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You'll never get rid of the burn, you only get used to the effect of ethanol on your throat. The glycerine is really only necessary if you don't redistill when you're using a basic pot still like the one I used in this video. I don't use that still anymore and no longer use glycerine at all. But you only have to get rid of the heads and tails on the first round, those chemical elements don't come back and have to be removed again. As for barrel proof, it needs to be 120 or less, or you will pull unwanted chemicals and elements out of the wood.

Thanks for clearing that up for me, I appreciate it.

I've changed stills since this video and invented a smart still controller system. See this TH-cam short video. th-cam.com/users/shortsey3eZ-AycLk

No, I ferment on the grain. These days I ferment in a 10 gallon insulated cooler and just transfer everything, including the brew bag over to it.

The one that I got is no longer available, but there are plenty of others out there that would be an equivalent. You want one that you can adjust the temperature on because one that distills water only will run too hot and you'll get too much water in your distillate.

@@PanhandlePonics Thank you.

Luckily, I finally annoyed the owner of that weak little IT business into getting rid of me in January. It didn't take too long to find work at another company who actually preferred that I know what I'm doing without any lame certifications that only prove that I memorized answers long enough to pass a test at some time in the past.

Did you measure your gravity with a hydrometer before and after adding your yeast? If it's all settle out at the bottom, that's usually a sign that the fermentation is done. But, having those two gravity readings is definitely the guaranteed way to know.

@@PanhandlePonics thank you so much for your reply. I did, it was 1065 ish. I had a little taste with my finger and it’s very sweet 😀

If it's still sweet, I'm betting it hasn't dropped much below the 1.065 mark, I would check it now. I can't predict what caused the fermentation to stall because there are so many things that could cause it. But the top 3 would be temperature, pH, and bad yeast.

@@PanhandlePonics I poured it all out, starting again tomorrow from scratch 🤦🏻‍♂️ you guys make it look so easy

Bummer, you're just further behind now. It would have been an easy fix. If you do things the same way, it will just fail the same way. Test your yeast to make sure that it's good and make sure that you're adding enough. Temperature and pH are also important to stay on top of because both will also cause a fermentation to stall if they're too far out of range.

Thanks! A guy in Sweden has designed what you would call a "Raspberry Pi Hat" circuit board to simplify assembly so a person can just upload the design file to any PCB maker and order one already assembled. You just have to connect the sensors and motors at that point. I will be doing the same thing with the digital hydrometer part of it.

Because that wouldn't be anywhere near as reliable. Same reason why your house has faucets rather than adjusting the power to individual pumps. Once you slow down a pump so far, nothing comes out of it even though the motor is still moving. You would have to change to a paristaltic pump after that to keep water moving.

In most cases, you can use 3.3 volts to drive 5 volt logic devices, but it didn't work with these. Very well could be due to the activity indicator LEDs loading down the Raspberry PI GPIO output.

When you run the "Calibrate Valves" function in the UI, it times the valves from closed to full open and then again in reverse. The total milliseconds in both directions are averaged and divided by 100 in order to know how long to run each valve for every 1% movement. This is part of the temperature management so it can set target temperatures and maintain them.

Nice. That explains the choice of valves with externally accessible limit switches which are a little bit more expensive than the 3-wire type.

Yes, even though the valve will automatically stop itself, I need to be able to tell when the valve is at either end of the range in order to time them and so my code knows when to stop trying to run the motor.

Crazy things happen when a software engineer gets a still, and then has too much time to think. LOL

Hahahaha, I've got a T 500 reflex still as well and YES the water system leaves a lot to be desired, I put a 200mm spool and a sight glass on mine to up the proof a bit ... I get about 94% on a good day a lot depends on the water temp too and how slow ya want to run it. Good luck mater. From Aussie.@@PanhandlePonics

I'm not a rum guy, so I don't like sweet feed shine because of that rum taste that the molasses gives it. My go-to anymore is just cracked corn and Quaker Oats. I use high temperature liquid enzymes now and don't even need to bother with adding sugar anymore. I can get a 1.070 gravity reading from just converting the starch.

Yep, about 30 minutes from the Wyoming state line.

Depends on what you spend on your ingredients. Anything you make at home isn't burdened with taxes. With nothing but a 40 pound bag of cracked corn for $15 and high efficiency liquid enzymes, that corn alone could turn into 5 gallons of 80 proof clear moonshine. Try to buy even one gallon in a store for $15.

Likely kill the yeast. Any preservatives that end with "ite" or "ate" will kill yeast as well as salt.

Glad it was helpful! I've been a little sidetracked with other necessity tasks around here that sneaked up on me just as winter hit. Hoping to have all that wrapped up before the end of the month so I can get back on this project again.

See this page, these are the kind of experts that I deal with. larryathey.com/whats-taking-those-experts-so-long/

No, the second Q&A video and the GitHub page both explain why that's not possible with any brand without the use of thousands of dollars worth of scientific lab equipment. That's why distilleries use a continuous still with bubble plate towers that span multiple stories of their building.

Thanks! I forgot what all I covered in this video. Funny, 2 years ago I had the wild idea of controlling that still with a Raspberry Pi computer and today it's a reality. github.com/larry-athey/rpi-smart-still

No, the enzymes can't eat through the skins to convert the starch to sugar

Most everybody who does this stuff grinds their own grains. I don't because I don't have a grain mill or the room for one.

No, it's left to cool overnight

I just use two part liquid high temp enzymes now, totally solves that problem once and for all.

I spent about 2 years thinking about it before I made my move to start building it. I kept waiting for these people to do something that kept saying that they "were" going to do it and then just gave up waiting on them. I don't have any experience with a fractional column or continuous still, so I don't know what I'd do to support one of those. I guess I considered those to be already pretty much automatic since they are in a commercial distillery.

First, there will be documentation in the GitHub repository covering each module with schematics and layout on a breadboard to make them easy to understand. After the official first release, I will do videos on the build of each module as I build them for sales stock.

@@PanhandlePonicsawesome thank you for this, it’s been very interesting looking forward to the future videos

You wouldn't gain anything by measuring the temperature of the input water. If the discharge water temp is higher than the value that you set in a program, it just increases the flow until it does drop or the still gives up and halts with an error.

That would be another reason why I got rid of that big ugly monster still and replaced it with a T-500 system. If you check out my smart still controller videos I've uploaded lately, my still has a nice hiding place behind a door in my laundry room.

Seeutek, but Amazon shows it as no longer available. But there are lots of other ones from different brands that have adjustable temperature control.

Air still sold by still spirits is a popular brand@@PanhandlePonics

Yep, I just wanted one that was adjustable instead of their one-trick-pony air stills.

I honestly don't remember, that video was too long ago. Sometimes I dumped the parrot, sometimes I went straight to the jar and dumped it.

That's another reason the temperature sensor is on there and controls the condenser valve flow. But, explaining that part to the average distiller would go in one ear and right out the other.

@@PanhandlePonics but all us children on your channel are above average ;) (to paraphrase Garrison K)