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#003 Bearded & Bored & George of Barley & Hops. Home Distillers Hang Out!
1.2k Plays4 years ago
Hanging out with Bearded and George in person was a huge highlight of my trip to the USA. These guys helped me get Still It and Chase The Craft off the ground. Being able to swap ideas, passions and a drink in person was amazing.
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Transcript
Introduction to Chase the Craft Shop
00:00:00
Speaker
Today's podcast is brought to you by the Chase the Craft shop which can be found at chasethecraft.com. Click on the shop tab and you're there. There are still a few of the stillet flask sets left with the piece of wood from that wine barrel I pulled apart a while ago.
00:00:17
Speaker
the chase the craft flasks are all gone I apologize for that guys and I will not be restocking them in the same manner I will not create the same set I wanted to make those special for the guys that got in for them first there are also new lapel pins chase the craft lapel pins that are
00:00:35
Speaker
significantly cheaper to send to different parts of the world so if you want a little piece of chase the craft and the flasks were just too expensive to post to you wherever it is that you live I get that and I've put something else different in the store that hopes to solve that problem for you keep an eye on the space as well guys there's a whole lot of new stuff coming it's gonna take me a little while to roll it out but it's coming soon
00:00:59
Speaker
Welcome to the chase the craft podcast everyone today.
Guest Introduction: Bearded and Bored & George from Bali & Hops
00:01:02
Speaker
I've got the absolute pleasure of introducing two guests two people that literally Made still it and chase the crafts a thing and the first is literally my oldest YouTube buddy bearded and bored We started our channels at almost exactly the same time He was the first person I clicked with the first person that I was able to talk shop and talk geekery with about YouTube and the algorithm and
00:01:28
Speaker
bla bla bla not that you guys probably care about that stuff too much awesome guy and being able to actually hang out with him in person is absolutely amazing this guy also makes really really cool videos about yeah distilling and sort of fermenting things and stuff but just general hobby
00:01:45
Speaker
crafts that aren't necessarily the craft that we are all here for. So if you haven't checked out his YouTube channel make sure you do so. The second guest is George from Bali & Hops. Now I'm guessing he probably doesn't need much of an introduction. If you're into the hobby of home distillation and you like
00:02:03
Speaker
Checking out content on the internet, chances are you already know who this guy is. Now the reason I say that I'm here today because of him is he's the one that kind of proved to me that it was possible to be successful in this genre, creating content for YouTube. And that was before I even started. And when I did start, I learned a lot from him. He helped me kickstart my chase of the craft. And he also literally personally mentored me on a couple of things, which I am forever grateful for.
Creating a Relaxed Yet In-Depth Discussion Atmosphere
00:02:33
Speaker
So in this podcast it's a long one guys, it's a big one but the idea is that I wanted it to feel like kind of you get to hang out with the three of us and just sort of talk shit around a table, talk shit at the bar. I wanted it to be that vibe and it pretty much was. We did get real, we got pretty serious on a few things, we got nitty gritty and geeky on a few things.
00:02:55
Speaker
We tried some of my products together. We talked about the possibility and the path to and the implications of the legalization of the craft of home distilling in the United States of America which was super interesting with these guys and at the end or near the end of the podcast we got down to the nitty-gritty on a few topics where
00:03:18
Speaker
Some people think that George and I saw differently, some topics where I thought we saw things differently and thought each other was potentially wrong. And that was an interesting conversation and a really interesting outcome.
00:03:34
Speaker
So don't be fooled by us talking YouTube shop for the first, you know, couple of minutes at the beginning of the podcast. We really do get into the nitty-gritty of the stilling. In any case, without further ado, come hang out with us, guys. Chill out with Bearded and Bored, myself, and of course, George from Bali & Hops.
00:04:01
Speaker
Alright guys, we are live and obviously I've introduced these guys, but before we even get started, I need to say a huge thank you to both of you.
00:04:14
Speaker
There we go. That's great. Yeah. For those of you, if you're not watching, there's some seriously weird handshake action going on here, but that's cool. Be it because when I first started still it, we kind of turned into YouTube buddies pretty quickly as noobs. We started pretty much the same time, pretty close. Yeah, really close. Yeah. So it was awesome having someone to bounce ideas. Yeah. And just sort of generally bitch and moan about the hard things. And then when I finally found my wings and clicked in with these two,
00:04:45
Speaker
You up and flying before. I'll tell you, it's been wonderful ever since.
00:04:50
Speaker
Well, it really has. You can share this if you want. Better didn't get a drink beforehand. That's true. Yeah. And I'm not going to, I'm not going to miss an opportunity. That's good. Yeah. And George, because it was nice to see before we, before I started the YouTube channel, it was nice to see that it was possible to actually get a YouTube channel channel about distilling successful on YouTube. That was a huge advantage. And also, you know, obviously I hadn't distilled a drop of liquor when I started the channel. So, right.
00:05:19
Speaker
The information was invaluable. Wow, that's amazing. I didn't know that. No, I had no idea that you had not done this before you started the trade. That's amazing. That was the whole thing. I learned it as I go. It was him talking about it. Oh, my first like eight videos is floating in on a black background talking shit. We're scripted. We were just talking before we went live about how whether or not we script our videos and how horrible they are when you script them. Yeah, he can go back and look at my first view. Oh, I know. You were pretty good at the talking head.
00:05:50
Speaker
Black T-shirt, black background, big black beard, just eyes. Some of mine that I go back and look at every once in a while because they pop up with some comments on a particular video and I'll hit it and come on, I'll go, oh my gosh. Yeah, back to that. Oh my gosh, look at that. I actually, yeah. That's pretty funny. I have trouble believing that
00:06:14
Speaker
that you find fault in any of your videos. I'm not trying to fawn all over you. I'm telling you that you were like a superhero. No, I look so doggone like I do now. So young. Or not fat as the case may be. I'll tell my own story. I just found I didn't realize this before.
00:06:37
Speaker
but I watched my first video again, and I realized my beard is so much whiter now. Yep, yep. It's only been two goddamn years. Yeah, I know. It's scary, huh? You know, I even grew a beard one time. I don't know if you remember that. It's been over a year ago. Yeah, I grew it. And what happened to that? Yeah, you only had it for a minute. Yeah, I know. But I wanted to grow it to prove that I could. My wife was out of the country for 30 days. Oh, so you had 30 days to prove your shit. So I had 30 days to prove I was a real man.
00:07:05
Speaker
Because they always tell me, they said, you know, there's real men, and real men have beards, and then there are others. And so I grew the beard, and then she came back, and I convinced her to let me keep it for another three weeks or so, and then... My dad wanted to grow a beard. There was wife influence to give her that. Same thing. My mom won't kiss him if he has facial hair, so I said, well, I like kissing your mom, so I was like,
00:07:32
Speaker
Don't like saying that out loud. Let's just move on. Let's move on. All right. Yeah. All right, guys. So I guess the first thing I wanted to do was start pouring some drinks.
Complexities of Distilling Laws in the US
00:07:43
Speaker
And as we do that, I know that the three of us have messaged individually about the whole legalization thing and what would happen in the community if that ever happened. And I know we've talked about this privately and now is probably not the time for a big push.
00:07:58
Speaker
Well on this stuff, but I figured we could have a talk about what we thought would actually happen because when we like We may not get this opportunity again to actually just sit down and have a discussion about it. Yeah So I think what I'll do is I'm gonna pour Let's put one thing at a time actually and then we can kind of have a chat about that. But so have it that lads
00:08:23
Speaker
And as you're doing that, the legality and the challenge I think that we would face in the United States, first of all, is you change the federal law. And then, unfortunately, each state
00:08:38
Speaker
has to change their law. Each county has to change the law, and then each city has to change it. So that's where you get that long process. But honestly, if you change that federal law, it helps. It does. It will propel it. It opens it up to legal challenges if the state is dragging its heels or the county is dragging its heels.
00:09:00
Speaker
like the whole legalization of marijuana in Colorado. Or distilling is legal in Missouri. And I think, didn't they do it in Washington? I thought there was two states. I know of one for sure. And they just said, we'll just mirror the law. They did for beer.
00:09:20
Speaker
Oh by the way, you're already making the alcohol. The only difference is what you do with it once it's made. I guess it's legal to put it in a bottle, but it's not legal to separate it from the water that it's in. But it's already there. Yeah, it's kind of crazy. I mean, do we want to even go into the Wyatt's illegal thing? Pick up all that smoke in there. I pick up all that.
00:09:49
Speaker
smoked with New Zealand Manuka, which is I think kind of similar. Before you say.
00:09:59
Speaker
To me, it's kind of like whiskey. Yeah. Okay. I was gonna say whiskey. In a way. I got one. Drive on. So this is really young still. This is super young and it's unused oak. So it's oak that came out of the UJ SSSM. And I think, I don't know man, maybe it's six months old now. It reminds me of...
00:10:24
Speaker
barbecue smoke. I like that. Yeah. That's interesting. This is a, that would go great with some barbecue rams. Yeah, it would. Yeah, I've had a few people say someone's a mesquite. It's not really big and over the top and sort of voluptuous smoke. It's sort of thinner and more sweet and heavy. It cuts through a little bit more. It's got a good follow-through. Yeah, it does. And one of the things that I like about this versus something
00:10:53
Speaker
The way I would expect mesquite smoke to taste, it's not nearly as sharp because mesquite has a real kind of acrid smoke. Yeah, it's not like that at all. Yeah. So I actually didn't smoke these grains. This is a Gladfield product making this in New Zealand. And I'm all about it, man. I do think that it needs
00:11:19
Speaker
a lot longer than the glass just to pick up a little more wood sweetness. That's right on the glass. It's so light. It looks maybe like a Chardonnay or something at the moment. It actually looks quite similar to that, doesn't it? But it's got a really rich body to it. That's the flavor already, isn't it? The flavor profile was there. There's some serious legs on it. There's some sugar in there.
00:11:43
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely some sweetness being picked up, but there's no, none of that new oak flavor. It's not candied or deep dark caramel or any of that sort of stuff. Chocolatey. Yeah. So I only use medium toasted chips for that reason, because, you know, if you forget and leave it on there for an extra couple of days, you know, if, if you do that, I get that really, that really deep, earthy, dirty, you know, dirt woodsy, or if I use
00:12:12
Speaker
Dark toasted oat chips. I get the same. I have the same problem. I just I can't judge when to pull them off That's why I always stick with the medium toasty because it's to me. It's just easier to I can't judge medium toast or medium chai. Medium chai. Okay. I'm so you're doing like a number two or number three. I can't use chips every time I've done it. I always end up doing too much or I do not enough and Then I throw in another tablespoon full and you get too much. Yeah, it's just fucked.
00:12:40
Speaker
Yeah, I mean I I have to go with pieces. It's easier for me to control that, you know Yeah, we also get longer too, right? Yeah, I mean if you miss it by a couple of days, it's nothing like a couple of months then maybe I mean, I also just can't get away from this thing that there's there's oaking and then there's aging Yeah, and I kind of two different things and you can get a whole other flavor in there really quickly. Yeah, that's fine But you don't get that subtly and complexity that comes just with you know with time exactly exactly
00:13:10
Speaker
Yeah. And there's no short way to get to it either. No, I don't. Oh. Do you want to know a secret? Yeah. It's not really a secret, but it's kind of a secret. So is it the Whiskey Vault? No. Well, I was at the Whiskey Vault this weekend and someone pulled me a blind whiskey. I sat there and enjoyed it for some time. And it's nice to be served something blind so you don't get
00:13:37
Speaker
Yeah, you don't start thinking you taste something when you don't really or whatever. And I was quite enjoying it. It wasn't amazing. I tried some amazing whiskies, amazing whiskies over those couple of days. And it wasn't up to that standards, but it was definitely very nice for any way you want to shave it. And they finally revealed the bottle and it was
00:14:01
Speaker
abomination from lost spirits, which is made with a reactor. And that thing's aged for days.
Technology in Rapid Aging of Spirits
00:14:09
Speaker
I don't know what it is yet. It's measured in a very short amount of time. Is that the one where it's vacuum pressure or is it the ultrasound?
00:14:17
Speaker
I don't know. There's so many of the weird reactor kind of techniques that I've seen. And I read an article about it. Do you guys want more of this? No, I don't. You want to go on the next one? Yeah. You know, I've heard, and I'm still not, I still haven't bought into it yet, but someone described to me, says, oh yeah, you freeze it and then you thaw it. And then you freeze it and then you thaw it. That just, it just crams more oaken. Right. I do that too. Yeah, it just, right. So there's no shortcut to get there for the aging process.
00:14:45
Speaker
I'll do that for a test. I want to see how something's going to respond with a plum brandy. I was trying to see what would happen if I put a little age on it.
00:14:56
Speaker
And so I just did a couple shots. I shall go first on this one. Yeah, yeah, dig in. Yeah, so I mean, I took that same spirit from our spirits and blinded it to a bunch of people that I really respect that really know their stuff in the spirits world. Yeah. All of them said, yeah, it's nice. And then I said, well, how old do you think it is? Eight years. I think it's a Scotch. It was petered. So it was quite nice. Yeah, eight years. I got five years, 10 years.
