Distillation: The first go

05 June, 2005

Set up the distiller this morning, got the wash into it and plugged it in. The temperature slowly went up and then suddenly jumped from 35 to 70 degrees. Steadied out once the water was turned on and the alcohol started to run. Took about 4 hours to collect 3 litres and then another few hours to filter through the carbon. That stage was surprisingly slow actually. We had all our clean bottles and started adding flavours in and mixing up the spirits. We ended up with two bottles of whisky, a coconut rum, two bottles of melon schnapps, a bottle of irish cream and a few bottles of basic alcohol until we get some more flavours. All in all a successful exercise and we’re looking forward to a) having a party soon and b) moving on to the next lot.

03 June, 2005

Fermentation took longer than expected but we have had a pretty bad cold snap…and the whole winter thing in general. The fermentation went quiet a few days back and I have just put the clearing agents in. On Sunday I’ll start distilling. We need to get a few more flavours to try out and a few more bottles (I knew keeping old 1 litre alcohol bottles was a good idea).

14 May, 2005

After much decision making I went down to Your Shout Brewing Supplies one more time to have a chat about distilling alcohol and bought a distilling kit. Have just set up the first wash and have two flavours to try: whisky and coconut rum. It’s a fascinating process and I’m looking forward to the distilling part of it. The fermentation process supposedly takes about a week to complete so hopefully I can start playing with it all next weekend.