This week we have The Distiller Network join us on the show to talk about how they build handmade copper stills in the USA. We also discuss the process of distilling.
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Show Transcript
AI created it will have many errors.
Colter: Back to homebrewing DIY the podcast that takes on the do it yourself, aspect of home, brewing gadgets, contraptions, and parts. The show covers it all on this week’s show. We’re going to talk to John Sajak. And we’re going to talk to him about how he is making handmade stills in New Hampshire. We’re also going to talk a bit about the distilling process and what that looks like.
So if you were into distilling it all, this will be the show for you. But first I’d like to thank all of our patrons over at Patrion. It’s because of you that the show can come to you week after week. I’d like to thank our newest patron, Andrew Sensen and Andrew, thank you so much for signing up for Patrion.
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What’s going on here in the brewery here at homebrewing DIY, I would say I got a ton going on. I I’m going to brew a batch of beer this week. I was planning on brewing with Ryan pack Meyer, but I kind of feel like right now because of COVID things are a little scary and, uh, I think me and the family are going to hunker down here for a while, just considering it’s getting bad out there.
So I will say to any of our listeners right now stay safe. It’s a scary time when it comes to what’s going on with the current pandemic and. You know, Bruce and beer and enjoy it is a, the time to get into the hobby and really deep dive. And that that’s really all I got to say. I think I’m going to do, I was planning on doing a, another pseudo lager and I think I might do that.
And I might even do a two batch day. Cause I do want to do some sort of Christmas beer or winter L might use that for gifts. So those are kind of what are in the planning. I will say that on our episode last week, we got a ton of feedback and I’m excited to know that. And we’ll get into feedback at the end of the show as we always do.
But I do want to point out that we kind of talked about our iron beer challenge, where we’re going to have homebrewers send in beers and we’re going to do a tasting against classic examples of that style. We’ll get a couple of BJC P judges, and those judges will judge your beer. We’ll give you feedback, live on the air with the brewer, and we’re going to see if you can compare to the classic example in that style.
Pretty excited to say that we’ve already had a couple of people. Respond to want to participate. So super excited. We’ll have our first one coming up here next month in December. So keep an eye out for that show. Very, very excited. The last kind of announcement that I have that has to do with the show is it is getting close to the holidays.
Thanksgiving is next week and we are getting geared up for our Homebrew hack show. That is the show where Evan. From the old town mash paddlers, and I get together once a year and we’re going to talk about how the different hacks and tips and tricks that homebrewers have. And we’re going to read them live on the air.
So if you have a tip or a trick or a hack or something you do to make your brew day easier, mail them to us, just head over to homebrewing, DIY wide up here. Fill out the contact form and let us know what your Homebrew hack is. Just put in there. Homebrew hack. If you would like to just shoot us an email, you can send an email to podcast at homebrewing DIY and in the subject line, just put Homebrew hack.
I’ll save that away and we’ll read them on the air. So very, very excited for the Homebrew hack show. That is one of my favorite shows and. If you go back and look at the back catalog, the Homebrew hack show is also one of our top listened to episodes. So definitely a favorite of our audience. So we will do that.
The last episode of 2020 will be our Homebrew hack show. So stay around for that. Let’s jump into this week’s show where we’re going to talk to John over at the distilling network about. Moonshining with a copper steel.
I’d like to welcome John Z Jack to homebrewing. DIY, how are you doing John?
John: Good. Good. Thank you.
Colter: We had some issues getting the audio to work and we’re finally up and running. So, thank you so much for coming on home brewing DIY.
John: Oh, you’re welcome. Thanks for having me now.
Colter: John is the owner and proprietor of the distillery network throughout a Manchester New Hampshire. And tell us a bit about what you do with the distillery.
John: Uh, we make copper moonshine stills, traditional Appalachian style moonshine stills. We’re up here in New Hampshire, uh, 45 minutes North of Boston, Massachusetts. And a lot of people buy our product to make alcohol, but they’re actually used for a wide variety of things.
Um, like I said, the majority of our customers make moonshine, um, and moonshine can be made from many different, um, fermentable materials, but, um, a lot of people are using our product to make their own hand sanitizer, uh, distilled water, essential oils, fragrances perfumes, the list goes on and on.
Colter: Yeah, I was looking on your website and I was blown away at all of the different uses for your stills. I liked that you had an entire section for preppers. I thought that was pretty awesome.
John: Nice, thanks. Thanks for, thanks for looking.
Colter: And I noticed that when you were, you, you specifically talked about things like when we talked on the phone and I got your voicemail, you were saying that you’ve had a lot of demand for hand sanitizers.
John: Yeah, actually, uh, Police fire the department of Homeland security, larger construction companies all around have been calling nonstop for hand sanitizer. I actually just make moonshine stills. I don’t make the hand sanitizer. So, the home use people that need the hand sanitizer. Those are the customers that have been coming our way as well to buy our product. So not only can you make alcohol, you can use that alcohol to make your own hand sanitizer.
