Join in on the fun and get wild! You never know what’ll happen lol. And oh yeah I have a pumpkin beer recipe I’ve done the last few years, i can confirm, it’s very messy lol.

Alchometer should only be like $20 USD, though if you wanna just use taste, that absolutely works too! I did that with my watermelon brandy (accidentally sat on my alchometer during distillation lol) for the paper towel vs lid or stopper, paper towel is far more permeable to volatile compounds. Could you get away without doing it? Yeah probably. Does it make a difference? Honestly, maybe, maybe not, theoretically to me it makes sense so I’ve done it every time, but I haven’t read any research papers on the topic. But letting it “air out” and let the more volatile stuff out (without letting bugs or fruit flies in) makes sense to me so I do it haha

Success- watermelon brandy, turned out amazing. Failure- in expecting my flamin hot Cheeto whiskey to turn out awful but maybe I’ll be surprised? Waiting- flamin hot Cheeto whiskey and blueberry brandy, I was expecting the fermentation to slow down by now but it’s going strong for the 4th day in a row. On deck- my girlfriend wants me to brew my fall pumpkin beer, so that’s planned for one of my two fermenters once my other two brews are done. Besides that, I’ve got a long list of weird stuff to try distilling, dunno yet, kinda feeling smarties or some other candy

Honestly screw the thermometer. I’m a bit green to it as well, but with my setup having “high power” or “low” power, I stopped bothering with using the thermometer as an indicator. Now I just use my tongue and an alchometer. Do cuts often, I use a boat load of 8oz jars. Toss the beginning parts obviously, use your nose and tongue to go into tails, I typically stop my stilling at 35/30% abv coming off the still. From there after all your cuts are done have a lot of paper towels on hand. I cover each jar (and there’s lots of them) with a paper towel and let them sit 24 hours to let any volatiles air out. From there I do my blending and this procedure has done me well for the last year and a half or two that I’ve tried my hand at spirits.

Live and learn right? And oooh the red yeast rice idea sounds interesting

Ahh, it may have been the heat pasteurization that did it in. If you care to glance at a scientific paper, here’s an interesting source. https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2019/ra/c9ra01533g I want to say I’ve seen a low temp method of pasteurizing (that you have to hold for a good bit longer) but for mine I avoided heat like the plague and did everything cold with a huge starter to ensure the yeast outcompete anything and fill the fermenter with alcohol to handle any potential unwanted microbes

The spams probably going to be a maceration in the still, but no I haven’t thought of miso yet. Might have to add it to the list. And hey as a fan of sour beers, the wood chip one sounds interesting lol. Any fun discoveries you made with an interesting shakeup in the process?

Yep! My last one was a watermelon wine I made into a brandy. The key is to only get the red guts and avoid anything slightly white. definitely dont boil the juice either or youll get a carrot flavor. Once it’s done fermenting if it was a good fermentation it’ll taste almost like cucumber, a bit of back sweetening makes the watermelon flavor come back with a vengeance.

Oh man that’s a shame! I actually really wanted to try a maple syrup fermentation too, but the whole cost of syrup (or even honey) is what always put me off the idea.

Hmmm beans do have a decent bit of carbs in them so hypothetically there should be an enzyme to convert those into sugars. Only one way to find out lol

Honestly it works. I find that even without sanitization adding in good yeast results in good results most of the time lol. And funny enough tomato is on my list (but for beer, I’ve just been in a distilling mood lately). I also want to do Carmelized onions in a beer but that’s neither here nor there lol

If you got any ideas I’ll be glad to add it to the list. I’ve got a bit of a backlog of stuff to try but with winter coming besides the holidays there won’t be much to do than brew!

That’s fantastic! The lemon one sounds like a lot of work, but I might have to add something similar to it on my list, because I love sour. And oooh, I do love pineapples. I appreciate the knowledge share here. And hey if brining it and seeing what happens works then that’s the best approach :)

They weren’t but they are now lmfao

Yeah, that’s what got me into trying stupid stuff. All the research I did on watermelon said it doesn’t turn out. I made a brandy that easily topped my list of things I made. Did you by chance boil it? As an originally beer brewer it’s ingrained, but I think that’s what kills off watermelon flavor fast. At least from my one attempt at it that was a raging success.

And yeah, spam won’t ferment, unless there’s some enzyme that turns proteins into fermentable sugars, but I plan on macerating spam in a still during a run, I’m curious what flavors, if any, come through. It goes back to an old joke my buddy and I had in the woods ages ago where we drank vodka out of a “spamteen” (can of spam cut out to hold a shot of liquor, it was horrible)

I grow my own basil, so definitely have access to those :)

Oh yeah from the smell and taste of the mash it tastes almost exactly like a corn/cream ale I made ages ago, but it’s always worth a shot

Yesss! Let me know how it goes! I ended up following a post on Facebook about a dude who reduced orange soda into a syrup and used it for a beer. As it was a more… traditional, group everyone was horrified. Apparently it turned out super awesome. Love the creativity and I’m curious about how your adventure turns out :)

Yeah, that’s basically the thought behind the spinach and random herb idea I have, probably will be awful for drinking but thankfully I also cook daily so at worst I can use it to infuse some flavor into a dish lol

Oh man, the key is gummy bears! I got a giant gummy bear (1 pound/0.45kg or so) once and soaked it in vodka. The bear was so big the alcohol barely penetrated through it, but the vodka it was soaking in was delicious, if you have a sweet tooth. The skittles colored vomit however doesn’t sound like the best of times though lol. Learning experiences are priceless though 😅