It's not complicated at all?

Still Crazy after all these years!

By the light of the silvery moonshine.

Humpback enjoyed the time (longer than expected) for distillation by enjoying some of our great Humpback Brewed Beers from the keg and also from the 'vault'!
The result was crystal clear alcohol, ready to be passed over active charcol to remove any lingering taste, smell and colour.
*see Spirit 1 for details of the brew.

Cornelius Kegging Bits and Pieces

Each Cornelious keg has two ports/posts.
The "liquid-out" port or 'post' has a long tube which reaches to the bottom of the keg. The end of the tube sits in a small circular well that ensures that every drop is available.
When pressurised gas (Carbon Dioxide) is forced into the "gas-in" port/post, it pushes the liquid from the bottom of the keg, out of the "liquid-out" port/post.
Although we do not have a programmed schedule of cleaning or maintenance of the 'posts' we had some time while kegging our recent brews so we checked and cleaned the posts and tube.

Clean and Keg!

Decisions... made easy!

Great Weather for brewing Pilsner

The cool change (we LOST an ENTIRE Summer this year) ensured that our APA & Pilsner (larger) had a consistent, slow fermentation. The POPPING is stopping! Time to larger and a final 'dry hop'!

Spirit 1 START your Engines!

Alcohol

POT stills enable you to produce a product that will have some of the charateristics (flavours) of the mash eg. Schnapps and Whisky etc.

REFLUX or FRACTIONATING stills are what we BORROW to make neutral tasteless alcohol that we flavour later.

What we did...
Cleansed our 25l fermenter
Added 8kg of the cheapest sugar we could buy
Dissolved the sugar by adding boiling water until fully dissolved
Added tap water to make up a total of 20l
The adding of the yeast/nutrient is not as critical as beer/wine brewing/making BUT we did ensure that the 'wash' temp. was below 30C
The initial specific gravity (SG) was around 1.06 - 1.07
Ferment the wash at +25oC -30oC until airlock stops bubbling- gotta love the bubble both for sound and smell.
Let settle for a day, then syphon carefully into the still
We plugged in the still and started heating...
Start the cooling water- we use the rainwater water tank water and pumped it back into the tank. Gotta love our council for subsidising our still!
The heated water will be cooled by the condensor once the temp. gets to about 50-60oC, then once it has started distilling; discard the first 50 mL's, this may contain some methanol, we would LOVE to try this in the car!

Collect the distillate
Kept any left overs (wash) & distillate which smells (yucky) to be added to the next wash. Never waste a drop, it can be cleaned up then.

The 'neutral spirit' is diluted  down to 30-50 % purity.
Filter through activated charcol/carbon to help clean up any flavours or colours still present.
Dilute it down to drinking strength (20-40%) It's WAY too strong even after just one distillation.
Then the spirit is aged and flavoured using either commercial essences, oak chips, fruits, botanicals etc..

Brew 14 Noth'n like a GREAT Belgium Blond

(LAGER) BELGIUM-Stella Artois- Belgian Blond Ale

Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L):           71.0
Total Grain (kg):         15.435
Total Hops (g):           93.22
Original Gravity (OG):    1.050  (°P): 12.4
Final Gravity (FG):       1.013  (°P): 3.3
Alcohol by Volume (ABV):  4.91 %
Colour (SRM):             3.3   (EBC): 6.4
Bitterness (IBU):         20.6   (Average)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 75
Boil Time (Minutes):      60

Grain Bill
----------------
15.435 kg Pilsner (100%)
Hop Bill
----------------
50.0 g Pride of Ringwood Pellet (9.6% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (0.7 g/L)
43.2 g Saaz Pellet (3.6% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil) (0.6 g/L)
Misc Bill
----------------
Single step Infusion at 65°C for 60 Minutes.
Fermented at 10°C with Saflager S-23
Recipe Generated with BrewMate
Beauty Duane
http://www.countrybrewer.com.au/pages/Toukley.html

Brew 13 Golden Ale- the APA Way!

(ALE) AUS-Golden Ale- American Pale Ale
Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L):           47.0
Total Grain (kg):         9.631
Total Hops (g):           125.00
Original Gravity (OG):    1.048  (°P): 11.9
Final Gravity (FG):       1.012  (°P): 3.1
Alcohol by Volume (ABV):  4.72 %
Colour (SRM):             7.0   (EBC): 13.8
Bitterness (IBU):         34.0   (Average)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 75
Boil Time (Minutes):      60
Grain Bill
----------------
5.990 kg Pilsner (62.19%)
3.020 kg Wheat Malt (31.36%)
0.454 kg Munich II (4.71%)
0.091 kg Crystal Medium (0.94%)
0.076 kg Chocolate (0.79%)

Hop Bill
----------------
25.0 g Galaxy Pellet (14.5% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (0.5 g/L)
30.0 g Amarillo Pellet (9.3% Alpha) @ 12 Minutes (Boil) (0.6 g/L)
40.0 g Amarillo Pellet (9.3% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil) (0.9 g/L)
30.0 g Amarillo Pellet (9.3% Alpha) @ 1 Minutes (Boil) (0.6 g/L)
Misc Bill
----------------
Single step Infusion at 66°C for 60 Minutes.
Fermented at 20°C with Safale US-05

Recipe Generated with BrewMate
Beauty Duane
http://www.countrybrewer.com.au/pages/Toukley.html