Colter: Obviously, we’re in the middle of a pandemic hand sanitizer for a long time, which I can now get in a grocery store it’s November and we can still get it. We’ll see, we’ll see, in a couple of months as the pandemic is raging again, but the idea is that you can actually buy hand sanitizer again, but for a minute there, I would say last spring, it was the top thing to get in the United States. And I’m sure what, what was that like for you guys?
John: Don’t forget to just a few years ago, a gallon of water in Houston, Texas with the floods was a hundred dollars a gallon.
Colter: I didn’t even think about that. Didn’t even think about that and you know, being out. John: Yeah, well, it is a shame that people are hoarding and price gouging, but that is the day that we time that we’re living in here. It’s great to be self-reliant and having a tool like this can keep you prepared in case of a natural disaster, worst case scenario.
Colter: Yeah. And that’s actually a case for a, a still that I’ve never thought about, but Hey, we’re, we’re all homebrewers on this show. If we’re going to, I would say that if anybody listened to the show is looking at getting a, still, the chances are, they’re probably going to use it to make alcohol that they can consume. And then all of the other benefits are going to be a side thing, because they’re gonna be like, Hey, I gotta still, I can do this.
John: Well, it’s funny you say that, it’s funny you say that because my recipe to make moonshine is actually to go to the store and I buy the highest percentage alcohol by volume, and I go back and distill it through my moonshine store and it does come out hoppy, but I like the flavor and I actually hide it a little bit with the vanilla bean.
So it’s not too hoppy. That’s a great, great way to easy way to make moonshine. A lot of people think I’m a rocket scientist for Bruin moonshot, moonshine out of beard, but I’m just looking at a beer can. And I say, Oh, that’s 5% alcohol by volume. All my customers buy their moonshine stills and they try to get 15, 20% alcohol by volume in there in their still to distill.
Why can’t we just distill beer? So I tried it and I’ve been having great success. And I, like I said, I hide the beer flavors and the beer smell that still carries over. I hide that with the vanilla bean and that’s an awesome recipe, but my challenge, all my customers to make their own recipes, as you might know, Brandy is actually distilled wine.
Colter: And, and kind of one of the cool things, when we think about the fact that beer can be distilled, it’s kind of one of those things where if you take a 5% beer and you distill it, right, all you’re doing is getting rid of everything, but that 5% of alcohol, right? So, you’re going to need a lot more beer at a 5% beer to get less alcohol than if you have a 10% beer, you’re going to have more alcohol leftover for the same volume of beer. Is that correct?
John: Exactly. Exactly. And that made me think of something. There’s a state representative that contacted us here a couple of years ago, because there was a bill being introduced to make distilling legal. And that actually one of his talking points to his bill was listen. When people have wine and they make, they make wine, you guys are letting people make wine.
Well, all we’re doing is we’re taking the alcohol, that’s in the wine and we’re stripping it out. We’re not creating more alcohol. We already had the alcohol in the wine or the beer. We’re just using mother nature’s different boiling points to separate the alcohol from the water. So that was actually a talking point where the alcohol is already in there.
It’s not like we’re making more. You know, we can measure it. We know how much is in this wine. Why can’t the American citizen on their own accord, uh, rip that alcohol out of the beer or out of the wine and do whatever they want with it, which you can do a lot more than getting drunk. You can run your own lawn mower.
If you set up right, your car engine, you could heat your house with it. There’s plenty of things you can do with the alcohol.
Colter: Yeah. And one of the things that I want to kind of point out here and something we should mention distilling alcohol for consumption is still illegal in the United States. It is a federal offense.
If you get busted doing it, you could possibly go to jail. That being said, there’s a lot of people that are doing it and they’re not doing it to sell it or anything like that. Just like a home brewer for a long time. Homebrewers in the 1970s were brewing beer at home and it was illegal. My grandfather brewed beer when he was, when I was way before I was ever born and made wine.
And all of that was illegal until 1978. And so, in all reality, all it would take is somebody to change the law, to allow home distilling and all of a sudden, boom, it would be illegal thing. Right?
John: Yeah. Yeah. I think they could make a lot of money if they, if they legalized it and kept track. When I first started the industry, we were asked in this industry, we were asked from the TTB of the government agency that keeps track of all this stuff to report sales.
We did for our first quarter. And then they sent the letter back saying, yep, thanks for reporting. You don’t have to report anymore, but please keep the stuff on file. And they’d never came back since that was in 2014. What I assume this is just me. Nobody told me this. What I assume is that they realized, Holy crap, this market is huge.
We’re never going to be able to keep track of this, plus what are they going to really do it? Knock down the doors and steal the person’s moonshine still and arrest everybody for, you know, I think that the government agencies have a lot more, a bigger fish to fry is what I was thinking.
Colter: Yeah. And what I would say to somebody who’s thinking about distilling. If you’re doing it for yourself for personal consumption, you’re not flaunting it out everywhere. You’re not trying to sell it. I think the chances of you getting caught are probably right.