00:15:22
Speaker
No one guessed it was essentially a new make and I must admit I was kind of very skeptical of that product. Yeah. That kind of... Well, I don't know man. The guy that came up with the process is like, he's figured out the biochemistry. He's working on taking that new make.
00:15:42
Speaker
That was smooth. Using his process to make the actual biochemical changes within the spirit. And it's the stuff, the stuff he's aiming for is the funky shit that happens within four, five, six, eight, ten years. Yeah, breaking down tannins and other things. Because the first portion of aging, anybody can get there pretty quick. And sometimes you can fake it. But it's those really complex changes
00:16:09
Speaker
where some of the aldehydes change into other chemistry things. If he's doing the science, I don't see why you couldn't make that happen. That's 100% my position too. Was it a great spirit or was it just good?
00:16:30
Speaker
Great, as in it stood up to a lot of, I mean, what's great to you? Like, LeFrog 10? Since I haven't tried it, I want to say great as, you know, compared to anything else that these people would say was great. The people that I gave it to didn't say it was bad, which would mean that it's firmly in the pretty damn good category. And I think
00:16:55
Speaker
The reason that they didn't think it was great was not that it had nothing to do with it being a new make spirit, right? So, you can age something that's just not going to be a diamond and it's not going to be a diamond, right? More age isn't going to fix that. And I think that's kind of where it was sitting. They need to do some more work on their process up to it. Also, if you did kind of a pedestrian green bill, you know, if you didn't do anything
00:17:19
Speaker
That's exactly my point. Prices and ingredients beforehand. Have you ever heard of the Solera system? I described that one time. One of the places that I visited used that system for their wine. It was absolutely amazing the way that they actually control and can legally call the vintage
00:17:47
Speaker
what it was from the beginning is you have this Solera mix that continuously takes place. It's never a full transfer. But what it does is it really changes the character over every year. That's good. Slightly. This is good, right? That is good. So this is a single malt on a French oak. That's really light oak. That's light on the oak flavor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:18:12
Speaker
That would be a really good replacement for an after dinner mint.
00:18:32
Speaker
A lot of candy sweetness in there. Yeah, I would replace a brandy with that. Yeah, you can sit and sit that later. It just hits that. Yeah, that's quite nice. A lot of vanilla, almost like cake. I don't get the cake out of it. I'm getting a birthday cake thing going on in there. Oh, cookie dough? Yeah, not like that fake ass.
00:18:56
Speaker
flavoring stuff but like somebody made a cake in the kitchen and you're smelling it from two rooms away. That's actually kind of spicy too. Yeah. Like Christmas spice. Cinnamon maybe? I didn't want to say cinnamon because I didn't want to be too grab. You can be as wanky as you want them. That's full of wank. Don't you say a wank. I'm going to go a little different direction. I'm going to say nutmeg.
00:19:22
Speaker
Yep. He had to do it. He had to go. He had to go to Nutmeg on us. Can't help it. Got to be different. Yeah. I see that. That little sort of twang at the end. Guys, I think we've talked this one to death. Yeah, that's true. It's good. It is. Have we decided that it's good? Yes.
00:19:42
Speaker
It is. Do you want to finish it? I certainly will. Hey, why don't we give these a score? You can score them if you want. Yeah, a scale of one to fives or you want to do them one to ten. One to five yums. One to five who? Yums. Yums. Okay, one to five yums. I'd give it a, at this a three yum. Okay. I would go three and a half. No, the one I had before was a
00:20:04
Speaker
I don't think that's your thing. No, that wasn't my thing. See, this is less my thing. This is more my thing. But I think it's a better spirit. I also think it's older. I mean, look at the color of it. And the mouthfeel is almost slick. It's really good. The first one I'd give two and a half yums. We're not using yums. Excellent. This is good though. Where do we get to on the legalization thing?
Impact of Legalizing Home Distilling
00:20:32
Speaker
Probably not going to happen or tricky, but I mean if it did happen It's or when it happened. Mm-hmm. Let's let's be obvious when it happens. What are the implications? Exactly. That's what I want to talk about Let's you know what let's play devil's advocate. Okay, what's the worst thing that can happen if this thing goes through some dumb ding-dong Makes us still in their backyard and blows himself up
00:20:58
Speaker
Uh, highly unlikely. Yeah, I agree. But I agree. People blow themselves up with gas, barbecue gas tanks and exactly. So what was they do it? I think I, let me see if I can remember worst case scenario. Everybody starts to distill and all the liquor stores go out of business. Oh yeah. That would totally happen. Yeah. Just exactly the same way. Everybody now brews their own beer and there are no beer companies. Exactly.
00:21:23
Speaker
No, you're saying what's the worst that could possibly happen? I think we can all agree right now that none of us really think there's a downside to this. No, not really. Personally, there would be a downside because the allure of the mystique of this being the romance of this would go away. I don't think it's okay.
00:21:49
Speaker
Because that's just an emotional connection to it, that's not practical. When I talk to some of the guys on Home Distiller Forum, one of the...
00:22:00
Speaker
One of the guys, he said, you know, I don't get to really break laws. This is my only outlaw thing. I don't smoke. Let me do this one thing. Oh, there's legitimately people that want to stay illegal. Stay illegal so they can feel like they're doing whatever they want to do. Which is the way with something.
00:22:26
Speaker
To me, I mean, I can see that, but... Oh, sorry, guys. This is 52%, by the way. I reckon whack it in there. I think that glass is a bit... I'm not quite sure what that is. Stuff or not? Peat. Yeah, very different. Very different is, and I don't like it. Buttery peat? There's no peat in there. All right. I think whack it in there, dude. I think that glass is fucking with it. It must be, because I really... I asked him about something he made. Are you sure this doesn't have...
00:22:58
Speaker
Butterscotch. There we go. Yeah. Is it? Yeah. Super butterscotch. Try that.
00:23:05
Speaker
Oh, I got it. Yeah. That's so different. Those glasses on the back. Oh, man. It's crazy. Yeah. As soon as I pulled up in that glass, I looked at the shape of it and I was like, man, that's not going to work. That's so crazy to me because they're OK. We've talked about the incredible, like, variety of things and the way you can distill spirits and the way you can mash the grains and all these different things that can go into
00:23:31
Speaker
changing the flavor of your spirit. Oh, by the way, the shape of the fucking glass, the shape of the fucking glass is going to be. Not. Yeah. Or butterscotch. Not only that, not only that, a glass that hadn't been rinsed.
00:23:47
Speaker
Uh, that one did rinse that one. Right, that one... Oh, that one had been rinsed. That was in your glass. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Oh, right. No, originally, yeah, but that one... When I first took a drink of that... Where there's candy. Is it? Like, where there's butterscotch candy. One of the guys the other night said, uh, Nesquik powder. Like, uh... Fuck off. You don't think so? Aragon is dead on, man. No.
00:24:12
Speaker
I don't get that, but I do get the butterscotch. My grandpa used to keep this little bag of Werther's candies. Oh, there's definitely Werther's. That's all I get in there. I don't get Nesquik. Really? You don't get anything chocolatey? Right on the finish. Not like milk chocolate, like powdery chocolate. I don't get Nesquik, but I do get a little bit of a
00:24:38
Speaker
Not the flavor of chocolate, but a little bit of the bitterness that you get from dark chocolate. The feel of it. I get the powdery feeling in your mouth. A little, yeah. So that's the alimi whiskey. That's unhauled. 100%. And the malt. Liquid malt extract. That is crazy. That is good. That is so crazy.
00:25:01
Speaker
Yeah. And what's this age on? That one's New American Oak. Okay. Pretty heavily charred too, at 52%. So it's definitely going towards the candy, caramel side of stuff. That's the direction I'd like to go.
00:25:17
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I've pushed a lot of stuff to the other end, like real tannic. Yeah. And now I'm pushing the sweet side. And I guess I'm going to inch my way back in. You'll find your balance. I've got some, based on that video, I've got some DME at home ready for that.
00:25:33
Speaker
That particular run, I'm going to do it with dry malt extract because I'm really, really curious about that. I haven't got to, it's on that list we talked about. Yeah, it's on that list. I almost did one. Remember the, I did like a one or one and a half minute mystery brew. Yeah.
00:25:49
Speaker
That was a black malt extract or super dark malt extract that I got from
Myths and Misconceptions of Home Distilling
00:25:57
Speaker
a friend of mine. It was infected. I was like, what do you want to do with this? And I dumped it because it was sitting in my garage in a bucket for two years, like almost
00:26:13
Speaker
Almost a year and a half. Didn't end up with a big fat scooby on the... No. No, it never got infected. Brings up an interesting point. The guy that gave it to me was like, you're not still going to do anything with that, are you? You got to dump that. And I was like, it smells fine. He said, no, dump it. It's been a year.
00:26:31
Speaker
But yeah, interesting point. People, they asked me a lot, but you've heard the rumor is, well, I just, it just finished fermenting. Everything is done. I got to do it within three days or it turns. I don't know where that came from. The three. Yeah, I'll tell you. Three days. And I asked the guy, I'm good. No, because I know more is coming. But the folks.
00:26:54
Speaker
Mashed does not go bad. It's it's a, it's a, um, it's a natural preserving if it's infected. Exactly. I have, I have had a mass set for as long as two years. The last one I did, and I did this on the video and it came out beautiful, had set for like nine months. The one out in the garage, the whiskey one, the Jesse and I made eight months. Yeah. Still fresh as a daisy. I'll tell you. I would actually really like to taste that because I,
00:27:25
Speaker
There's a few things that will happen, but I don't know if they're necessarily bad for distilling. One is you will oxidize it, which is horrible for beer. If you're using buckets, the oxygen is going to go straight through the bucket and then learn to seal. The one thing that you tasted, that was last time you were here, that was
00:27:49
Speaker
eight or nine months old, and it tasted like wine when it went in. So I'm pretty sure that was skunked all to hell, and it made some... Makes it taste a drop. Yeah, but you know, if you... I'll agree, if you... Skunked all to hell, and it made some... Makes it taste a drop. Yeah, but you know, if you leave... Skunked all to hell, and it made some... Makes it taste a drop. Yeah, but you know, if you leave... Skunked all to hell, and it made some... Makes it taste a drop. Yeah, but you know, if you leave... Skunked all to hell, and it made some... Makes it taste a drop. Yeah, but you know, if you leave... Skunked all to hell, and it made some... Skunked all to hell, and it made some... Skunked all to hell, and it made some... Makes it taste a drop. Makes it taste a drop. Yeah, but you know, if
00:28:10
Speaker
Yeah, you'll start getting some awful odors and flavors. This was on grain for eight months. Wow. I just know that it's a natural preservative. I get so many people that tell me, well, it tastes like vinegar. I said, oh, it's sour. He says, yeah, it's supposed to be. There's no sugar there. I'm alcohol. Come on.
00:28:33
Speaker
That's a hard thing too, right? Because if I taste a beer and say it's sour, there's something in there that's fermenting in it. But if someone tastes it that's not used to tasting, because a beer's got residual sugar in there, right? You wash it. Oh yeah. It's a perfect breeding ground for bacteria. I've had a corn and wheat mash taste sour.
00:28:55
Speaker
I mean, it was perfectly healthy and everything, but day seven of fermentation and it was sour, exactly the way it was supposed to be. And the only reason why I knew that, because I watched a Jim Tom video.
00:29:10
Speaker
And he was like, yep, there it goes. This is them Rice Krispies. Good and sour. Okay, it's supposed to be like that. All right. Because that's the thing is nobody listed out the things you really need to check for when you're doing a mash. They talk about the distilling. If you go to the distilling forums, there wasn't a lot of tasting notes on what the mash was supposed to taste like.
00:29:34
Speaker
If I mean fair enough, fair enough. It was just one of those things that I lucked on that piece of information and I'm glad I did or otherwise I would have dumped out a lot of stuff. There's also a difference between sour and vinegar. There's a lot of people can't tell the difference.
00:29:52
Speaker
the if the mother mother of vinegar does get in there oh yes you are going to have a problem you're exactly so if you leave it open and there's flies getting in there as they say now oh by the way fruit flies fruit fruit flies do carry the acetobacter virus so that's one easy way to get it in there now all but by the way a five gallon batch
00:30:10
Speaker
It's going to take about three months. Yeah. To develop a mother large enough in order to convert that to a Savitgar. But can it happen? Absolutely. Will it happen? You leave it sealed and you don't let nothing else in there or you don't add nothing else to it. Nothing. You know what I did about a month and a half ago, I took a, I had a half a bottle of red wine that I had used for cooking. I took some of my apple cider vinegar from the grocery store, the one that has the mother in it.
00:30:37
Speaker
and I mixed some of that right in there and I closed it up with the cork and I stuck it in. It's been a month and a half. That shit still hasn't turned into vinegar. Like I said, it takes a while. I mean, it takes a long time to fuck out your cork. Sure does. It does. Yeah. Yeah. That's a hell of a way to put it. It takes a long time and a lot of work. A cup of mash. It does, yeah. It does.
