One of the most useful tools for the beginning home distiller is the triple scale hydrometer. This guide will give you the basic understanding you need to easily understand the purpose of the hydrometer and how to read it. This tool will also help you know when a fermentation is complete and help you troubleshoot a fermentation that has not gone the way you planned.

If I was allowed only one tool to use in my distilling this would be the one. The triple scale looks complicated when you see one for the first time, but this guide breaks it down so that you know how to use it simply.

The Beginner's Cut Chart gives you a starting point to learn how to make cuts so you can produce the best product possible. This is the skill that will allow you to blend the fractions of the run correctly to your preferences. Learn to include the parts of the run that have the flavors and notes that you like and remove the parts of the run you don't like.

DO NOT skip this learning curve. This is where you have the most control over the quality of your product. Your ability to make good cuts will be the difference between a great tasting batch or a batch that leaves something to be desired.

Every home distiller will encounter a rebellious ferment. The Stuck Ferment Guide gives you a simple 4 step process to troubleshoot the ferment. Using this guide makes it easy and stress free to get the fermentation process back on track.

The frustration of a stuck ferment can be a real source of discouragement for the new distiller. This one guide could save you days of trial and error trying to guess what might be wrong with the fermentation.

Do you want to try your hand at a dark whiskey aged with oak sticks? The Oak Stick Aging Guide teaches you a process for aging your spirit with oak sticks that greatly reduces the risk of over oaking your whiskey. Over oaked whiskey is very difficult to rescue. Save yourself this sometimes catastrophic situation.

The three phase process described in this guide will give you the confidence to level up your distilling skills and create your own whiskey that can compare to high end commercially produced products.

Toasting your own oak to age your whiskey at home is a very gratifying process. The Oak Toasting Guide describes just how to do it. Complete with a temperature chart that gives you the temperature ranges you need to use to draw out the flavor notes you are looking to produce.

Now you don't have to guess how long and at what temperature to toast your seasoned oak. This can even be done in the oven in your kitchen at home.

The toasting process is just one more skill you can add to your distilling tool box to produce that perfect spirit.

As an adjacent guide, the Temperature Adjustment Guide is a simple table the allows you to make hydrometer temperature adjustment with out having to look up a temperature correction calculator online and spend the time inputting all the data points.

Print this chart and put it in your distiller's notebook for easy access.