for them. I've thought about picking up an Airstill to use for making gin in from my GNS. I think it would compliments my other stills ranging from 20 to 120 liters. I think it would be a nice little "development" still.

That's what i use mine for after i open a few of those moisture packs that they put into everything now days to draw out any water that comes over then you just strain them out and into your gas tank. Btw Mike do you ever get over to the East Coast

Chuck Naturale no, I stay pretty much over here in Southwest Florida and that’s about it. I used to travel a lot more back when I was doing things for the Florida Council of the blind; before I had to go back on dialysis. Hey, give George a call and he’ll give you my phone number, and give me a call sometime; let’s talk shop. Take care and keep safe!

@@blindguy63 I sure will Mike l look forward to talking with you

Well said.

Thank you Jason I really enjoyed doing it

Greta info. Thanks. This will be helpful to others

Happy distilling from the Syracuse NY area

Doubtful. You have something going on that needs to be isolated though.

The level of acetone varies with each batch and is oncluded in the fore shots and heads. There is no additional separation point for just acetone or the other 12 or so varieties of alcohols in these cuts.

It's good for gun cleaning and removing glue residue from when you change your mind politically and have to get rid of a Beto for Pres bumper sticker. Just keep that stuff OFF OF THE PAINT!!!

Excellent

At 20% in a 5 gallon batch that would be 1 gallon way more than the 4 ounces George is talking about

That is true. i don't think you understood my comment.

You have a good plan. Why don't you do this and let us know how it turns out. Just saying////.....

@@BarleyandHopsBrewing I have which is why I'm suggesting you too do this and you'll see why aluminium isn't such as great idea.

Welcome to the dark side