00:31:00
Speaker
So we got any other worst case scenarios for legalization? Worst case scenarios for legalization, oh my goodness. Everybody in the world, all of a sudden, or everybody in the United States in particular, will become absolutely happy, best of friends, neighbors will love neighbors, and they will share drinks.
00:31:18
Speaker
That's really not a bad thing, though. That sounds horrible. Yeah, that's terrible. But the funny thing is there is a stigma with spirits, right? Yeah. If you make beer, you're an artisan. If you make spirits, you're a drunkard. Right. Which is hillbilly or redneck. What kills me is the all-blind. You go blind.
00:31:42
Speaker
All right, let's break it down. If I make five gallons of wine or five gallons of beer or five gallons of mash, if I bottle that wine and bottle that beer, all that methanol that you say is going to make you go blind is in them bottles and you're going to drink it. I'm just going to be, I'm going to take one step further and I'm going to take it off of that spirit so I don't get any headaches later on. So how can it make you go blind?
00:32:09
Speaker
Yeah, so essentially what you're saying is if you've got 10 liters of, at least one with standard drinks, it's easier in standard drinks, right? If you've got a large bucket of beer that's 10 standard drinks.
00:32:22
Speaker
When you drink 10 standard drinks, you drink X amount of methanol. That's just the way it is. That's just the way it is. If you drink orange juice, you're drinking methanol. Exactly. There's methanol all over the place. He'll tell you, you drink a half a gallon of apple juice, you can have one hell of a headache. Yep. So then if you distill it, and assuming that you could somehow distill and get every drop of alcohol out, which you won't, and every drop of ethanol out, which you won't, and you put it all together and you drink it,
00:32:47
Speaker
You would still drink 10 standard drinks and the exact same amount of methanol. That's the same thing. So you can't create methanol. It's the scare.
00:33:01
Speaker
Yeah. Wasn't it, wasn't it, uh, revenuers that were actually, I don't know if that's true, but I did do a video on that and there's a long sorted history in the United States about, um, you know, unscrupulous, um, gangsters and unscrupulous distillers that were spiking. Um, they weren't doing it to be mean. They were doing it for, it was a money thing. Yeah. And oh, by the way, you know, the American government made millions and millions. There's, there's more than one way to make methanol.
00:33:30
Speaker
I mean, there's a real easy way to make methyl. You can make gallons of it in a day. And they were making methanol for other purposes. You have chemical requirements, you have laboratory requirements. And then, of course, everybody knows somebody. Give me a barrel of that. Hey, guess what? I add that to it. So this became a problem that just kind of buffaloed itself. And it has all these tentacles, and it went wild until,
00:33:57
Speaker
Literally everybody who's never touched or seen a still unless it was on television has a goddamn opinion about methanol and my applejack is going to make people go blind or kill them. That's right. It's wrong. Which I probably should stop drinking applejack.
00:34:20
Speaker
Can't even see me. Yeah. Well, for those folks, I hope you're not giving your children, your grandchildren, apple juice to go to school because you're feeding them a little bit of methanol. You're feeding them a little bit of methanol. It's a natural product. Yeah. I mean, let's be real about it. It'll fucking kill you.
00:34:36
Speaker
Yeah, but the average person has to drink somewhere between three and eight ounces of straight methanol, 100% pure methanol, in order to be deadly.
00:34:56
Speaker
About half of that to fuck with your optic nerve. Yeah, about half of that. So, I mean, that's quite a bit. I mean, come on. You got to be purposely trying to do this. Yeah. Yeah. And you've got to, yeah. Yeah. So, essentially my take on it is the only way you can hurt yourself is you create a very large, most likely fruit wash. So, you've got more in there. You distill it and you somehow separate just the methanol.
00:35:19
Speaker
You only keep the heads and then you throw everything else away. You might have some issues later at some point. The other way you can hurt yourself with a still is if you just block it. A still is an open system. It should be. If you close off, you need three things in order for an explosion to take place. You need something that's explosive, you need pressure, and you need flame.
00:35:43
Speaker
or some combination of those three. And a still is an open system, so you've lost one of them already. You do have flame in some cases, and you do have a flammable liquid. But you don't have the pressure, so you can't have an explosion. But there are people who will somehow, they'll pack the column so tight, they'll block it up. Can it happen? Or they'll pour a really, really dirty wash, and they're still all the way up to the top, because they want to run that thing.
00:36:12
Speaker
They want to run it twice, they want to run it once with all their wash in it. So we're admitting that there are small potential dangers to this. There are dangers to repairing your own car.
00:36:25
Speaker
Or cooking chicken. Or cooking chicken. Or barbecuing. I have a solution, because we already do it. Don't fry a turkey for fuck's sake. Yeah. Way more likely to die or catch your house on fire or burn your face off frying a turkey than you ever are. I've got the solution, because we already do it in the United States, and we could just tag on to it. You know, if you buy a hair dryer now, there's a little sticker on the side that says, do not use in the bathtub. Right. Because there's a dumbass out there who did get it. Now, there's every day we had dumbass put a sticker on the still that says, do not do this.
00:36:54
Speaker
Your problem solved. So that is all the safety problems, right? Which is one of the things that gets brought up when you say, why is it legal and why should it not be legal? Which to be fair, if people aren't educated on the subject, is a pretty serious thing, right? They think, what do you think?
00:37:14
Speaker
Right now, the way stills are marketed in the United States, they're sold as water distillers or essential oil distillers. They are not marketed as alcohol distillers since that's illegal. The problem with that is when you sell, if I sell a vacuum cleaner brand new, what comes with it? A fucking manual.
00:37:36
Speaker
So I can't sell this still, and I can't sell this still as an alcohol still with a manual in it that explains best practices and safety procedures. I have to say, some people use this for alcohol, don't do that, it's illegal. But here's your essential oil distiller and some recipes for making lavender oil.
00:37:57
Speaker
fuck off yeah i mean the the devil's advocate side to that is well it's illegal so why are you selling them anyway right so right i mean there is that side of it but i totally get what you mean i didn't make that loophole that just that happens to be there yeah yeah but if you did legalize it yeah then you would have then you would homebrew store owners who could actually openly learn about this stuff and you don't have to you know with a wink and a nod sell you plumbing parts yep that's the biggest problem is that
00:38:26
Speaker
They can't talk about it and educate you openly. I think our political system is probably not prepared.
History and Impact of Alcohol Taxes
00:38:35
Speaker
70% of our revenue in the United States was gained by alcohol taxes prior to prohibition. Okay, tax. Let's hit that. Just prior to prohibition, since they knew it was coming, I don't know if a lot of people know this or not, but we were really in debt.
00:38:50
Speaker
from the First World War and a lot of other things that were going on, you know, that we instituted the income tax amendment to the Constitution. So we started collecting income tax from people knowing that right after that, that we're going to have prohibition because 70% of our revenue was gone. Prohibition was there. And then when they lifted prohibition,
00:39:14
Speaker
They never looked at the income taxes. They doubled us. They got us twice now. But they always say, follow the money. Follow the money, and you'll find out what really instigates a lot of these policies. That's one, I think, is a hurdle that's not too hard to overcome, but it is a hurdle which is the tax collected.
00:39:37
Speaker
In the same way that they don't collect taxes on the 200 gallons of beer that I can brew every year, the 200 gallons of wine that I can brew every year, they wouldn't be allowed to collect tax on the 40 gallons of spirit of, you know, 40 proof gallons of spirit that I can collect, that I can make in my house. So basically an equivalent amount of
00:40:00
Speaker
alcohol. I agree with that. It's wine, beer, and spirit, and they're all the same amount of alcohol. No tax on that, anything over that, and you're breaking the law. I'm fine with regulation. I'm fine with regulation, but legalize it because there's no legitimate reason for it to still be illegal. The other thing is, too, who's the biggest
00:40:25
Speaker
demographic that buys the most craft beer. Well, I could almost guarantee you that home brewers would buy a triple. I mean, as soon as I started home brewing, I bought way more craft beer. Because you were experimenting. You were researching. But it's everything that the government should want. My wife never understood that.
00:40:44
Speaker
It's everything the government should want. It's more money, some more tax, but less actual drinking because you're paying a higher price per bottle. So it's less binge drinking. It's more about the craft and supporting local companies. But I wonder if that maybe we haven't got onto that right yet. We haven't sold that idea. The Diageo and the big players on the money side.
00:41:06
Speaker
Well, I mean, the craft brewers did it, right? The craft brewers sold that idea. They sold the whole thing. And I think a lot of the distilling world can learn a lot. The home distilling world, I should say, can learn a lot from the home brewing world. I agree. I mean, it happened so long ago. It was 1978. I mean, you know, George was a young man when that happened. Oh, and still a young man. Bearden has been plugging on this line of joking. Sorry, George. He's not sorry.
00:41:36
Speaker
I don't have any other material. It's been old jokes, Kiwi jokes, and small dick jokes. That's about the range of it today. You're coming up rather short. You're coming up rather short there, bearded. Apparently, I'm the one who has the small dick, according to George. Oh, all right, right. No firsthand account here. I have no idea.
00:42:01
Speaker
We're going to do some nude sketching later. Nude pictures. Gosh. But this is terrible. I mean, it does sound a little bit conspiracy theory. Yeah. But I could definitely see a world, whether or not this is reality,
00:42:18
Speaker
in which certain large players would want to hinder that. Oh, absolutely. Because A, they think they're going to sell less spirits because people would make it themselves or B, because they know exactly what I think would happen and that then suddenly crafter stillies would take off. Well, here's the thing with that. It just depends on whether or not they want a piece of that bigger pie. Would you like for your pie, your whole pie to get bigger so then you can have a larger piece of that bigger pie? Because all the brewing companies
00:42:48
Speaker
Like Anheuser-Busch, I mean, they own most of the craft breweries that pop up in the grocery store. They're there for a little while. And then, you know, Anheuser-Busch, of course, they go and they buy them. We really don't care about that, though. No, no, but I'm just saying, if that's true, we don't care as consumers. We don't care who bought the company. As long as the product, as long as it still tastes the same. A lot of people in the craft will...
00:43:14
Speaker
I think there's less now. Wasn't it Poland that bought Budweiser at one point and there was a big uproar? Yeah, there was something funny with that. Yeah, I can't remember if it was Poland or something. But it's more like the small craft places that get big enough to get on the radar. Once they're on the radar. And then they're once they, yeah. But again, when you're bought out, you're bought out for, you know, there is a
00:43:39
Speaker
negotiation that goes there, it's not like I push you out. But you give me lots of money and I give you the building where I made all the beer and the recipes I used to make that. And I get to sit back and run tires. And I get to sit back with millions of dollars in the pocket, thank you very much. And I am all for that. I think that's wonderful. If someone that's making something that I respect can
00:44:01
Speaker
Get rich off it and cash it. All power to you. But there is definitely a large contingency of people that sort of subscribe to the you sold out. And that was a product I love. I see your point. And now you've sold out and the product's not going to be as good. Or even if the product is as good, now I'm paying. I don't trust you. So there's a little bit of that. But I mean, I don't know. Did you guys try this one by the way? I did. That's good.
00:44:26
Speaker
This is the malted corn. Whiskey. It tasted amazing. With belconus oak, I stole a barrel steak from the whiskey tribe guys. So that's aged with a little bit of Texas right there. A lot of vanilla. I like that. But you know that argument, I mean,
00:44:49
Speaker
Again, there are valid arguments on both sides. They're too legalized or not. It's your belief, your belief system. If you totally don't believe in anything about alcohol, you want to go off on which trials and things, whatever you want to do. I'm okay with that. Be that way. But you can argue that point and make sense to your constituents. Not to me.
00:45:15
Speaker
but at least on that point of view it kind of goes back to a... you can get back to a point where...
00:45:22
Speaker
I don't agree with you on this point. And I think you're kind of crazy for thinking that. But given that you think that everything that you're saying after this kind of makes sense. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Like if you give them that one point, okay, I'll give you that one in good faith. Now I can understand your behavior as opposed to just people being batty. Yeah. One of the biggest factors is that most people don't even realize it's illegal. I think that's a huge. I mean, I've talked to police officers who don't even know. Yep. Wish you wouldn't do that. Well, I don't.
00:45:52
Speaker
I don't want to talk to them. Sometimes they make me talk to them. Yeah, so like last week, man, I had a massive workout just perfect. I went out on the street and danced like nobody was watching. I got a court date next week, but that's another story.
00:46:13
Speaker
But I think you've got a very good point there that essentially that it's like the way it is because it's like the way it is and it's not changing because it's hard to change shit.
Awareness and Influence on Distilling Legalization
00:46:22
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. The inertia is, you know, it's a giant freaking stone in the way that really nobody even knows is there. Yeah. Why would I move this thing out of the way? You're not going to change belief. That's the problem.
00:46:35
Speaker
Well, I think the beat is moving on a different tactic. I think the percentage of people that believe it's wrong for us to distill is not as extensive as the people who just don't even know that it's illegal. Or if they do know it's illegal that I can't. It just went boom or just got it. You're right. You're right.
