"HI

Started my first crude Rum Mash with 13.5 lbs of brown sugar and 1 pint bottle of Molasses - 6.5 gallons of water - 1 pack of black label turbo yeast. Bubbling was more intense for first few days - after 5 days it is still gurgling a little - I guess this is going as it should. My plan is to wait a week after it is completely quiet before syphoning.

Pot Still - Tried out the pot still that was purchased on ebay ethanolpro - wanted to post pictures but they are too big - will try again when I can resize the JPGS. Made a few discoveries with water only runs to clean it out. I wished that the pot was meatier - kinda flimsy. Got it to function properly after making dumb mistakes like putting cooling tank too low - funny that it was working for a while then just stopped - but that was definitely my fault.
I used outdoors with a propane burner from a turkey fryer - very strong flame at high heat - it burned the paint off the burner and made a nasty smell for a while until it burned off - wonder why they used a paint that could not stand the heat. I am not 100% satisfied with the quality of the pot still but it does exactly what it is supposed to do - it works. Running real hard with water only the output was coming out hot - another realization that the cooling tank gets hot faster than I thought it would - solved that running a constant flow of new water into it with a hose.

I did also realize after doing the water only runs that this is time consuming - I cannot devote this much time to each run and also not possible for me to do on a low key basis - the pump sound and constant running water down my driveway is a little too obvious - I live in a populated area and people are nosy - I am strongly considering purchasing the easy still - so here are some questions

with easystill - is this for neutral spirits only or can you use without filter for making rum?

This is completely safe for indoors, right?

4L capacity - how much output from 4l mash and how long ?

what about discarding heads and tails - assume that first 50 ml gets tossed then how much good stuff before tails?

THANKS"

"I agree with Brew - I use a big Igloo cooler filled with water - about 10 gal? and use frozen milk jugs and a little aquarium pump to recirculate water. And definetely use a hotplate, quiet and efficeint. I use the Pro II that Brewhaus sells, works great. And yes, it does take time, most or more of an afternoon if not more for a 5-6 gal mash.

Can't help on the easy still info.

But doing math will tell/estimate you how much you get. not to talk down to you, not sure what you know or don't know - for instance 4 L of mash at say 12% is .48 L of alchohol so depending on how close to 90-95% you get, gives a result of just a bit less than that. Of course after mixing with water, it makes twice as much end result. Can't say about heads or tails - maybe 30-40 ml on each end? Anybody else got more clues? I am a newbie too."