What you need to make spirits at home, gear and licence
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Making your own spirits looks complicated from the outside and it's mostly patience plus a handful of gear, and the thing people rarely get told up front is the legal side, so I'll start there and then get into the kit.
In Australia you need an excise manufacturer licence from the ATO before you distil spirits at home, and that holds even when it's only for yourself and you never sell a drop of it. Owning a still is a different question to running one, and it's the running that needs the paperwork. Flavouring a bottle of neutral spirit you've bought with an essence isn't distilling at all and needs nothing, so if you want the flavours without the licence then that's the road, and for plenty of people it's the better one anyway.
1. The still
The still is what decides how clean your spirit comes out, because the taller the column and the more the vapour gets to condense and run back down before it leaves, the more of the rough stuff gets left behind, and that's the difference between a neutral base you can flavour however you like and something that still tastes of whatever you fermented. A small benchtop unit suits somebody making a litre or so at a time in the laundry, and a column on a boiler suits somebody who's decided this is a proper hobby. Come and have a yak with us before you spend the money, because which one is right depends on what you want to make and how much room you've got, and that's a 10 minute conversation rather than a fortnight of reading forums.
2. A hydrometer
A hydrometer is how you know what you've actually made. You read the wash before the yeast goes in and again when fermentation has finished, and the gap between those two readings tells you how much alcohol is in there. Without one you're guessing, and guessing costs you more with spirits than it does with beer, because at the end you're diluting down to a target strength and you can't dilute accurately to a number you don't know. The ones we keep come with a test jar, which you want, because floating a hydrometer in the fermenter itself is how they get broken.
3. A fermenter
Everything you distil starts as a wash, which is sugar or grain with water and yeast working away in a sealed bucket for a week or so, and the fermenter is where that happens. It needs to be food grade with a lid that seals properly, and it needs an airlock so the carbon dioxide can get out without letting air back in. Size it for the batch you actually want rather than the batch you imagine, because a 30 litre fermenter half full will ferment perfectly well, and a 20 litre one you've filled to the brim will push wash up through the airlock and all over the floor.
4. Measuring gear
Jugs and a thermometer are the cheap end of the list and they're the bit people skip, and then they can't work out why one batch came out nothing like the last one. Essence doses are small enough that eyeballing them shows up in the taste, and the temperature your wash sits at decides how cleanly the yeast does its job, so a fermenter left in a tin shed at 30 degrees over summer gives you a rougher spirit than the same wash kept somewhere cool and steady. Neither of these costs much and both of them pay for themselves the first time they catch something.
5. Carbon and the finishing gear
This is the step beginners leave out most often and it's the one that makes the biggest difference to how the finished spirit drinks. Running it through activated carbon pulls out the compounds that make a young spirit taste hot and solventy, and a filter with fresh papers in it is what keeps the carbon out of your bottle. After that comes the essence, which is where you decide whether you're making a gin or a spiced rum, and then bottles and caps so the whole lot isn't living in a jug on the bench for a fortnight.
What I'd get first
If you're starting from nothing, sort the still out in person, then pick up a production pack and a turbo yeast so you've got a wash to work with, then the hydrometer, and add the carbon and the essences once you know you're going to keep at it. Nobody gets this right on the first batch and there's no version of this hobby where you do, so start small and change one thing at a time, and write down what you did while you still remember it.
Shop related products
- Still Spirits 8kg Turbo Production Pack. The sugar base for a wash, and the simplest way to get your first one going.
- Turbo Classic Yeast 13% Wash. The yeast that does the work, matched to a standard sugar wash.
- Still Spirits Universal Z Carbon. Activated carbon for taking the harshness off a young spirit.
- Still Spirits Z Filter Paper 5 pack. Fresh papers so the carbon stays out of the bottle.
- Still Spirits Top Shelf Whiskey Essence 50ml. A sensible first essence, and forgiving if your base is still a bit rough.
There's a lot more across the homebrew range.
Did you know we also stock the hydrometer and test jar, 30 and 60 litre fermenter systems, bench and hammer cappers, PET bottles, 1125ml spirit bottles and measuring jugs in the shop. They're not all on the website, so give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what's on the shelf.
If you want a hand working out what suits you, Brewhilder is our homebrew helper, or come in and we'll go through it.
More from the brewing bench
- Home distilling myths, and where the law actually sits
- How to flavour a spirit at home with essences
- Making your own spirits at home, and whether it's worth it
Still learning, and I'd rather be asked the daft question than watch a batch go down the sink over it.
Cheers,
Candeece