00:46:57
Speaker
I don't care if it's legal or illegal. I don't do it. So why am I going to help you? Doesn't love me, bro. Yeah, I got you. Very good point. Yeah. And I think somewhere along the line, like anything, right? Like the weed thing. It just kind of got to a critical mass where suddenly so many people were demanding. So many people were behind it that something had to give. So yeah, I do. Excuse me. I do feel like eventually we need
00:47:25
Speaker
If something is going to change, you need some sort of groundswell movement. I would like to know that maybe in our later years, we can look back and go, wow, we were actually pioneers. With the community, we were actually pioneers. See here, we're just talking about this. And a lot of social programs and changes took place by folks just sitting around talking like this. And then someone hears it and they go and talk with
00:47:51
Speaker
Someone else hears it and they go and tell their friends. Yeah, totally. Spread this idea like a disease.
00:48:04
Speaker
is essentially what we're saying, right? Yeah. Yeah. Like a global pandemic of hobby distilling. Yeah. I think the other thing is too, we, I mean, we've seen little efforts, right? We've seen people come up with petitions. Yeah. We've seen little, little things, but they're all well, they're all fragmented. There's no cohesion to everything.
00:48:24
Speaker
Yeah, unless you can get 100,000 signatures on something like that, it goes nowhere. So when the few people that you were able to get on your side on social media...
00:48:35
Speaker
You know, give you like three or four hundred signatures. It's just kind of a wasted effort. And then you try again. It sets everybody back like, well, it's never going to happen because so and so did it. And this guy tried it. This guy tried it and he always failed. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what I was going to say. And I, I mean,
00:48:55
Speaker
This is going to sound really wanky, but I do feel like we're in some small position to be able to maybe trigger something for that, right? Absolutely. If we could wrangle people together. I hope so. I really, really do. But I think it's the messaging and the reception of the message and how sincere
00:49:15
Speaker
We can present it and it can be accepted. That's what I think is... I mean, to us, we're sincere. I mean, we believe this, we live this, but your sincerity has to transition through generations, through cultures. You're right, it's a challenge. Yeah. And I do think... Beethoven and I had a talk about this a little while ago.
00:49:41
Speaker
I do think you're right. I don't think the timing's right just now for us to try and push something. That seems like a minor thing, but yeah, I mean, we're in the middle of election season. Oh, gosh. I mean, so all anyone wants to know is nobody's going to talk about anything. We've got things that we really need to resolve. I mean, we're OK the way we are. I think our community is strong. Oh, 100%. It's going to do great. It's going to continue to do well. And we'll keep chugging down the road. And I agree with you. Right now, we've got other things that we need
00:50:10
Speaker
address. Let's address those and let's just keep this going. Actually, you know what guys, wherever this gets posted, I will create a new newsletter list. Okay. And if anyone wants to sign up, wherever this is posted, I'll leave a link for it. If anyone out there wants to sign up for that list, I promise you hand on heart.
00:50:32
Speaker
I will only ever email you about this topic. So if the three of us decide to get together, and I really hope that there's other people out there that might be able to help influence this too, or if you're just a person that wants to put a signature down, or share a video, I mean, there's little things that you could potentially do to help us out on this, to help the movement out on this that don't involve a signature, right? That could be, okay, on this date, we're all gonna, everyone's gonna put out a video,
00:51:02
Speaker
And I need everyone on this list to go to every single one of those videos, like it, share it and comment on it. I mean, that could be all it is, right? Yeah. So if you want to be involved in that.
00:51:10
Speaker
I'll make it happen. I'll put a link down here. Sign up for that. You go on A-list. I know that's kind of scary in this topic. Not A-list. A-list. On the A-list. Yeah. And then if we decide that it is time to sort of try and do something about it, then you'll get to know about it.
00:51:32
Speaker
And one of the other things that gets brought up is when the Hobby Distillers Association was actually active in doing their thing, very few people wanted to join and actually
00:51:48
Speaker
go on record as supporting hobby distilling because it is illegal and they didn't want to get busted. You're not going to get in trouble for wanting a law to change. You'll get in trouble if you make alcohol at your house and then go and sell it like a dumbass. Don't sell shit. Don't do that.
00:52:09
Speaker
And you know what? That's a good point. I'm totally fine with the mole being like that. But that's how it is in New Zealand. We can't sell shit. You should never sell alcohol. Beer, wine or spirits are not licensed. It is such a highly regulated industry. I studied it for a couple of years when I thought I was going to open a distillery.
00:52:32
Speaker
All right. Where are we at here? Better be licensed. I'm pouring more drinks for George here. Yeah, yeah. It's a good point. George could pick up on that one right away. We're talking gin. Oh, yeah. Oh, in fact, I noticed it right here. When you set the glass down, I picked it up. Yeah. That's pretty pleasant. This one's a little different. So this is made from the chimera.
00:52:54
Speaker
So this is every... Oh, oh, oh. Yeah, this is a low wine. Sorry, a faint, all faints run from everything I ever made up until this point. The heads and the tails, all the low wines went into the boiler. I redistilled it, ended up with a relatively neutral spirit. This is the low vision. So it's kind of wheaty and earthy, the base spirit. So I created a gin recipe that was more earthy and
00:53:22
Speaker
You can try to pick some flavors out there if you want. Licorice. Not that one. Yep. That's what I picked up. That's what I mean. That's my taste buds said black licorice. Oh, yeah. Yeah. If you're tasting it, then I believe you. Yeah. Yeah. But sorry. What I meant is there's no licorice. Oh, I'm not saying this in my taste buds. Yeah. Yeah. I can see that. Yeah. Yeah.
00:53:48
Speaker
But it's a little bit light on the berries. I can tell you went low on the berries because relatively it's not tiny. I'm tasting ginger. But the ginger's weird. I got another one. The ginger flavor and the ginger spice are separated. They come at two different times for me anyway. Do you know what I mean?
00:54:15
Speaker
I get the ginger up front as soon as it goes into my mouth. I got the raw ginger first. And then the spice comes in at the end. Yeah, it's weird. Yeah. There's a whole lot of stuff in that actually. The juniper and the ginger actually almost... At least the aroma. Did they compliment? Yeah. The pine of the juniper. The pine. That's exactly where I was going. Yeah. That one's interesting to me. Good mix. I like that one. Yeah.
00:54:39
Speaker
I do have the high version of this and that does have licorice, star anise and fennel in it. All those flavors play really nice together. Really? Yeah. Let's do it. I can get it to you after we get off mic because it's outside. Oh man. We can do that. The build up, the build up and the cut down. Jesse, we can always count on you, my friend.
00:55:09
Speaker
All right, guys, so one last thing we want to do before we check out.
Techniques and Preferences in Making Distilling Cuts
00:55:14
Speaker
Actually, before we do, is there anything else we want to cover off on the legalization thing? I think we kind of did it justice. Yeah, I'm good. Cool. All right. So I know within the community, there's a few things that people do differently for different reasons. And because of that, people think about things differently for different reasons. So before we even get into this,
00:55:36
Speaker
You know I respect you both immensely. So if I end up stabbing you... Feelings are mutual. No, but what I'm saying is I'd like to have a bit of a frank discussion about a few things and throw them out there. But it's purely, how do I put it? Purely academic.
00:55:56
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. Alright, so feel free to weigh on these and I don't know how either of you sit on some of these. Okay. But actually I do know the first one, let's go, is cuts. So I personally, I know George, you tend to pick a starting point and an end point. You throw everything in together.
00:56:11
Speaker
and you wrap it up. I tend to run into individual jars all the way through and then go back and taste the next day and I know I've had a bunch of questions lately asking about that and I think it's because we're getting more crossover all the time between our channel. So, do you want to let us know why you do it?
00:56:29
Speaker
Well, believe it or not, the reason why I like to collect everything together is that ultimately what I found myself doing before, it's a shortcut. And I found it to be beneficial in my case just because of my process. I've collected in jars many, many times and then I wind up putting them together.
00:56:52
Speaker
Because at the beginning of my hearts, actually at the end of the heads and right at the beginning of the hearts, I've got this really concentrated flavor profile. I know it's there. And it is. And it's relevant. And then it starts to wean off. And it levels and mellows. And then it kind of tapers at the end. And I don't collect tails, period. I just will not do it because I don't think there's an effort. It's not worth my effort.
00:57:21
Speaker
Yeah. Because I don't ever use them. That's one of the cool things about this hobby is you can... You can stop when you want. Yeah. So, but if I take all of that and if I collect it all together on one thing, I've got a blend of everything that's in my kettle. Right. I don't have it broken out. But see, then I'm not doing the analytical portion of
00:57:42
Speaker
the drink, the flavor profile that you're doing. So I like the way you do your process because from your point of view and your aspect of the analyzing process of start to finish lends itself much more to that separation. Whereas mine is a finished product that I just have blended together and then I do the, I either infuse flavors
00:58:06
Speaker
I start to age or I oak chip it and then I'll age and store or whatever the case may be. So, that's my story and that's kind of why I do that. Yeah, right. I think also, it's interesting, I've only just realized this but I think you tend to lean much more towards bourbon, American whiskey, those sort of things, right? Yeah.
00:58:28
Speaker
And some gins. Yeah, of course. And neutrals. I don't do vodka that much. And you don't tend to do big smoky things or really funky rums. I've got a bunch of peated malts sitting aside I'm waiting to use. I really don't like... That's not your jam. That's not my thing. So I've just clicked now. Are you Scottish? No wonder you're in America. You must have been deported.
00:58:54
Speaker
You know what they told me? They said, get the fuck. I've just clicked that that's probably a big root of this, right? It is. I'm the opposite. I love. Because you like a lot of the flavors that are mostly present in the tails. I do. See, that's where I was going with you. You're doing more of an analytical based on the collection at a certain point for a flavor profile where I'm doing the
00:59:18
Speaker
Honey, I got it all together. You kind of know your process and you know roughly what you're running and you've run it 100 times and you know that this percentage or this time in the run gives you what you want through to this time. See, I always say 204, 100 proof. Those are my two data points. I can't hit one. I've got to hit both of them. If I hit one and I haven't hit the other, I'll wait until the other one shows up and then I stop. I think what you figured out is actually really cool. It's the same as having
00:59:48
Speaker
having to consider whether or not you're going to make whiskey or gin on what kind of still you want to run, either a pot still or a reflux still. Do you want to collect in jars because you're looking for weird, little, chewy, chunky things that are funky or down in the tails? Or do you pretty much know what you're looking for and you want to just collect only the hearts and you're good. You're ready. So at the end of the day, Jesse, I'm doing it right. You're doing it wrong.
01:00:16
Speaker
Yeah, I see how this works. No, or you're doing it right. I'm doing it wrong. But it depends on what your view is. So they're both absolutely great processes. They both work. It's just, what is your flavor of the day? So just to articulate. What's your goal? What's your aim? Yeah, just to articulate in case for some reason you guys haven't seen the way I do it. I clicked.
01:00:41
Speaker
Oh, excuse me. That's those tacos coming back. I collect the whole run in small jars. And the reason I do that... Yeah, sometimes. And the reason is I can then go back the next day and decide what I want to keep, what I don't want to keep. And because I like those funky flavors, I like the hogo rum. I like the peat. They show up in the tails, but there's such a fine line between delicious peat and shitty tails. Yeah, exactly. And it might be, it might literally be the difference of 200 mils.
01:01:10
Speaker
sometimes between gold and hate. I've seen this happen. You had wet dog and cardboard and then not quite so much wet dog and cardboard, a little sweet something, and then even further away something amazing. That does happen. And that was that was weird. That was something I didn't expect. But I never would have run that long. But the only reason I ever run that long is because I'm looking for
01:01:36
Speaker
You're digging for treasure as well. Yeah. So, but if you're not into that style of whisky, you don't need to do that because I've never gone down that far in the tales and found something pretty. The only time that has come up is when you go so far down that you're almost just distilling water and then it cleans right up again. Isn't that called sweet water? Isn't that what they referred to the whole time? I think so, yeah. And then if you use, sometimes I've used that to kind of
01:02:01
Speaker
to save it aside and then proof down with. And that's kind of interesting, but you've got to go so far down the run, that's such a long process. Oh, you've got to get more free. That's why, and again, like with the genie, I'll stop.
01:02:15
Speaker
Well, at 3% in the cattle, when I know I've got about 3% ABV, and I know that from that point lower, the chance of me collecting tails, which I don't want and I don't like, are really, really prevalent. And it also equates...
01:02:31
Speaker
To honor proof, 204. Just George's dad worked. Did you ever make your kitchen smell like wet dog? No, thankfully. I've made the main cave smell like wet dog. I did. Because you'll sleep on the couch for that show. I didn't make the kitchen smell that bad. It was dumping out the wash afterwards, but the steam of it got up in my beard.
