How to use the apparatus
How to use the apparatus
When the happy day arrives when the mash has at last finished fermenting it is time to distil. Pour 8 litres in the 10-litre container and place it in the 25 litre container and switch on the immersion heater. If you place the still in a cool atmosphere the process will proceed a little faster and you will get a somewhat higher strength. Otherwise ordinary room temperature will do. Stop the distillation when you have 3 litres in the 25-litre container, which takes 3 – 4 days. Allow the apparatus to cool down a little and then pour away the remaining contents of the 10 litre vessel. In the bottom of the 25-litre container you have spirit, which is to be purified through activated carbon. Store it in, for example, a keg. Then you just distil the next 8 litre batch of mash and then the last 8 litres. Now you have 9 litres of spirit to purify.
Alternative method
If you are not satisfied with an alcohol strength of 35-40% another procedure can be followed. Distil a good 8 litres measure of mash as usual but wait until you have 4 litres of spirit instead of three. Repeat this with the rest of the mash. After this you are left with 12 litres of weak spirit. Clean out the apparatus and distil the 12 litres you have just distilled. Now you have a higher strength and a more pure spirit. It is possible to get out 7 – 8 litres of 50% spirit. You will now have a remaining 10% of spirit in the 10-litre vessel, which you can add to the next batch of mash (after it has finished fermenting).
More methods…
The apparatus is inexpensive, so you can make two. Use them as follows:
Distil as usual, but remove 4 litres of distillate. Redistill when you have 8 litres of distillate and remove 4-5 litres, this is your product. The remaining in the 10-litre bucket after re-distillation is topped up with mash and distilled, save that for re-distillation. As soon as you have 8 litres of distillate again you redistill it and remove 4-5 litres. And the cycle goes on.
The advantage with two stills is that you get a stronger and cleaner spirit as it is double-distilled. The procedure is just as quick as using one apparatus although it involves a little more work.
Yet another method is to break off distilling earlier, instead of 3 litres you make 2 – 2 ½ litres. The first alcohol to emerge is actually stronger. Then you can collect another 2 litres and redistill those later.
It is difficult to utilize all the alcohol formed in the mash with this apparatus. So what? Mash is cheap to produce and the still produces enough alcohol anyway.