John: Oh yeah. Like my father always says, partners are for dancing.
Colter: Exactly.
John: You shouldn’t be telling anybody what you’re doing. I recommend that to my customers all the time. Oh, me and my buddy, this and that. And I just tell him to just do it yourself. Yeah, you’re walking in the grayer. I call this the bong of alcohol. So, it was just like, uh, tobacco, bong, or tobacco pipe. If you put marijuana and it then becomes illegal, but you know, that’s why we’re able to get away with it.
Nobody’s came knocking down our door because they’re essentially water distillation units. And I always say it would be a shame if somebody told us that we can’t have a water distillation unit. Now if my customers are going and making moonshine and selling it, that they’re obviously dodging taxes and that’s bad, what they’re supposed to do, what everybody in America is supposed to do is get a registration within their local town.
And I’m actually hearing that the process is much faster than it has been. Maybe that’s because everybody getting it cause for the hand sanitizer, I don’t know, but each town and city is different. You have the guy or girl comes to your place and he says, yes, this is a safe place that is still as per our codes or no, you cannot distill here.
Now. I don’t know the specifics of the regulations, but basically, it’s an ethanol fuel permit. People are getting a permit to make their own ethanol. And what they’re doing obviously is drinking it after the fact. Now there’s another permit you can get to actually become a distillery where you pay a percentage based off of the alcohol by volume that you’re selling to the general public.
I don’t know the specifics on that either. I’m more, just a manufacturer of the moonshot. I still was trying to save the planet. One moonshot is still working.
Colter: I like that. You’re saving the planet one Chen when Shane still all the time. Well, most of the people that listen to the show are homebrewers right. And I’m sure they’re. I know that I’ve done a couple of shows on distilling. I’ve had, you know, barley and hops from YouTube over on the show, and we’ve definitely talked about distilling, but. I want to talk as if, Hey, I I’m a homebrewer. I’ve never even thought that this was something I could do.
Obviously, we talked about the fact that you can take beer and distill it, but, and in looking at your stills, these are, these are really, really high-quality stills. They’re a hundred Mo they’re a hundred percent copper for the most part. I think you also do stainless steel as well, but the idea is let let’s, let’s kind of start there in the material. What’s the difference between like copper and a stainless-steel bill.?
John: Well, the difference between copper and a stainless steel is still, there’s a couple different things. One is magic. The copper actually rips out the sulfates makes the alcohol taste better, but before we go further, I can’t really take too much credit.
My father actually got me in the industry, his website, Stephen stills, STI, llc.com. It’s his. Design, what happened was I was working with him and I said, dad, listen, you want to build the big stills? I want to, I see a huge opportunity with the small ones, the small little countertop stills, you know, and I asked him if I could build in my own shop, he said, yes.
And he thinks a small cut. So, the difference between these stainless and the copper ones, the stainless are more durable. They’re much easier to clean. They do not oxidize like the copper ones, but if you want to replicate a traditional moonshiner. A true traditional Appalachian style moonshine still is copper.
The copper rips out the sulfates are essentially the sulfur and makes the alcohol taste better. There are things you can do with a stainless steel, still like packing the tower with copper mesh that will rip the sulfur out too. But I always say, and I’m willing to bet the farm on it. All stainless-steel units in the United States are imported.
It’s very hard to build the stainless ones. I want to one day if we get the right machines, but unfortunately, they’re all important. So, we do a focus on the copper ones, the ones that we can make by hand here in New Hampshire.
Colter: Yeah. And your copper stills are made by hand. I will. When we talked last week, I heard you telling people what to do in the shop because you guys are getting your hands dirty, actually making these stills, right?
John: Oh, yeah. I mean, I don’t, I didn’t want to divulge too much about myself personally, but let’s just say I used my dog as a pillow and I’ve been living here at the shop with big guns to protect my customers’ assets from the crash. And you can follow me on Facebook, facebook.com forward slash distillery, net distillery, net. And you can see our, all, all of our cool videos and me protecting the shop from all the crack heads in the city.
Colter: That’s awesome. Yeah, we’ll definitely put a link to that in the show notes so that people can check it out. So let, let’s talk a bit about, for example, I’m looking at an image of you’re still right here right now in front of me.
And it’s why don’t you walk me through the process? It looks like it’s kind of like, it’s got three main containers there and she explained to me what, what each one of those are and what their kind of function is.
John: Yes, sir. The first one is the pot. That’s the biggest one on the left-hand side. That’s where the alcohol or the mash or the beer or whatever you wanted to still goes in there.
Everything’s soldered. So the bottom soldered, you gotta be careful. You should, you should only, you should always strain your mash. And you can’t just put whatever in there and put flame underneath it. You should always have liquid in there. The bottom will fall out. If you don’t have liquid inside. So that’s the main vessel where you’re going to be, uh, putting the alcohol.