01:02:59
Speaker
Man, my wife was mad. There's a lot of things that stick in your beard you don't mind smelling you. Yeah, that's not one of them. Oh, this conversation could go south real quick. And I mean south. So you picked up on what I was laying down? Yeah, I picked up on what you're laying down there, George. Okay, what was the next one? The next one, methanol. And I think this is a trickier one. And I think that almost everyone in the
01:03:27
Speaker
Community is saying almost the same damn thing from different points of view for different people. That's my take on it. You think when people are arguing, they're saying the same thing. I think a lot of the time. Or they're saying slightly different things towards the same goal. Yeah. So before we even get into this,
01:03:46
Speaker
The biggest controversy that I've run into on an actual objective thing is where methanol shows up in the run.
Methanol Misconceptions
01:03:55
Speaker
And I've seen a lot of people with a lot of data that support both. One is that it's going to come off entirely at the beginning of the run.
01:04:04
Speaker
way in the heads and the other is that it's damn near impossible to actually separate methanol from all the other crap in the boiler and that it shows up a little more highly in the heads but all the way through the rim.
01:04:19
Speaker
I concur. I've heard it both ways. I've talked to three distilleries about this because I knew I was going to talk about this. They have to get everything tested. I don't know what the rules are but one of which said they test fortnightly and everything straight up in the heads. After that they had almost nothing. The other two both said that they get a
01:04:43
Speaker
What were the exact words that one of them used? If they move from a pot still run, which you would assume to be much less efficient, right? If distillation can separate it, they have about a 10% difference between a pot still run and a neutral run. And this is like hard, fast pot still. They'll have... In polishing? Yeah, yeah. They'll have roughly 10% less methanol. Not in overall, but if you have 10 methanols over here, you're going to have nine methanols over here.
01:05:12
Speaker
So that would suggest to me that it just shows up everywhere. And it's tricky. It is. It's tricky. And Jesse, I agree with you. In theory, you're absolutely right. I concur. And I think you're right that we're all explaining it for the same goal, the same way. Coming out from different angles. Yeah, we're coming out from different angles. Wow. I think to wrap it up is
01:05:37
Speaker
I say that the first, just throw the first two ounces out. I mean, guys, guys, for five gallons, throw the first two ounces out, you ain't got nothing to worry about, okay? Believe it or not, if you forget, you ain't got nothing to worry about. But if it offends you, throw the first two ounces out and everything's gonna be beautiful. Now, chemically, what I do know about blends, and I talked about this today, azeotropes, I know that
01:06:04
Speaker
That's a mixture and the boiling point of the mixture depends on the constituents, the methanol being one of them.
01:06:13
Speaker
All of the ethanol doesn't come out at 173.8. Otherwise, when we ran a pot store, we would get 96% alcohol right off the bat. And then we get water. And the reason we don't is because it's a positive azeotropic blend. It likes to stay mixed together. They like to stay mixed together. We can rely on being it. Exactly. Ethanol has an affinity for
01:06:40
Speaker
water. So it stays together through the whole run.
01:06:44
Speaker
leads you to have to understand that, well, methanol has to do the same thing. It doesn't all come out at one time. What you need to worry about comes off at the beginning. Or is there some left up? Absolutely. Come on. I mean, all of your ethanol doesn't come off at the very beginning. So yeah, I agree with you. I mean, my position's always been do it by taste, right? Yeah, absolutely. And I think people take that to mean don't worry about it.
01:07:13
Speaker
Just if you want to drink it, drink it. Like you're being flippant. Like I don't care. But what I'm saying is, no, dude, I'm saying the opposite. So some people will say, take 200 mils off. I'm saying, who gives a shit about 200 mils when I'm going to leave three liters? Right. Do you know what I mean? Because I don't want it because it tastes bad. Right. So that and I think, you know, I've got no trouble for that. I know people have had to go at you for saying all of the meat comes off at the front. You throw it away.
01:07:39
Speaker
And, oh, he's obviously wrong because it's too simplistic. But some people want a simplistic artist. Right. Yeah, it has to be simplistic to really comprehend it. You know, we do the methanol burn. You know, it burns yellow, it's methanol, it burns blue, it's ethanol. That's one of the things we talked about earlier, is how we have to walk that line. Sometimes we're talking to you, sometimes we're talking to experience methanol.
01:08:01
Speaker
Your major component at 145 degrees is methanol, so it burns yellow. After that, it burns blue. Your major component's not methanol any longer. It's ethanol, but there's still some. Yeah, I got it. And I mean, there's issues with that too, right? Because there's all sorts of other chemicals in there that'll burn blue or yellow. Once again, it's a huge simplification. Yeah, it's a huge simplification. Can I not answer the methanol question? Because I'm tired of answering the methanol question.
01:08:27
Speaker
So if you guys want some fun, go and find Bearded's channel and ask the dumbest questions you could possibly figure out. And we're going to post his phone number so you can call him. On his Applejack van.
01:08:44
Speaker
Oh, that's great. It's just, you know, it's people, like I said, it's people that have heard about methanol once or twice, and they know that it makes you go blind. And because I mentioned it in the video, they're like, well, you're going to kill everybody. I've got that, I got that comment too. Same guy sent me the same comment. You're going to kill everybody. Remember what I said about Walmart? Yeah. Walk in as any man.
01:09:07
Speaker
Yeah. He's going to fill up again and tell you everything he knows about distilling. Everybody's got an opinion about it. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, we've kind of touched on this earlier, right? But at the end of the day, the volumes we're distilling in just do not make that much methanol. And unless you can somehow separate all the methanol from everything else and then drink just that.
01:09:31
Speaker
It's almost damn impossible to do. Well, I'm not suggesting you drink four shots. There's a lot of crappy stuff in there that you do not want to drink. The amount of methanol that you would have to drink to actually make yourself go blind. Isn't it like you would die first from the ethanol?
01:09:48
Speaker
Oh, no, it'll affect the optic nerve. What he's saying is if this actually has ethanol in it, you kill yourself with good booze before you kill yourself with bad. Oh, absolutely. You die of ethanol poisoning. Your liver would explode and then you would die on the bed.
01:10:04
Speaker
But at the same time, what did he die of? I don't know, but he definitely... Oh, I got it. Here, we're going to solve this problem once and for all. Everybody who sees this, I just want you to imagine, each one of us have a sticker on our forehead. It's one of them, do not do the dumb shit, okay? Do not drink the methanol. Just like the hairdryer. Put a sticker on it. Just like the hairdryer, exactly.
01:10:25
Speaker
But at the end of the day, there are real stories of people going blind and dying from drinking booze. But it's not because of distilling a good delta. It's been fucked with. It's been fucked with. That's right. And the last happened down to Bahamas. Other than that, the last time I think it was reported happening was back in the 30s. It's not one of those things that happened on a routine basis. Don't tell me that there was 300 cases last year.
01:10:52
Speaker
Far, far from it. I mean, New Zealand's a prime example, right? Basically, it's shady-ass people doing shady-ass shit with shady-ass ingredients. That's right. So if you distill it yourself and you know what the hell you're doing, even moderately so, you're going to make good stuff. And you're going to be so much safer. I don't know if I want to... You might want to edit this out. No, no. Have at it, George. I've actually got a chemical test now that I've been working on. Right. And I've got all the chemicals necessary. Like a test kit. Like a test kit.
01:11:21
Speaker
Now, I've found them online too. You can buy them. They're like 300 bucks for one to test one drink. I mean, they're outrageous. For methanol testing? For methanol testing. For somebody messing with your drinks. I can do it for... I've got all the chemicals necessary and it costs me probably 18 bucks to put them all together. But now there's a mixing point. But what you do is you put this in a drink.
01:11:46
Speaker
and you swirl it around and you smell it. It gives you one of two odors. It gives you an off sour odor. It's methanol. It gives you a fruity odor. It's ethanol. So you can actually test what your
01:12:01
Speaker
but right before you drink. So again, in our Bahamas, it would have been helpful, but who's got a test kit, right? But guy could have, he could have pulled it out of wherever he got it. He goes, nah, at the end of the day though, some people want that, that sort of level of, I didn't fuck this up. Right. I know that. And I'd like to offer that to them, but the challenge I have right now is explaining it. I'm well familiar with it. I've played with it, explaining it.
01:12:32
Speaker
Wondering where her face is all flushed from the outside. I'm not going to try and cover it up. There's no way hiding that. Whoever's producing this podcast done fucked up. And we ran out of room on the card. So sorry about that, guys. But we're back. Whoever that is, we'll get fired. And then executed.
01:12:58
Speaker
summarily. Yeah, but I think essentially where we got to was you were talking about, do you want to do that? We sure can, yeah. Yeah, so George was about to tell us about or just started telling us about a test that you've been working on for me. Yeah, it's available. I mean, it's not something I haven't, trust me, I have not developed, I don't develop this, I just do a lot of research, but there is, there's two separate chemical tests
01:13:22
Speaker
that you can use to determine methanol. And one of them consists of using a small vial, and we're talking 10 drops of spirit and five drops of a solution that you mix. And there's either a color change or not, and that either indicates methanol or straight ethanol. Or the absence thereof. So that's a pretty direct and straightforward. And that's
01:13:50
Speaker
That really is more in line with those that.
01:13:53
Speaker
You know, I know I got rid of the first, you know, two-ounce, yeah, but you're really, really, really, really scared, you know? Yeah. People that are new to it, they want to do the right thing. They really, really try and argue with it. There's a way to do that. Now, the other one is really more intriguing because what it does is it allows you to take a drink that someone has poured for you or mixed for you, and you can add five drops to that and give it a swirl.
01:14:20
Speaker
The odor that it presents is either a sour off odor, a sulfur odor, which indicates methanol, or a sweet fruity odor, which indicates the absence of methanol. So this would be more for testing drinks at a sketchy bar in some weird place. Yeah, if you're off on holiday somewhere, you got the mini bar. I would stray away from that, by the way.
01:14:46
Speaker
Do you know what the fidelity or what percentage it's testing for? Because any alcoholic spirit is going to have some ethanol at the end of the day. Exactly. I'm not sure yet, and that's why I haven't gone public with any of that, of what the finite level of where it tests positive or negative.
01:15:08
Speaker
But I know it's low. I've played, I've messed with it. It works. The real challenge or the real danger is, man, this shit is caustic. I mean, we're talking about using, that's why I'm really leery about sharing. I don't mind sharing, but I don't want to provide because we're talking about, first of all, one of the elements is sulfuric acid.
01:15:32
Speaker
There's a little bit of liability there. Yeah, I mean, we're working with caustic materials. The other one is, oh gosh, I wish I could remember the name off the top of my head, is Diclomate. Diclomate? It'll come to me, but it's a combination. You can't just get this at any farmers. I mean, you gotta order this stuff offline from a chemistry.
01:15:58
Speaker
But it's available, it's there. And here's the beauty of it. Because you can order a methanol test kit online, and there are some labs that will provide that for you, but they're in the hundreds of dollars. They're absolutely cost prohibitive. This, yeah. We can talk about that in a second. I know exactly what you want to talk about. But this, for the cost of about
01:16:21
Speaker
I don't know, what about eight, 12 bucks, you know? You've got enough to mix and play with for quite a while. But the problem is the test is almost certainly more dangerous than the drink, if you're making it yourself. Absolutely. So there's a lot of liability and trust that goes into the use of the chemicals. And if people don't take the right precautions, I mean, Christ, it's, you know, again, we're back to the hair dryer sticker on it. Don't use it in the bathtub, you know? No matter how many stickers you put on it,
01:16:51
Speaker
I feel obligated to be up front and go, I'm really kind of leery about this one. Yeah. Do you want to, do you want to tell us what you were about to tell us? I, um, tell, tell us why first the applejack video.
01:17:05
Speaker
which you should a hundred percent watch because it's dope. It was. Oh yes. It's my most popular video and it's basically just how to make applejack at home, which is a really high proof, uh, alcohol much higher than you can ferment. And that's just because you freeze it and then you drain off the water.
01:17:24
Speaker
and freeze it and drain off the alcohol. No, you drain off the alcohol. I'm here to help. You drain off the alcohol and throw away the ice. What I thought was really interesting is the way you described how people stumbled upon it. You gotta watch the video and see how they stumbled upon it. We won't spoil it for you, but do watch it. It created a lot of controversy because there's
01:17:51
Speaker
a very clear warning that I provide in the video that all the stuff that you normally discard in heat distillation, the methanol, the fusil oil, stuff like that, that's all still in there because you can't get rid of it unless you heat distill. Well, because I use the word methanol, anybody that's ever heard the word methanol and knows that it can make you go blind has decided to leave a comment on that video.
01:18:15
Speaker
If you get it, there is a legitimate concern. We've been talking about that, but this is not the place to, this is not gonna kill you. It's not gonna make you go blind because if you drink a, like Jesse said, if you drink one drink of Applejack or an equivalent drink of apple cider, what it was made for in standard drinks, you're getting the exact same constituents. So it's not gonna make you go blind. That's stupid.
01:18:45
Speaker
But it's just a misunderstanding that people have. So I have decided that I'm going to send a sample of my Applejack, the one that's in the video, a way to a lab. And I'm going to have that shit tested.
