A Homemade Flour Paste for Your Whiskey Still Kit

After you buy a whiskey still kit and have all the pieces at home, ready to distill your first run, you will need to also make a flour paste at home to seal the seams on your still. During distilling of whiskey, moonshine, and other alcohols, your whiskey still will reach very high temperatures, causing the alcohol in your whiskey mash to evaporate into a vapor. If you don’t seal the seams on your whiskey still, these vapors will escape - which is unsafe as well as a waste of your precious alcohol.

You can make flour paste at your home easily using ingredients that can be found at your local grocery store. The ingredients are fairly inexpensive, so stock up on several packages while you’re there if you plan to distill a lot. Purchasing in bulk can make this part of your distilling more affordable.

Whiskey still kit usually includes the metal parts of your still: the pot boiler, the column (if your still has one), the onion head, and the condenser coil. Wherever the pieces join together, you want to spread the flour paste into the seam. 

 

Alcohol vapor is flammable. If you don’t seal the seams on your still, you are creating a fire hazard. It’s a great idea to always have a fire extinguisher handy when you are distilling whiskey, moonshine, or other spirits.

Make a flour paste for your moonshine still using:

• ¾ cup rye flour
• ¼ cup (distilled) water

Add water to the flour until the paste is a putty-like consistency. Roll the dough into long snakes before you begin heating up the still, and have them ready. Once the whiskey still boiler pot reaches about 100 degrees, apply the paste to the seams of your whiskey still kit, capturing the alcohol vapor.

You can save extra flour paste by sealing it in an airtight container and storing it in the refrigerator for as long as 30 days. If the paste dries out, add water and fresh rye flour until it reaches the proper consistency again. Some moonshiners say that you can use pre-packaged dough or wheat flour, but rye is the best for holding moisture inside the moonshine still during a run. You spent your time and energy to buy a whiskey still kit that will produce the best whiskey and moonshine, so don’t settle for a flour paste that is less than the best when distilling your spirits.