It’s going to get heated underneath. That is going to be a propane burner, any Turkey fryer burner, and don’t underestimate the power of flame. A lot of guys go and try to get a 200,000 BTU burner. You don’t need it. You need an 8,000 BTU burner and you want to go slow and steady. Going too fast is actually going to make the alcohol, have more H2O, carry over, more water, carry over, and it’s going to get a lower proof.
You want to go slow. You want to go steady. So, the flame is going to make it distill the flame is going to make it. So, mother nature utilizes her different boiling points of water. And alcohol distills off at a lower temperature than water. Does water two 12 alcohol around one 70. I don’t know.
I’m not a pro. I just make the moonshots.
What happens is when you put that flame underneath the moonshine still, and it essentially distills whether you’re distilling the alcohol is still in water, whatever temperature at when that steam travels up. When that liquid turns to a steam form. The steam travels through the system. The piece in the middle is called a Thumper that is not a mandatory piece.
It’s an optional piece. Think of that as a double purification unit, you don’t need flame underneath it. And it still works. We can get to that after the specifics, the specifics of that after, but the flow, the steam will continue to travel through the Thumper and into the worm. The final piece, all the way to the right.
The warm needs to be cool at all times, because what you’re doing is taking that steam and condensing it back down to an, a liquid again. So, you went from a liquid, then he went to a steam back down to a liquid. Again, the liquid, everybody thinks that you need to have ice cold water. You really just need to have it be cooler than the steam.
And it essentially will condense back down to a liquid. Now you’re going to collect that liquid based off of what you’re doing. If you make an alcohol, you’re going to want to, uh, take out the one ounce per gallon. So, if you have a six gallon still, you want to take out one ounce per gallon. So, six ounces you’d take out and you don’t want to drink that stuff that has all the dirty stuff in it.
You want to stay away from that? None of my customers that went blind, nobody called me up saying the cops busted their door down. But one thing is for sure, I’ve always told myself that, Hey, keep a close eye on this Mark and keep a close eye on your customers. The worst thing I’ve had is what angry wives call me up saying, “Hey, my, my husband’s passed out on the floor. Thanks a lot, buddy.”
You know, so people, people really should be careful with their moonshine stills and don’t underestimate anything that’s going into it. And actually, on my Facebook page, I intentionally blew one up in my shop just to see what would happen. The thing took off like a rocket ship. You can see that that was probably three months ago, maybe July, August, and to speak about the craftsmanship.
We actually, I threw one off the roof, three stories. And all in the same video, ran it just to prove how strong our stills really are. So in regards to blowing it up, you have to really clog up the still it’s kind of hard. The clog was still up, but it is still something you have to be considerate about, you know?
If you have, you’re still in your garage and you have your kids playing around all week and then you go on one weekend and mess around. We were still, you want to make sure they didn’t step on that coil. You want to make sure they didn’t kink something because it could burn your house down. Other than that, it really is a, a fun project.
I’ve been having an awesome time, actually distilling after all of these years. Building the moonshine stills actually distilling myself has been a really good success. It’s not as hard as people think, but it is really hard to get fine tasting shine, you know, anybody can distill and make alcohol, but there’s really an art to it.
And you can check out the new show on discovery channel called master distillers. And those guys it’s kind of like. Three contestants, three judges and they judge the contestants based off how well of a moonshiner they are. So, there’s a lot of eyeballs on the marketplace right now, a lot of eyeballs on the industry. And like, I always say we’re in the distillers Renaissance.
Colter: Yeah, we, we kind of are, and let’s, let’s talk a bit about some tips and tricks of the difference between like, Hey, I can get some alcohol or some sort of a mashed beverage that I’ve, I’ve put into the mash and start to distill. And I’ve, I’ve been with some friends when they’ve distilled.
And I know that they’ve had good batches and bad batches. Right. And as they’ve, as they’ve done it over time, they’ve gotten better. What would be some tricks you would give to a beginner to say, Hey, here’s some things, some, some mistakes to not make today that are just going to help you make better shine.
John: Yeah. That’s a good question. Way more research than you’d want to do a lot of guys. And I see it a lot with my easy kits. I have a skew where the customer actually builds it themselves. They don’t even look at the directions. You know, everybody just wants to just go fast, fast, fast. So, when you distill and you really want to go slow, slow, slow, the whole mash making process, we kind of skipped over that because I do the, the fast way with distilling beer.
A real moonshiner makes his own mash, the simple mashes, the sugar, water, and yeast, but there’s. If not hundreds of thousands of different variations, there’s a lot of different ways to make mash. And I know studying people’s failures is going to save you a lot of time. So that’s the biggest thing is research as possible.
You’re going to want to put into it because all you’re going to do is end up with a bad batch or with some bad mash. The mash. I, I hear you a lot on the beer. Brewing podcast, talking about temperatures as well, having them, how it’s very important, same thing with making the mash. So, if you have a lot of things going on in your life and you, and you’re also trying to distill, and you got everybody, you know, kind of like my dog right now that needs me.