01:19:00
Speaker
find out what's in that? Is there a lethal or a dangerous amount of methanol? I would like to know how much you would need to drink for it to be lethal. That would be funny to find out. I think what we would probably find is that you would die from alcohol poisoning before you would die from methanol. Before you would go blind from methanol, you would die of alcohol poisoning. That's the hypothesis, which I'm pretty certain this has got to be tricky.
01:19:27
Speaker
In the meantime, you're going to have a shitty-ass hangover. That's the thing. But Applejack's not made for chugging. I mean, it's a sipping drink. What if I just heat it up a little bit and cook off the methanol? Yeah, it's an azeotrope that doesn't work. Exactly. I learned a lot from this guy. So yeah, don't even bother. Just sip it. It's delicious as a sipper. Absolutely. It is terrible as a guzzler.
01:19:54
Speaker
Don't do that. You don't have a glass of applejack. Nobody guzzles Jagermeister. Right. And how would you guzzle applejack? I don't think you could literally swallow it. You gotta have a death wish. You'd throw it up. You would throw it up. Let me just have this big, bold glass of thick, syrupy,
01:20:16
Speaker
liquor. What do they call them? The double chugs or the big gulps? That sounds delicious. Maple syrup. It is thick. Hilarious.
01:20:34
Speaker
I think we've done this, right? I think we've said about all we can on the topic. I think it's time to move on to something that may be a little bit more lighthearted. Who knows? Oh, lighthearted. Before we do that, I've got one more thing that is, and I've left that to the end because I know George and I do this differently.
01:20:50
Speaker
And once again, I think I'm guessing this is going to come down to different communication of the same general idea. And that's the use of a PID. So do you want to explain how you use a PID and what the idea is behind it? And more importantly, what the goals are of it and what you're actually actively controlling with the
Understanding PID Controls in Distillation
01:21:10
Speaker
PID? Okay. Yeah, sure.
01:21:13
Speaker
See, PID theory has been in existence for a number of years. I mean, you can be the arbiter. You can be the arbiter. You can go two yums, two yums. You can interject humor as you see fit. We're talking about proportional integral derivative control. And to make it really simple, it's
01:21:37
Speaker
a great analogy is cruise control in your car. That is an excellent analogy, actually. You set it to 70 and you're going to go 70 miles. If you start to go a little bit faster, your energy's pulled back, so you go slower. That is more of a PI. There's a little bit of a deep
01:21:57
Speaker
function in there. But that's a really good analogy of what a PID controller does. And what it controls is it controls the amount of power in amperage that is supplied to your heater element. Now we are actually talking about stills.
01:22:14
Speaker
Now we are- Yeah, we're off the analogy and we're into distilling. Now we're into stills, yeah. So as opposed to having, if you had a heater element inside a still and you plugged it in and unplugged it, plugged it in and unplugged it, you could try to mimic what a PID does, but you can't.
01:22:30
Speaker
Because every time you plug it in, you've got full power. Every time you unplug it, you've got no power. And oh, by the way, you may be unplugging it when it's not at its zero crossing point on the ground. Well, that's another story. You get a spark. I'm not going to get it. Okay. Sorry. So, but what a PID does is PID takes, and I've heard this. You're taking your job seriously, by the way, over here. I've heard this described other ways as it takes
01:22:58
Speaker
Prior, present, and future, it brings it together in one place. Yeah, so the alternative is something like an STC 1000, which is it's too hot, turn it off, and then potentially even turn cooling on. It's too cold, turn the heating on. Turn it back on, yeah. The problem is you get big ass swings because you're heating up, you're heating up, and now you suddenly turn the element off, but there's still heat.
01:23:21
Speaker
You put that into the system. You've energy's been put in there. So what a PID does is it measures that, okay, we watch it, it measures that rise and we call that...
01:23:31
Speaker
Overshoot and when it drops below your set point, we call it droop Well, if you use an integral function, which is a measurement of time How long and what was the change between this period in this period this period this period this period it keeps doing that What it does is it lowers that? Overshoot and droop it just starts to flatten it out now when you take the derivative
01:23:54
Speaker
of that change, which is now the perceived future. So what you're looking at now is you're looking at the underneath of that curve is calculus at that point. And you're looking at the amount. Yeah, me too. You're looking at the amount of change over a period of time in reference to the set point and the perceived value. It makes a prediction. So what it does is it says, nope, I only need 8% power.
01:24:20
Speaker
And then as soon as it gets a response, it says, nope, I need 12. No, no, now I need nine. So it goes back and forth. And what it will potentially eventually do is once it settles and your column is balanced, is you can keep your column, your still within two tenths of a degree of whatever you set.
01:24:43
Speaker
provided you can control the environmental influences. Wind, it's just as sensitive as a turbo 500. So if you have any of those outside influences, all of a sudden this thing will start, it'll move, but it'll start to correct itself. So that's what it's for. It's for precise control because we know that at a certain temperature,
01:25:06
Speaker
Ethanol starts to separate from water. Oh, by the way, it's only 94.6% of it, but there's still water there because it's going to tag along. So we know that it starts to separate. We do know that as the volume changes, it takes more energy.
01:25:21
Speaker
So you look over your PID and you're like, okay, my product is starting to slow down. So evidently my volume's changed. So you pump it up two degrees, it brings it back up to that two degrees higher than you had it before, and your production starts to mimic what it was before. And over a period of time, it'll slow down and you can start going up again two more degrees.
01:25:44
Speaker
So just to close out, essentially it's an algorithm that predicts what's going to happen. It doesn't predict, but it starts to learn what happens.
01:25:55
Speaker
When it does something, what happens in the environment? And you can use a PRD for anything. Oh, absolutely. The typical thing of balancing a bone bearing on a track, all that sort of stuff. A bakelite oven for if you're doing a kiln, or you're doing a bakelite. I mean, it doesn't have to be temperature as well. It doesn't, right. Yeah, absolutely. These things can run analog, they can run valves, they can do just about anything. So it takes two ends of two
01:26:19
Speaker
extremes of a function, I guess you would say, unless you pick a point and it helps to predict what it needs to do to balance that out as much as possible. Mathematically. Yes. I'm learning so much right now. Mathematically, yeah. So I think we can seal out how it works, right? I think we've... Okay, we got that. We know the theory behind it, yeah.
01:26:40
Speaker
So now let's talk about how it works for the stilling. The most effective place to put the temperature probe is the most important place in the still.
01:26:51
Speaker
which is anywhere in your still that your vapor leaves your still, it enters into a port going to your condenser. The point of no return. Exactly, the point of no return. Could be the top of your column. After any sort of reflux or anything. Yeah, after any sort of reflux, yeah, anything. Depending on the style of still, as long as you put it at the point, like you said, of no return, that's where your vapors are exiting the still process and going for. Let's just clarify, not with that.
01:27:22
Speaker
I know exactly what you mean, but just for clarity, for people that might be new to this, we're not saying where they're exiting the spout. No, no. What we're saying is if the vapors come up the column at any point in this column, if it turns back into, if it condenses again, it's going to fall back down the column. Right. So there's a point on every still where if that vapor condenses, it's going down through the product condenser and into your, into your jar or your, yeah. So wherever that point is,
01:27:48
Speaker
That's where you want to measure the temperature. Right. It's not condensing there. That's where the vapor is escaping. If it condenses, it would end up in the jar. Right. Yeah. That's what I mean by the point of no return. Right. Exactly. And so that's where you want to test the temperature. The downhill side.
01:28:01
Speaker
Very good. Except sometimes it's not necessarily. Like think of a bokeh still, right? It's mostly the downhill side. Mostly the, yeah. I think for sake of simplicity. For a poth still? Yeah. Absolutely. Absolute time. Yeah. So that's the most important place to put it. And so, because what you want to track is you want to track the vapor temperature that's exiting your still. So you'll know where your point of vaporization and your maximum amount of ethanol is being produced.
01:28:32
Speaker
Okay cool, so let's... I can see this getting complicated if we do pot still and reflux still at the same time. Right. So let's bench, let's bench reflux. Okay. And we'll talk pot still for a second, yeah?
01:28:44
Speaker
So let's say, pick a point in the run and pick a temperature that we're currently running at, hypothetically. Hypothetically, we're running, let's say at the beginning of our run. Yep. Cool. And each still, of course, each still has its own sweet spot. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. I have one that runs at 184. I mean, that's, I mean, that's, that's its perfect sweet spot. That's the temperature at the top. The temperature of the top. It starts really producing good. Cause a lot depends on how far down your temperature probe is, all those outside influences. So I get to 184 and it starts running.
01:29:14
Speaker
Okay, so then you'll have your PID set. Dribble, dribble, dribble, it's set at 184. Okay, cool. So it's gonna try and keep that still at, the head of that still, let's call it the head for the sake of the point of no return. It's gonna keep the head of that still, the PID is gonna keep the head of that still at 184. So let's say that we now start to boil off a little bit more alcohol. We've been doing that for a little while.
01:29:43
Speaker
And if you keep putting the same amount of energy into the still, that temperature is going to start rising. If the PID wasn't controlling. If the PID wasn't controlling, right. So that would be happening naturally. Naturally, right. If you were just having a steady input of temperature. So the result would be your production would drop off.
01:30:07
Speaker
With a PID it would drop off. Yeah, you gotta set it at 184. It stays at 184. It's not enough energy now. And pretend like we don't have a PID. Pretend like we're just running on manual adjustment with a SSR or volt regulation or whatever you want to do. So we're at 184 at the head and we leave it at 50% power. What's going to happen in the pot store?
01:30:30
Speaker
No, it took 50% power to get it and maintain 84%. We just did 50%. We don't touch the power. We don't touch the power. We don't touch anything. Your production is going to stop. It'll slow down. It'll slow down. They'll really, really slow trickle. Over time. Over time, right.
01:30:51
Speaker
In effect, nothing's happening. A lot of things are taking place in the column and in your kettle, but you're not seeing any product produced. Wait, are you saying that'll happen with the PID? Yep.
01:31:03
Speaker
Okay, I agree with you. With the PID, because it's trying to keep that temperature, you still literally can't produce alcohol. Because you don't have enough energy. You don't have enough energy going in. And if you put more energy in, the temperature is going to rise up here. So if you do it, we're at that stage now, right? So what you do is bump up the temperature on the PID a little bit. So what's happened is there's vapor flowing through the pot,
01:31:30
Speaker
through the hole still, and now the vapour's slowed down and stopped. And it doesn't happen immediately, right? It takes over a period. So now we're no longer producing, and you bump the temperature up a little bit, which will allow the temperature at the head.
01:31:44
Speaker
to rise again, which means you can get back to a boil. Right. Again. Okay, cool. Well, we call it a boil, but we're not actually looking for a rolling boil. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, you understand that. You understand the vibration, I guess. There you go, there you go. What do you see the advantage in that being, as opposed to just creating a steady stream the whole way through the rum? Well, it's the exact same.
01:32:10
Speaker
Because to create a steady stream throughout the whole run, you've got to constantly make an adjustment. I would agree with that. On a pot still, definitely. You've got to constantly make an adjustment. More energy, right? Yes, because it needs to boil at a higher temperature. You have to constantly increase temperature. In reality, what you've got is you've got simplicity.
01:32:34
Speaker
Number one, because you let something do it for you. And I like to use the description of, we know that when you're using flame, you know, you're using propane.
01:32:45
Speaker
Don't recommend it, yeah. But when you are, there's such a delayed reaction with propane. That came to get me. Sorry guys. There's such a delayed reaction with propane, it's really hard to determine and to discern how much flame equals how much temperature. So you wind up chasing your temperature, you don't want to do that. When it comes to electric,
01:33:08
Speaker
How much voltage do you need or how much amperage do you need per gradient or whatever it is? Let the PID do that for you. So what it does is it kind of automates and simplifies that process. I control percentage of power.
01:33:27
Speaker
Exactly. And that's, I mean, that's a great way to do it. And people are really, really successful with that. And I say, if that works for you, man, that is great. So in practice, what would generally happen for me, and this is a little bit different because I do have a bigger still. So I think that kind of evens it out. I do sometimes do a low wines runs, which once again, I think evens it out. But I get, it will slow down slightly through the run.
01:33:55
Speaker
but I can easily set it at 80% and get an acceptable flow at the beginning of the run, almost all the way through the run. And also you play around with like how many elements are on, right? Like two or one?
01:34:08
Speaker
Yes. Okay. So let's backtrack a little bit and talk about my still. I've got two elements in my still. I've got two, two kilowatt elements in my still. All right. I control one of them with voltage, which lets me get anywhere. And the other one's static? Yeah. Okay. Which lets me get anywhere from zero percent to a hundred percent, right? But that's like basically just for like heating up. Yeah. So zero to 50% is one element is off and then zero to a hundred percent on one element. And then 50% to a hundred percent is the second element's on.
01:34:36
Speaker
and the other one's turned all the way down, there's 51% or whatever, and then you crank it up slowly. So for me on my still, heat up full four kilowatts until getting close, kill the other one and dial into a roundabout where I know I'm gonna be for that percentage wash. Stripping run, 100%, 100%, bang, leave it all the way through. So I think this is gonna be a little bit more important
01:35:05
Speaker
in what I hypothesize for a reflex stool. But for a pot stool, I think there's something to be said for a steady flow of vapor that doesn't stop.
