Greetings - first post with a few questions

[RDub]

I posted this on the "new_distillers" yahoo group, but didn't get all my questions answered, and I have more to add now, hopefully I can get a little more info here..

"Greetings all, new distiller here with a few questions.

I have about 600 gallons of 6.5% ABV American Pale Ale beer that has caught a
Lactobacillus infection, and I had a few questions.

Can I reflux distill this out to a clean taste?

Assuming I can clean the taste/smell out, I'm trying to find the most efficient
way of doing this - Would a stripping run be my best bet, then a reflux later?
Do I throw away any of the heads from the stripping run, or do I do that on my
second reflux run?

I am building a valved reflux still, and was wondering about the condenser. Is
my best bet to just use tap water in the condenser, or will I be better off
using 28-30F glycol from my chiller?

I think that's it for now, thanks in advance for your help

RD"

So that was my post on new_distiller, and the answer I got was "strip it first. then add 1 tsp baking soda (not powder) to the stripage and then do a spirit run. you should be okay. as to the rest I can't answer."

Some more info I can add - I have an insane amount of BTU's I can throw under the kettle, 7psi natural gas, and a 4ton glycol chiller I can use on the condenser.. So I guess my next question is - technically I could run the entire 600gal in a makeshift pot still in a stripping run, but I'd be a bit worried about my first still run in that kind of volume. So I'm going to run the stripping in kegs, with my column empty, and no reflux. Is it OK for me to run my condenser water @ 30F, or is this too cold? Can someone point me to the calculation for how many BTU's I can safely pump thru the 2" pipe out the top of a keg?

Also - Is it worth it for me to even do this with this the beer? I hate to throw out 600 gallons of beer! (again)

Thanks in advance for your help, and sorry for the # of questions in my first post
RD

[sparky marky]

what kind of by products do lactobacillus make? you get them in yoghurts right? do you know if they will make anything with a similar boiling point to the ethanol?? if not then you should be fine to distill the bad tastes away!!!

as for your chiller idea i think it is a good one as long as you can alter the flow of coo;lant through the condenser so you can control the amount of refluxing in your column.

did you make the beer yourself? 600 gallons is LOADS!!!

[RDub]

I meant for this post to be in the novice distilling forum, hopefully a mod can move it there for me.

Lacto makes a beer sour, sometimes a friendly taste in a beer, but not in a Pale Ale

600 gallons is a single batch at the brewery, this particular batch I did not make.. But I have had one of my batches go bad, usually caused by a lazy brewer

[Dnderhead]

I whould say yes as ethyl boiles at 78.3c and loctate acid boils at 122c

[HookLine]

600 gallons.

Hmm.

Now that is waaaaaaaaaay past hobby stilling quantities, even if it was given to you free.

Good way to attract the attention of the law.

You a legal stiller?

[RDub]

Guess I should have explained a little better.. The brewery is a 100% legal retail location.. The distillery is a place near us, also 100% legit, but he guy that runs it is a block head - he was giving me info that I didn't quite believe, so I came here for info.

[Dnderhead]

I mite add the it takes a bunch of distilling to take out the hop flavor.

[HookLine]

Guess I should have explained a little better.. The brewery is a 100% legal retail location.. The distillery is a place near us, also 100% legit, but he guy that runs it is a block head - he was giving me info that I didn't quite believe, so I came here for info.

If you are stilling that kind of quantity legally, then these guys are probably worth a visit, as they are the legal commercial distillery forum.

http://adiforums.com/index.php


But like Dunder said, the biggest problem you will probably have is stopping the hops flavour from coming over.