It’s definitely good to go slow and steady instead of just rushing right in. I see a lot of guys going after an 80-gallon moonshine still, and I’m sure they use it way less than they would if they just got a 10 gallon one. Everybody thinks bigger is better. I personally just use a one gallon still myself.
I always say a 15 gallon is borderline commercial grade. And so that would, I guess that would be my second thing. Don’t go too big, but also don’t limit yourself. That’s why we offer the upgraded Thumper and worm kits. So, on a six all the way up to a 30 it’s the same size Thumper and worm. So, if they buy a six and they want to upgrade to a 30, they don’t have to get another complete set. They can just get a, a 30-gallon pot and run it.
Colter: Oh, okay. And, and. Just kind of talking about the mash a bit and you were talking about like sugar wash, right. Sugar wash is, I would say when, when I’ve read distilling forums, I would say, uh, agree. It’s probably the number one type of mash that I see out there specifically with shiners.
And one of the things that they always talk about are things like the pH crashes and it can stall out the fermentation on that. Right. And so, it, you can’t just think that you’re going to add sugar, water and yeast and walk away from it. You still have to kind of manage that.
John: Yeah. It’s all temperature based. And in the time, you know, a lot of, a lot of times, if you pull it too soon or too late, you should be checking your mash alcohol by volume with a hydrometer a low proof. Hydrometer. And ideally, you know, please forgive me on, like I said, I’m not a pro, but ideally you want to be shooting for anywhere between 10 and 20%, you can get higher using turbo yeasts, but it’s really hard to keep a nice flavor with the turbo yeast.
There is a couple things you can do to save that flavor and make it so it doesn’t get destroyed with the turbo. Use the turbo working like two days compared to the irregular mash, ferment and process, which would take seven or 10.
Colter: Okay. And, and you kind of want to ma and managing things like the pH and making sure that the temperatures are right are going to help. Right?
John: Definitely. Definitely. Yeah.
Colter: Then once you’ve got your kind of, let’s say 15% of our alcohol by volume, uh, liquid, or if you have, like you said, you just go buy a 12% beer, right. Go get one of the big ones, like a big stout or something like that. And you take it back and you throw it in the distill into the still what, what you talked about that you’re going to try to get that one 70 temperature.
So, the idea and just, I’ve never actually stilled, I’ve kind of watched somebody do it before and, and, and just, you know, you’re going to have to walk me through it a bit. But the idea here is, is that keeping it at one 70 actually makes it so that you’re boiling the alcohol off, but you’re not boiling the water off. Right? And that’s kind of what you’re trying to do.
John: Yes. Yeah. So, what I recommend, anytime you run a, still crank it up until she starts to drip. Soon as she drips check the temperature gauge on, you’re still. Right. That temperature gauge down, right. That temperature down, that’s showing on the gauge and that’s pretty much a sweet spot. You want to keep it around that point. Cause that’s that initial point where it starts to drip. That’s the alcohol that’s coming up.
Colter: Okay. And then you, you, you, you get it to that point and, and it could vary because obviously depending on where your temp probe is, right. And that kind of stuff, you’re, you’re not, you’re not going to get a, like, for example, let’s say it starts to drip and the temperature reading on, on your, your gauge is like one 80. That doesn’t mean that everything is one 80 inside. Is that right?
John: Uh, so, so if you’re at one 80, that starts to drip. Um, what you’re going to want to do is just keep it around that if you go too high, the higher you going in temperature on that gauge from that point, the more likely it is that you’re going to be carrying over water as well.
Colter: Yeah. And then you don’t have, as you basically have less distilled it, essentially. Right? John: You’ll still pull out. You’ll still pull out the alcohol, but it’s going to be mixed with water. So, it’s not going to be as potent. It’s not going to be as strong.
Colter: Yeah. And then when, once you’ve, once you’ve kind of hit that sweet spot, it goes through the Thumper and then it cools down and, and you talked about the first runnings are, I think they call those the heads. Is that right?
John: Is that the four shots?
Colter: Yeah. Thank you. And then, and then from that point point kind of, I know that there’s like, Heads hearts tails. Why don’t you kind of talk to me about that because that’s actually,
John: I’m not a pro, like I said, I just distill beer, but the four shots, that’s the stuff you don’t want to drink to my knowledge, the heads hearts, and then the tails, the hearts is the good stuff.
The tails is when it starts tailing off, like you start. Losing your ABV. Let’s say you’re at, you’re pumping out one 40 proof and one 30, one 21 time. That’s when you’re going to start seeing less alcohol come out and more water come out. So that’s why they call it the tails. The tail- end. Yeah. Four shot.
That’s the one ounce per gallon. So, on a 20 gallon still, you’re going to want to do 20 ounces. When I, when I did it, I just play it safe. I just do double whatever they say, you know? Cause I’m not really going to fishy natto. I don’t need to get the highest proof, everything. So, I figured whatever. If I waste a little bit of extra little extra, it’s not a big deal, better be safe than sorry. You know?