01:35:19
Speaker
I wouldn't argue. Simply because it's, if you start and stop, start and stop, start and stop. Well, I'm not looking at the, because we were talking about it through theoretically and what would happen. And I think this is where people get hung up. Yeah, this is where people get hung up. You don't wait till it stops to make your adjustment. You should, I mean, you've got some foresight.
01:35:41
Speaker
And you're not making, oh, by the way, you're not making two degree adjustments. I would go from, as an example, 184 to 190. We're talking 30, 45 minutes, maybe an hour later, I may have to go to 195. Another hour later, I'm working my way up to 197. And again, of course, I won't cross 204. So it sounds a whole lot like
01:36:07
Speaker
The main difference is that you're controlling temperature and we can't hammer this home enough at the point of no return. Right. Because the temperature at the kettle is a trap. You don't want to mess with that. It's like driving your car using the tack armor. Yeah, that's a very good guy.
01:36:24
Speaker
Yeah, whereas I'm chasing a flow rate. Right. And I'm trying to get a flow rate. And maybe even then again, I'll adjust that a little bit. Yeah. I guess my, once again, my thinking also is too, is that as I get near the lower end of the run, I'm wanting to run it a little bit slower just to give a little bit more separation, you know, to try and squeak a little bit more out. So basically, you know, you're just
01:36:48
Speaker
For both of you, you're both controlling the energy input, but you're using different markups. For you it's visual, for you it's temperature. Yeah, there you go. And I think where people get stuck is that they don't understand when you're using a PID. The thinking is, I'll set it at this temperature, and this is the temperature that gives
01:37:10
Speaker
The certain ABV I want. Or 80% vapor is at this temperature. I set it at this temperature and I let it go. And it gives me all of that. That's not how chemistry and physics work. No, exactly. You're right. There is some confusion about that. And I've had questions about this.
01:37:31
Speaker
And I've had people call me out on it and I've seen things in forums mostly, I think, calling you out on it. And I just wanted to clear the air because I had a hunch that that's what you were doing, right? Yeah. So you're bumping it. I mean.
01:37:46
Speaker
At the end of the day, I kind of feel like I can get a more gradual and slow, steady distillation through the whole thing using temperature into the boiler. But again, it's personal preference, right? It is. We're both accomplishing the same task. You know, like we always say, there's a thousand of your goals are different.
01:38:06
Speaker
Yeah. He's going for a hearts collection. You're going for all the hearts collection. That's true. A lot of weird stuff too. There's a little bit more finesse in what you're doing. Not always, but what I like is I like a constant curve. I like four shots, heads, and then I like it to curve off into hearts.
01:38:33
Speaker
and I can collect that in multiple jars. So I can say, this is still headsy, but there's something delicious in there. So I'm going to sacrifice the heat or the headiness for that flavor. A rum would be a perfect example and O to V, I'm guessing would be like that. So I like that gradual curve.
01:38:51
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, and I think that's part of the problem that I've had with the Genio so far is that it kind of takes that away from you, right? It takes all the four shots and compresses it right here, which leaves the rest of your run really clean. Right. And then it does the same with the heads and does it really clean. Right. And then the same thing with the hearts. You want more of that AZO to mix. Yeah, so it does. So if you think four shots, it goes four shots.
01:39:14
Speaker
Heads. Yeah. Hearts. And I miss this curve. And I'm thinking there's probably a way for me to get that back with a junior. I just need more time with it and I need to understand how it works before I play with it. I think you can also get that with a PID, but... Well, you'd have to sit there and go, temperature up. Yeah. Temperature up by one degree. Yeah, but I think you're exaggerating that a bit. It's because, you know, nothing reacts that
01:39:43
Speaker
that quickly or in that short space of time. It's like you would do temperature up.
01:39:48
Speaker
15, 20 minutes later. I see what you're doing. The temperature rises up through. Yeah, it takes time for all this. And the PID itself smooths it out. It's not like doing 50%, 80% of the control. Right, exactly. It would gradually do its... So I think we're both doing exactly the same thing, but we explain it differently. When I've had to run propane, that's...
01:40:14
Speaker
Yeah. When I fist thought it... There's a... You get a ton more precision with what you're doing, but when you run propane... Oh my gosh. Oh god. Yes. Can you imagine running a still today?
01:40:27
Speaker
with blocks of wood that you throw up underneath it. I've watched the popcorn setting video and it's just mind boggling. Phenomenal, the way the guy was able to control heat and his production level, but he was doing it with flame. To get a slow run coming out of that thing. That's what you were talking about, the thumper. Yeah, that's what controlled the temperature.
01:40:50
Speaker
All right, so I think we got on the pot store, right? I think we're basically saying the same thing. We understand that we're doing things slightly different and that maybe there's a slight disadvantage and that's really neither here nor there, depending on exactly what you want to do and how you want to do it. Now, when we move to reflux... I think there's a bigger difference here. I disagree. I think there's a closer precision.
01:41:13
Speaker
Okay, so explain to me, how do we do this? Explain to me the advantage of a PID for reflux, I guess. For reflux. No, first let me explain the challenges, and then the advantages. By all means, yeah, and that'll set us both up, because I think we agree on that. Exactly, yeah, and then of course the advantages will be crystal clear.
01:41:30
Speaker
They will be. The challenge is that the misunderstanding of what a reflux does and how it does it, I turn my water on my condenser. I feel like we need props. Props would help. So you turn it on, it goes full bore. You really don't care about that one. If you cannot meter
01:41:53
Speaker
your water flow into your deflector reflux chamber. Well, then now you're defeating the purpose. Because if you run it full bore, you're condensing and your temperature, regardless of what you set your temperature at, your PID is going to try to get there. It may not ever get there. Yeah.
01:42:10
Speaker
That's a problem. So now you've got junk in junk junk in. Oh, so you're talking specifically about a PID, right? I'm sorry. I thought we were talking about the Reflux in general. Okay. Sorry So now you get your reflect you got your probe sitting here, uh-huh testing the temperature but guess what? It's never getting
01:42:30
Speaker
it's never going to achieve your temperature because you continue to condense it here. If it can't, if it doesn't have enough energy to push past the condenser, nothing gets past the condenser. Right, exactly. So those are the challenges. So the benefits would be if you were using a PID, if you could balance that and see that's, it is a dance. It's a dance when you start using the reflux is if you can balance your reflux chamber and your column and your PID,
01:42:57
Speaker
then you can sit back and let that thing run. And you will produce 90 plus percent alcohol by volume. Okay, so what you're saying is... It's precise control is what it is, that's all. Okay, so you're saying you've got a reflux condenser sitting between... So you've got the boiler with the energy going into it, controlled by the... You've got a tower full of packing.
01:43:24
Speaker
Then you've got a reflex condenser and then above that you've got a probe reading the temperature you want, which presumably is higher ABV as you can squeak out. Right, what you're looking for. And so what you're saying is that you set your condenser high enough that it knocks down a fair bit of what the element can throw at it.
01:43:46
Speaker
but low enough that when the element pushes past that point, it can get vapor past. Absolutely. Right. And then so the PID comes in to adjust how hard you're pushing vapor at the condenser, essentially, to figure out what percentage of vapor can get past the condenser. Exactly.
01:44:04
Speaker
Cool. The only thing that you can adjust after that is the water flow in the chamber. Depending on the type of steel. Right. So if you increase it or decrease it, now you can control the temperature by increasing or decreasing it, which means that you may not ever achieve your set point. Yeah, you might knock it down too much. I already understand your point of view.
01:44:27
Speaker
a thousand times more than I did before. Oh. Because honestly I didn't quite get it for reflux and that makes a whole lot more sense and I can see how that can work. I totally get that. Is it practical? Sorry. Yeah, I think the other thing is too that for me a deflagonator or deflagomator, however I can never say it properly,
01:44:55
Speaker
is a sledgehammer when sometimes you need a scalpel. Yeah, absolutely. Because of the water flow, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. So that's where a lot of different still designs come in, right? You get the liquid. Liquid management, volume management, vapor management. Oh, that was on a different video, but we were talking about that earlier today. Right.
01:45:19
Speaker
So assuming that you can control the water. Okay, so let's take a step back. I mean, in my mind, how does a column like that work is that you wanna be sending vapor up the column.
01:45:34
Speaker
And then what you really want to manage is the percentage of reflux that comes back down. Right. We agree on that, right? Right. Yeah. Cool. So the more you send back down, I hate to use the word pure because it's totally... It's a benign term. Yeah, it's a horrible term.
01:45:50
Speaker
the more pure your distillation will be, the higher that reflux, right? Presuming that higher means more reflux going down than going over. It's a cycle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think we talked about in another video too, right? So essentially what's happening is the vapor goes up the column and as the vapor passes, the reflux coming back down, it strips the lighter
01:46:14
Speaker
chemicals out of the reflux and carries them up and then the the heavy reflux the heavier chemicals drops yeah it strips it out and drops it back there and like everything in distilling it's not a hundred percent it's a it's a little bit happens a little bit doesn't happen the more you throw at it the more it happens and the more times you can get this thing to happen the better the more effective it is
01:46:35
Speaker
Yes. Okay. Which where the ratio comes in, right? Exactly. Like one molecule might go up and down, up and down, up and down. Exactly. And we already know that an ethanol molecule is always going to grab one molecule. Yes. Oh, did we just? Yeah. It is working. That's why we brought them.
01:46:59
Speaker
Okay, so we can agree on that and I think what this comes down to is the deflag animator, right? So I like the idea of using them with a plated still because I think that reflex ratio is you can throw a sledgehammer at it, you don't have to be super precise. You don't want to flood the plates, you want to load the plates. So you don't have to be super precise with a plate, right? But if you're using a packed column,
01:47:25
Speaker
It's all about kind of the balance that happens in that column, right? You're trying to fraction that column into the further up the column there's lighter and lighter chemicals as you go up. And you understand too that I love the plates because you've got a dance that takes place on each one of them. Let me jump in here real quick.
01:47:44
Speaker
Please do. The way I picture this, maybe this is wrong, correct me if I am. I'm pretty sure it's going to be wrong. When you have liquids that are different densities like oil and water and or a really cool cocktail that you can separate. Yeah.
01:48:00
Speaker
That's basically what you're talking about. Exactly what I'm talking about. Exactly. But we're doing it with temperature. If you test it at this point and this point and this point, you would get different stuff. So if you put a temperature paraben, you're going to get different temperatures. Or if you did a chemical test at different points, you would get different results. Which is exactly what a continuous still is. You guys had really deep in the weeds, so I had to bring it up.
01:48:24
Speaker
So that's what a continuous still is, right? Or a big plated still. They stack it all up and then they, instead of it all coming out the top and choosing that way. It feeds at all the different plates, right? It's called a fractionating column. That way you can pull off what you want. A lot of times Ben Jean's done that way.
01:48:41
Speaker
Okay, but we went back to the packed column. And remember, when you pack that column, there comes a period of time of balance where the temperature here and the temperature here is almost at equilibrium.
01:48:56
Speaker
Almost. The temperature here is always going to be hotter and the temperature here. But what you have is you have the conglomerate of this mass of vapor that is contiguous. So without a chamber to precondense whatever's passing through your packing, you've lost
01:49:23
Speaker
any reflux. So you're talking about your layers of copper, marbles, or whatever you put in there. When you say it's balanced, do you mean that basically the layers have kind of solidified into their... They're into their constituents. Right. So when you... And transfer, thermal transfer of energy here takes place at almost the same time as it does here. Okay? Yep. Okay. That would be balanced. Yeah. So I would still say that
01:49:52
Speaker
in the middle of a run the hmm I guess it's halfway between a pot still and a plate still right so a plate still if you sample at any level oh yeah oh yeah the plate still is totally different yeah you're gonna get temperatures that that tell you the ABV of the vapor that's passing through to the next exactly exactly yeah and a pot still is it's pretty much all the damn same because there's no reflux
01:50:14
Speaker
or a column that you have packed with, let's say, copper mesh. So I think that's where we differ. I hypothesize that if you sample here, or if you could, let you say sample, if you could go in and grab it and take it out and condense it, I'd say that that vapor is a higher ABV than the vapor at the bottom.
01:50:32
Speaker
I agree, because we've got this going. But you think... Oh, no, no, no. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You're talking about... Yeah, if you got reflux going, but just because you have packing doesn't mean you have reflux. Oh, no, no. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's wrong. That's wrong. So if you've got... I'm talking about reflux. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. You're right. If you reach in and pull it out, you've got a different product here. Oh, absolutely. Oh, absolutely. Hey, night difference. Yeah. So the problem I have with messing with
01:50:59
Speaker
the energy going into the boiler on a reflux column is that that's going to change the vapour speed. So if you think of a pot on the stove and you bring it to a little simmer, you've got a little bit amount of vapour. Same as a pasta, right? You crank it up, more shit comes out the end. Yeah. So if we've got this all fractionated into nice little pieces, which means that we've got higher ABV at the top and that's what we're taking off.
