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I have a kegerator so i have full control of the fermentation temperature so that should’t be a problem. I just ordered 20l of fresh blueberries more and even with that i still think its going to be quite low yield. I think i will try to ferment it on its own natural sugars for the science of it so i can record the fermentability. I will make another batch of inverted sugar wash on the side and at the end i mix them together. If the ABV is still low i will add some leftover feints! Ill post the results and the actual recipe here when i’m done. I googled a bit and i found out that blueberries here aren’t actually the same blueberries which you have there in states TDick! Actually the ones we have here should be called bilberries (european blueberries). I didn’t know that till this day. Live and learn.

Looks very nice! Have a fun!

Final thoughts: For a whiskey that is the most drinkable young, use low wines in a column still. For a whiskey that you plan to age longer, use either a one-and-done thru the column, or a mix of beer & low wines thru the column. HOWEVER, I just realized that there was a 5th method that should have been included: a 1.5x pot run Sounds right to me. The comparison I'd like to see is 1 and done with 3 plates VS low-wines redistilled with 2 plates. Use the same mash for both. Both would be distilled a total of 3 times but done differently. Yessir Shady . 4 plates on Rum wash was an OK run . 3 plates on a stripoed run was a while new thing . Plates run rough on Wash at the best of times IIRC . Running 30% abv low wines in the boiler and they are a completely conquerable beast . Never tried 2 plates in low wines , but I recon it would shit all over 3 plates in wash .

You dont need DAP in UJSM. and you shouldn't have to worry about PH either. PH will become an issue once you start getting into generations if you start using to much backset. +1 Absolutely!

You dont need DAP in UJSM. and you shouldn't have to worry about PH either. PH will become an issue once you start getting into generations if you start using to much backset.

I have a kegerator so i have full control of the fermentation temperature so that should’t be a problem. I just ordered 20l of fresh blueberries more and even with that i still think its going to be quite low yield. I think i will try to ferment it on its own natural sugars for the science of it so i can record the fermentability. I will make another batch of inverted sugar wash on the side and at the end i mix them together. If the ABV is still low i will add some leftover feints! Ill post the results and the actual recipe here when i’m done. I googled a bit and i found out that blueberries here aren’t actually the same blueberries which you have there in states TDick! Actually the ones we have here should be called bilberries (european blueberries). I didn’t know that till this day. Live and learn.

Yeah, here I’ve never had to compete with heat in the distillery like in your case, TDick. Even in the summer the top temp in the distillery, my basement, is rarely above 22-23C/72F. And now as we’re marching into September, it has cooled to 20c/68f during the day, and the temp swing between day and night is starting to be noticable. It’s in this environment I find EC-1118 the safest bet. As a result, I havent tried any other yeasts yet for my fruit fermentations yet and since the fruit projects are only once a year I am too chicken to test another yeast, under the old if it aint broke… principle. I believe you when you say other yeasts give better flavor profiles, but with that said, I have never found anything negative to remark on the flavors I get from the EC1118. Your blueberry recipe looks great. I really hope I’ll find time to make it myself. Blueberries is something we have a lot of here. Thanks for sharing, TDick!

Thanks for the warm welcome !! Nice! Yeah if you look at my more recent designs with the vm heads trap it works far better. As I said in your welcome post that Irving Hirsch design just doesn't work well. Roger, Gonna look that over and see what I can figure out. but honestly, and this is just from my experience you need to hit like 60-65% in a column. Itll emulated somewhere between a pot/thumper and double pot. FWIW, i think the column will just better with a more enriched vapor. So better to aim for higher abv off the spout, then dliut back to your desired drinking/barreling strength. Your abv will be determined by reflux ratio, not plate count. That sounds ideal to me, if I can work it out. Nothing wrong with adding some water if you got the flavor. I am now 100% fan of PID control - I think like you, I like hacking together the software for it. But especially where you have multiple points to control, the self correction if one parameter drifts doesn't pull all the others out of whack. I think this will be all kinds of fun to mess with... I think the rest of the stuff I need will show up tomorrow. I am going to push some water thru it and see if the new bubble plates help with the flooding.

Hi Peaty! I am no expert on berry brandy (double B) and I am also interested to know if a fermentation of the berries would give anything, thinking your yield would be very very low. Inverted sugar ferments more easy, theoretically it will give the yeast less of a struggle and thus a cleaner ferment. But Shady tipped in a thread from a year back that neutral alcohol would more clean and easy to use if all we want to do is to bump the alcohol level. To me this makes a lot of sense, if you have neutral lying around (naturally). With my fruit, I always use pectinase and campden, I want to make sure there's no rogue fermentation taking off while I let the pectinase do its' thing. I use EC-1118 in the 18-20 room temp I have in my distillery at the moment. This is what there is to love about EC-1118. It ferments at any temp and at any temp swings. Great workhorse yeast. I agree with most of what Pal said. I've have access to unlimited blueberries BUT I can't ferment them during the summer because of the heat. Even EC-1118 which is SUPPOSED to have the highest temp tolerance is no match for Alabama Summers. (It was between 105-110 F in The Shed last week) Frozen berries (ruptures the cells) is preferred then you can use pectic enzymes or not. I used EC-1118 last summer - a mistake. I still had to keep the wash temp down with frozen water bottles. But mostly, EC-1118 is a tough bad ass fermenter designed for high ABV and fast ferments. It's perfect for a sugar wash because it STRIPS

Welcome back into the fold smokem94. What type of still are you running with??