Colter: Awesome. And then, and then the heads are kind of like, you’re the first things that come out and do they, they have a different flavor than the hearts.
John: I, like I said, I’m not a professional distiller. I believe that you’ll get different flavor profiles from the heads go into the hearts, but not as much going from the hearts of the tails, but I’m not sure.
John: Okay. Yeah. And then a couple of other questions I would have for you is that I was looking on your website and you guys have a ton of blogs and instructions for beginners, right. Uh, what would, would you recommend going there? Would you recommend you, your YouTube channel? Would you recommend your Facebook channel?
If I were a beginner, wanting to kind of figure it out? W where, where would I go to interact with you guys to learn how to distill better and use your systems?
John: Oh, that’s a good question. So, the blogs are not really a great spot in my opinion, to get everything you need to know about distilling of course, a blog on my website is going to be more towards my product, et cetera.
I recommend for overall general information. I recommend YouTube videos all day, all night for a month, just constantly listening, listening, listening, and then get into a book or two if you’re that type of guy. But I think that, I’ve done it myself after the YouTube videos, you’ll be fine to at least get started.
I feel like books are more for step two. And I think that it’s okay, I think it’s okay for people to go ahead and jump in and try it without actually reading a book and just doing videos now in regards to where I would like my customers to go, I personally would rather somebody call us directly if they have specific questions.
The website, in my opinion is not really set up as an informational. Hey, go here and listen, look at this, go here and look at that. And then you’ll know everything. If you’re looking for that, I have the secret sauce. It’s an article I sniped a long time ago. I can share it with you.
Wanted to give me a minute. Can you still hear me?
Colter: Yeah. I’m still here
John: from Australia. And it’s called the liquor mins guide. L I K K E R and then S guide liquor. Man’s guide God to distilling. It’s really hard to find. I, I can’t even find it online anymore, but it goes over everything. Sterilization, fermenting of alcohol.
It really is a one-stop shop. So, if you have some time, if you’re really looking for the creme de LA creme, take it from me. You’re looking for the liquor man’s guide came out of Australia. In 2001 is when it was when it was made, the art and process of distillation, in my opinion, should be 90%, what you want to put into it.
And 10% of everybody else, because in my life I’ve always seen there’s a million different ways to do the same thing. So, a lot of guys get wrapped up in, Oh, well this person said this, this person that said that, blah, blah, blah, the Thumper supposed to be this size, et cetera, et cetera. You never know until you try.
And I feel like if you jump in first and then get everybody’s opinions, you’re, you’re not going to get swayed as easily.
Colter: Yeah, cause you’ve, you’ve kind of gone through the process and, and seen what happens on the other side of it. Right. And then when somebody references something, you’re like, yeah, yeah, that didn’t really happen to me.
And my way is working. Right. And I don’t know, to me, that’s kind of, what I love about distilling is it’s, it’s as much art as it is science, just like homebrewing is. And when you look at it, it’s kind of a. It’s a blend of those two, right? It’s the art of cooking yet the science of cooking. And in the end, you end up with an alcoholic beverage that you could turn into pretty much any alcoholic beverage. You can make vodka of it., you can make whiskey out of it and you can make rum, you can do whatever you want, but it’s kind of crazy to think about all of the art that goes into it.
John: Yeah. I’ve met distilleries that. Do a lot of bottles per year. And I asked her, Oh, how long do you do infuse your flavors?
And they say, Oh, 24 hours, buddy, in the door and out the door. We don’t care. You know? And like when you’re, when you’re actually making it for yourself in your own, in the comfort of your own home, it’s much different than going to the store. I mean, you’ll never be able to replicate the stuff that you make yourself, the stuff at the store. I’ll never buy a bottle again from the store for sure.
Colter: That’s awesome. So,, if I were to, if I were to try to, you know, get in touch with you and your team, where, where would it, where would I go? Should I go to your website?
John: Yeah, the website that, that is still are network.com. And my phone number is (603) 997-6786.
For general questions or inquiries. If you’re looking for more information, I really would recommend those Facebook groups and in the file section. So, go on Facebook type in moonshine or distilling. The group that we have is called home moonshiners. I think it’s around 38,000 members. And on the files section, I’ve had my team constantly uploading all the information that you guys are looking for in the files section.
And I believe all the stuff is branded. You know, it has recipes in there and it has my logo on there and all that stuff. So even though it’s not actually on my website, it’s still a great place. And you know, it’s not just my information too. It’s a bunch of files uploaded from everybody else too. So definitely check that out.
Home-moonshiners group and the files section, I believe it’s on the left-hand side.
Colter: Yeah. And I am a member of the home-moonshiners group, so,
John: Oh, Oh nice. Yeah. I’m the admin there. I was the guy that created that.