01:51:26
Speaker
And then everything down here is still doing this. The higher up, the less it does it, but you know, whatever. If we then take the heat away, it all drops. But see, but that's the point is we never take the heat away.
01:51:42
Speaker
I'm talking in extremes. You're right, if you turn it off, it stops. If you turn it way up, it all gets pushed through and we don't get as much but we don't get as much reflux. Unless you meet with the water. Exactly. And so that's what I'm getting at. We lose our layers and our layers are exactly what we want. Exactly. That's the far extreme, right? Yeah.
01:52:06
Speaker
Nears. Yeah yeah yeah like onions and ogres. So I guess once again my hypothesis is that if something is controlling this and turning it up and down it's gonna do that
01:52:28
Speaker
granted not nearly as extreme, but it will do it a little bit, right? So if it bumps the, if this is going at 40% because the PID is telling it to do that, and it jumps to 45, everything does this. Your hypothesis. We're cramming hypothesis, but I'm saying that because I don't know. And I understand why you come to that. I think I may have an explanation. Go ahead. I don't even know if I understand this question.
01:52:56
Speaker
So your hypothesis is that, let's say you've got perfect fractionation balance, the columns balance, everything's good, but because the PID may lag a little bit,
01:53:11
Speaker
or it's waiting for you to tell it, let's go to another temperature up and up and up, that you're gonna lose some energy and therefore drop and smear some of your layers. Is that right? Not smearing, but...
01:53:30
Speaker
because I think they've got other connotations. We muddle the layers for a weird that's not weighted. Feel free to cut. No, no, no, no. My goodness. That's a really good analogy. I'm just trying to make sure that I'm on the same. I don't think you can ever avoid what you're describing to start with. I mean, I think it's a physical
01:53:50
Speaker
known that that's going to happen at some level. But understand too that the PID is not, there's no lag. That's the point. There's no lag. It doesn't wait. It's like, oh, wait a minute. You dropped five degrees. Oh, sorry. Let me interject really quickly. If you don't press the button at exactly the right time.
01:54:14
Speaker
That has no influence. Well, I don't know what button you're talking about. To bump the temperature up on the... Oh, you don't want it down. Yeah. Granted, for a reflux run, you can hit the same temperature for a long-ass time. Exactly. A long-ass time, too. You go, oh, I may need some more heat. Yeah. Okay. But my point is that the temperature or the power provided is on a... See, exactly what you like is you like that curve.
01:54:41
Speaker
Right. You like that gradual increase and or that gradual decrease. That's what you're saying. If there is a shift based on the perceived temperature, that shift may start, but it's arrested.
01:55:00
Speaker
I'm with you. You follow me now? If you graph what a PID does with power when needed, the graph is not up. I understand that. You can graph it. So what you have is you have an arresting and a maintaining level. And then you either have a de-resting
01:55:20
Speaker
and maintaining, it all depends on what your temperature, your perceived temperature is. Yeah. So does that make sense? Yeah, no, 100% makes sense. And I would really admit that before this conversation, I never would have considered using a PID in a reflux column. But now you had a PID, would you?
01:55:43
Speaker
I mean, I would... Let's say one magically appears. I'd offer you to try one. My point here is...
01:55:52
Speaker
I don't think, will a PID work with a reflux? Absolutely. I mean, I think it's probably the bee's knees. I mean, it is the latest in technology of precision. I love precision because you know me, I'm a data point guy. I like precise control. I can have precise control, but now that's given on a pot still, boom, you got to have a PID. On a reflux still,
01:56:19
Speaker
Remember, you have that one other environmental influence you have to manipulate. So this leads into my next question. So if you're not savvy and you don't understand it, what you'll do is you confuse your PI. It's like a computer junk in, junk out. And you'll wind up with these wide swings that you weren't anticipating, because remember, it's just as sensitive as the T500. Flush the toilet and all of a sudden your temperatures go wild.
01:56:49
Speaker
PID is insensitive. So what I was trying to say before is that now I would totally give one a go. I'm a totally user and I think that I would get... Why did you start using the power controller that you have instead of doing a PID? Because of the concerns I had about it. And also because of...
01:57:08
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Oh, by the way, what you're using is exactly, it's exactly, you're using a pulse width modulator. Yeah. And you're doing the same thing that a PID does, but you're doing it with your head. No, I do it different. So here's the next question. But to finish out, yeah, like I totally admit that I misunderstood how you were using the PID and now I get it. And now I am far less, far less likely to recommend it or to use it myself. Okay.
01:57:38
Speaker
Here's the next question. Oh, sorry, far more likely. Oh, I'm sorry. I had a couple drinks too, but I kind of caught it. I was like, oh, I thought he was on our side. I hate to win this one, the sneaker that went past him. That's right. You're right. I'm wrong. Gotcha. Patreons, I think Jesse needs a PID. Next question. Imagine you could sit the power at a hundred percent.
01:58:07
Speaker
And then you could PID your coolant. Ooh, that's a sexy idea. Sorry, let's not say coolant. Let's say PID the reflux ratio. Because PIDing the coolant is a total E.
01:58:21
Speaker
There's there's issues with that. Yeah, I think you're fun and just my opinion at this point. Yeah, you just threw that at me. Um Yeah, I know. I can't yeah on that one. You're talking a hundred percent power and then let's control the reflex and it looks like volume a hundred percent power sir a Arbitrary power level that would work. Okay, what would give you a listen? Let's say you got a 75 percent power. Yeah, I mean the actual power if it doesn't yeah, it's working and so get you to an event. Yeah, but but what I'm saying is
01:58:51
Speaker
Do you think it would be better to adjust the reflux ratio based on what's happening at the top of the head? Because that is less likely to mess with everything below the head. You know... Sorry, when I say head, I mean reflux condenser. Exactly. That was confusing.
01:59:10
Speaker
You know, that's an interesting aspect. Really, I'm going to look into that because I see some value in that. I think that the challenges would be that with the steady amount of energy that you would now be forced
01:59:27
Speaker
to your adjustments in your flow would be so dramatic. It would be strictly on your output, right? Yeah. My gosh, we got a T-500 that does that. You can measure the... Well, the T-500 does it shitty. It does, but it does it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what I'm saying is...
01:59:46
Speaker
So for example, Meistel, the CCVM, I crank the temperature to a temperature that works, and then I adjust the height of the coil. That's how I adjust reflux ratio. Okay. It's exactly like, no, no, no, no, no. So the idea is that the flow rate of the water is crappy. I can't trust it. So I crank the water as high as it'll go. So flow rate is sort of taken out of the thing. And there's a,
02:00:14
Speaker
the vapor comes up and there's a T, 50% of the vapor goes up, 50% of the vapor goes this way, assuming that it can flow freely in every direction. You then introduce a coil, and if the coil sits above that hole, 50-50 reflux, right? Assuming that this coil can knock everything down. As you lower this coil, it increases. Yeah, so now we're at 20% is going back down, 30% is going back down, 40% is going back down, 50% is going back down.
02:00:42
Speaker
And the reason that you could add PID to do that. So that's what I'm asking. I don't have anything against the PID. It's that I still have a gut feeling against the changing the... It's not the power going into the boiler. It's the vapor speed that I don't like the idea of changing. Let me see if I get this straight. You would rather have less control over the amount of power going in and more control over the water. I would rather have consistent vapor speed.
02:01:12
Speaker
or very, very, very slowly, natural change. I think we're both doing the same thing. It's similar. Your top end temperature is 204, right? Yeah. Okay. So I just noticed that. I don't even think if you can put in, um, if you could put in the amount of power that you would need to, no matter what, get you to 204, but the entire time monitor and control the flow rate.
02:01:40
Speaker
with your deflagnator or coil it with you. Yeah, I would never use a deflagnator for that sort of thing. But regardless, yep. Just trying to make sure it's on the same page. Actually, I think a... I think you're reading a different book. I think a Boca still would be a better example.
02:01:58
Speaker
Oh, okay. Have you got a bokeh bob or bokeh cob? It's bokeh bob? I don't know. It's a, it's a liquid managed still. So all of the vapor goes up. All of the vapor gets condensed. All of the vapor falls back down and then it sits here and a needle valve. There's like a little catch. Yeah. Opens up. I think it's pretty much a basic version of the CCV of the, the genio. The genio has got the needle valve at the top.
02:02:25
Speaker
This one has it at the bottom? It's similar, it's the head. There's like a little spoon in there that catches your shape and you take it off as you want. So if you completely close the valve, the liquid falls into that, it overflows and all of it goes back down. If you open up a little, you can see control, rather than controlling the vapor, you control the speed of the offtake. Okay, yeah, the output. So imagine if you could PID
02:02:53
Speaker
that valve. Well, Genio does that. Exactly what they do. I think in the needle valve. Yeah. And, and so I guess what I'm saying is I, I don't know. I really don't know. This is interesting, right? This is interesting. But you've given me, you know what, man, you've given me something to work on and I appreciate that. Yeah. Um,
02:03:17
Speaker
What if before you left, you got 240 volts, right? You got 220 volts in your ceiling. 240. 240? Yeah. Oh, it's 240 single phase, right? Correct. Okay. I send you a PID. You play with it. Single phase. I mean, yeah. Would you take it? Here's an even better idea. Yeah. How about you help me make one? How about that?
02:03:45
Speaker
We get on a call and we make it together over Zoom or something. What if I send you all the parts? All right, now we're talking. What if I just put the damn thing together and send it to you and you're going to play with it, all right? I mean, Jesus Christ! I want to put it together. I want to do it. Okay, well good. I'll send you all the pieces and parts. Just make sure I got your dress. I'll ship it to you.
02:04:11
Speaker
He'll even send you a little. He'll even send you a little. No, no, really. He's totally going to put a damn hole in it. Not that I'm just a true believer. I want to make sure that I understand what you're saying. I've got some things that I want to work, but I want you to understand where I'm coming from. No, 100%. And without one. As the less informed observer, let me just end moderator. Very important job. Let me just say, I think you definitely need to try out the PID. 100%. Just because. Give it a shot.
02:04:41
Speaker
I definitely misunderstood the thinking behind it and the way you used it as well. I think your understanding of it has limits that aren't necessarily there. I think your concept of the PID is more limited than what it can actually do. No, I think we've evolved.
02:05:02
Speaker
I think if I am incorrect, which is at least 50% chance, I'm over... I think your dicks are touching now. Or they're kind of off. Yeah, dick touch totally. But I think I was over analyzing it in that I think what I'm saying is technically correct, if that makes sense. It may not be practically actually an issue.
02:05:25
Speaker
or theoretically that sound. That's what I mean. Yeah. How about that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. How about that? But I'm going to say, look, here's a commitment. I'm going to send Jesse everything he needs to build a PID. I will pre-cut the box, okay? So I'm going to put you through that, okay?
02:05:42
Speaker
I'm down for that. All you've got to do is follow the instructions and put the screws where they go and the wires where they go.
Reflecting on Educational Exchanges
02:05:51
Speaker
You've got to put your own plug on the end of it and you've got to put your own heater element in with your own heater element plug. That's easy. Because you're in New Zealand, you get the plugs. I can't get them here. Honestly, this has been an education. Oh, for me too. Oh my goodness. For me mostly.
02:06:09
Speaker
Yeah, and it's great to be able to actually have a full discussion. Yeah. And be able to go with the flow of the discussion, really understand what the other person's talking about, and actually exchange information, right? Oh, and that's the key to success, I think, is just exchanging the information. That's just what, gosh, that's what's made us successful up to this point.
02:06:30
Speaker
Yeah, right. I mean, I know we talked about this, right? Like how podcasts just, there's something new to it. There's something else. There's something different. And honestly, I think one of the cool things about this is there was so much information covered. I personally
02:06:44
Speaker
I'm going to watch this back once I have the opportunity to actually work with a reflux still. So once I can get some hand experience and actually actually have practical experience with it, then I can watch this video back two or three times and understand what the hell you guys are saying. Jesse, you blow my mind. I mean, you know, I, um, really absolute pleasure. You blow my mind. I was, uh,
02:07:14
Speaker
Always a pleasure. Yeah, absolutely. No, you blow my mind on me because you give me something else.
02:07:25
Speaker
direction to look at, because there's several ways of looking at a problem. You can look at a problem in one direction and think you're solving it, but you have no idea what's on your left and right and what's behind you. And you give me another direction to look at. So I'm really, really impressed and concerned about this reflux. I think we're talking about the 5%, right? Yeah. But of course, look, we're anal.
02:07:52
Speaker
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. We're chasing the craft. You guys aren't arguing. You're nerding. We're nerding. Yeah, we're chasing the craft. Yep. 100%. And that's wonderful. Yeah. Anyway, so thanks a bunch, guys. This was going to be the first podcast, but in some ways I'd like to make it not the first podcast so it doesn't fall flat in its face because no one knows it exists. Because this is exactly what I wanted the podcast to be. And there's a ton of good information in here.
02:08:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's also me. Yeah, there you go. Hey, as we always say, when I finish, I say happy distilling. Trace the Croft. Let's go find something to do. Bam.