Colter: Like I said, I’m curious. I’m always, I I’ve, I’ve read moonshining and distilling forums for the last two years and still haven’t pulled the trigger yet. So,
John: You haven’t had to go with the distillery. You definitely had to go with it. It’s still over network with the most company on the planet. We have the best prices, the highest quality. And the realist owner, you can call him direct any time. You know, there’s going to be a 0.1 day where we get too busy and I won’t be able to answer the phone for everybody.
But as of now, you definitely can still call me direct and get in touch with the owner and talk directly about your order. And then also check the status as well.
Colter: Hey, I can, we have a lot smaller-businesses. I can’t do that to you right now.
John: Yeah, sure. We do have a customer service line, then another Skype phone number and stuff when things get crazy, but I am able to handle it.
I got three full-timers here and we have 10 offsite facilities. Thanks to COVID. And I said, you know what? If everybody wants to work from home, fine, I’ll let them. And I actually put an all call out to our past customers and I asked, Hey, if you want to build the moonshot still, I’ll train you. So that’s been going on for the past couple months, and I’m really excited to talk about power in terms, you know, once everything’s all set up, we’ll be able to ship these units out much faster than, than we have been already. So, um, that’s going to be a news for 2021 coming from the distillery network.
Colter: That’s awesome. Well, I want to thank you, John, for taking the time to come on the podcast and talk to us about your stills and the process of making moonshine. And I I’d love to have you back on the show another time. So maybe when you come out with a new product and you want to share it, please reach out to me. I’d love to have you back.
John: Oh, well I have a, I already have a bunch of stuff to talk about the cool flame flow, patented moonshine, still. So, we have a patent on our moonshine still that heats up and half the time. And I wanted to tell you the, in my opinion, the most important fact that I’ve found about moonshine around the time that hospitals implemented their own moonshine stills in their own hospitals, you know, to make their own antiseptics, you can actually see it on a chart.
The mortality rate of the country greatly reduced around those years. That. The distillation units were being used in house at the hospitals instead of relying for the antiseptic outhouse. So, you can actually see it on a chart. The mortality rate of the country greatly reducing moonshine stills in everybody’s houses could save the planet. My opinion.
Colter: Well, w you know, you’re going to, you’re going to make, you’re going to give it a shot to make us still for everybody that wants one. Aren’t you? Definitely.
John: Yeah, we have the, have the easy kit skew, so people can actually solder it themselves, the lower price point. And then, like I said, the flame flow, which is really cool, that saves time.
And we also have a. A line from the veteran Shiner, Josh Owens, if you’ve ever watched the show moonshiners, we have a line of moonshine stills from Josh Owens, the six pack, the 12 pack and the 30-rack model actually beer related. So, it fits a six pack fits a 12 pack or a 30 pack, you know, volume size capacity.
And that can be found on our website as well. And Josh is a really cool guy. I got to meet him personally. And, um, it’s an awesome moonshiner.
Colter: Awesome. And then as far as, you know, if I were to say, and I’m actually sitting here looking at your website right now, and you, you guys have stilled all the way from a couple hundred dollars up to a couple thousand dollars when it, when it comes to what you want to do.
So really any budget is going to work with you guys, right?
John: Yes. Yes. Um, I recommend the smaller ones to get started the $400 price point, but it’s all, you know, if you’re going to commercial and you want something big, we can go up to 300 gallons. The biggest one we’ve ever done is 300 gallons.
Colter: Wow. That’s a, that’s a lot of booth.
John: And, you know, you can check, you can check our prices out. We have very competitive pricing, so it’s almost unbelievable. It’s because I’m the only one that’s willing to admit that it’s not that hard to build a moonshine still. And it’s not that much copper. It’s like 150 bucks to make a 300-gallon moonshine still.
It’s every, all these other guys are ripping everybody off and you can trust that it’s still every network to give you guys the highest quality product at the lowest possible prices.
Colter: Awesome. Well, I will put links to the distillery network. I will put links to his Facebook group and I will also I’ll even list your phone number in there.
So, if somebody wants to give you a call, they might give you a call from, from the show and yeah, please do. And it’s my pleasure. Hey, like I said, John, if you ever want to come back on the show, please let me know. And it was great having you on homebrewing DIY, for sure.
John: Thank you. Have a good night. All right, bye.
Colter: Yeah. Well, I want to thank, uh, John for coming on the show and now it’s time to dive into some feedback and then we’ll wrap the show up. So, first piece of feedback that I received was from Jared Rudd. He, and he sent me a message on Facebook, and this is the message you sent. Okay. So. I’m looking to consolidate my brewing process.
I would like to get away from bottling and using a carboy for my fermentation. So, I plan on buying four Coney corny kegs, two for fermenting and two for serving. And since I typically brew two separate batches simultaneously reducing my brewing equipment substantially the turnaround. Isn’t the problem.
Since I’ve normally drank both batches before the next is ready to carbonate, I can’t seem to find it. Any in depth videos or articles on keg fermentation and any recommendations or tips or tricks would be greatly appreciated. Well, thank you for Jared for sending this message. And here’s some feedback I’d like to give you.
So, first of all, when you’re fermenting in a keg, there’s not really a lot. You have to do there. There are a couple of things I would say to do. First of all, what you want to do is you want to, uh, get, uh, uh, uh, uh, A keg connector for your gas post and, and put a piece of a tube on there and put that into a growler or some sort of container for a blow off T tube with some sanitizer in it.
I think that doing a blow off tubes is going to be an easy way. You can also get a spending valve that would fit on there as well. If you wanted it to, for men under pressure. Either way is going to work the blow off tubes, obviously going to be the least expensive. Whereas a spending valve is going to cost you about 40 bucks.
The next thing I would recommend is, and something that I do all the time is getting in and what I do with my personal kegs that I ferment in is getting a. Floating dip tube. And the reason I recommend the floating Dick dip tube, is it for a couple of reasons, first of all, when you are racking out of the keg into another keg.
So, you’re trying to move your beer over to your serving keg. You’re not worried about having. To suck up a bunch of yeast and hot particulate in your, into your, into your serving cake. So that would be another recommendation. If you do have a dip tube or don’t want to get a floating dip tube. And you have like an older keg.
Another thing you can do is just take a dip tube and cut an inch off the bottom, and then you’re just high enough to where you wouldn’t be sucking that up as well. So, either way it’s going to work, but those would-be kinds of some trips, tips or tricks I would use for fermenting in a keg. Other than that, Jared, thank you so much for your feedback.
Here’s another piece of feedback that I received on the website. And this one is from Julian doll. Julian wrote to me, Hey. I just found your podcast in and really enjoying it so far. I had a question about, for men track, can I set it up to regulate two beers at different temperatures? Can you program two different PID, configurations, tight, two separate sensors, et cetera.
Is that just a matter of an additional raspberry PI? My current setup is that I have a chest freezer to heat straps and to eat birds, and I want to be able to brew a lager and an ale simultaneously. And by setting the freezer on the one heater to lager the bird and the other one too, on the heater for the ale.
Do you think that the Fermin track would be able, would be a more elegant solution for that type of setup? So, first of all, Julian, I. I got to be honest. I don’t think that for men tracker, any of those PID style controllers are going to work for what you’re trying to do. And the reason I’m going to say that is that you’re trying to do a single fermentation CHAM chamber to try to do two different temperatures.
You’re going to really struggle with getting your temperatures to work out properly. And the reason is that just the nature of the PID controller, the PID controller. Has to have refrigeration and heat for a single vessel. Because what you’re trying to do is essentially get it so that it doesn’t have swing either way.
And that’s how you get that 10th of a degree of control. The one thing that ferment track it does really well. And I think it’s an elegant solution for is multiple fermentation chambers. So, one thing that you might be able to do is get a, another type of chamber. So. You know, get a couple of dorm fridges that might be able to fit your fermenters in them.
Something that might fit a keg. Let’s say, for example, if you’re going to ferment in that, and then what you’re going to want to do is the cool thing about for men track is it actually is built for multiple fermentation chambers. So, for example, you would just need to add an additional ESP 82 66 to the mix. So, for example, one raspberry PI with Fermin track installed is going to be able to flash.
Operate and track multiple fermentation chambers as well as multiple tilts or ice spindles, which are in the system and be able to have those go into a single server. So that that’s really the solution that ferment track can do and does pretty well. It does that, I think a little bit better than the brew pie or the brew pie remix, but.
You know, that is the way it works. But as far as being able to get one fermentation chamber with two different temperatures, like one heated and one cooled, I think you’re going to struggle finding really any solution to that. I think that the right solution would be to get multiple fermentation chambers.
Then instead of using a big chest freezer, maybe just get a couple of small fridges and that should be able to get you multiple tech temperatures for multiple beers. And that is it for feedback this week and thanks for listening to the show.
first of all, I’d like to thank John for taking the time to come on this week’s show. It’s always great to learn a little bit about distilling. And like I said, it’s not a subject that I know a ton about, but you know, I’m learning and maybe one day I will throw something in. It’s still made some sort of spirits.
Well, you can always find the show on any of our social media head on over to at homebrewing DIY we’re on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook also at home brewing DIY on Tik TOK. I’ve made a few posts there. I just don’t think tick talks really for me right now, but yeah, you never know. I might dive in and do that one a little bit deeper.
Also want to throw out there that I have started a new podcast that you can check out. It’s called the protocol. It’s actually my original first podcast I ever did back in 2009. I’ve re posted my old episodes and I’m going to start making some new ones much or less cadence than you’re getting this show and very different than this show.
It’s going to be more of an audio documentary style show, but if it’s something that you want to listen to, you can head on over to prototype radio. Studio. And check out that website and subscribe to the show. Well, that’s it. And we’ll talk to you next week on homebrewing, DIY.
