Distilling Beer?

[BigDeal2213]

I currently work with a micro brewery in Taiwan. I recently bought a still to experiment with making rum directly from sugar cane juice. But that is for another discussion.

As I said, I currently work with a micro distillery. We a had a contamination issue in one of our batches and now have an um drinkable beer (sour).

My question is, could I create a drinkable whiskey from this? Or should I still it all the way it to neutral?

Thanks for any and all thoughts on the subject.

Oh, and the still I'll be using is the beer keg pot still from Olympic distillers. https://www.olympicdistillers.com/moons ... parts-only" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[still_stirrin]

...We a had a contamination issue in one of our batches and now have an um drinkable beer (sour)... could I create a drinkable whiskey from this? Or should I still it all the way it to neutral?

Well, whether or not it might be salvageable depends on what it is and how much of it you have.

When a beer sours during fermentation, the most likely cause is poor processes (sanitization) and proper preparation of the wort. Likely, the beer was attacked by a lactobacillus (bacteria) which can plague breweries that don't pay attention to cleanliness. Even with the ever present lacto bacteria in a brew house, boiling the wort and using fresh hops will help protect the wort from bacterial contamination. In addition, proper oxygenation and healthy yeast will initiate a ferment that will reduce the liklihood a bacteria will take ahold. All this to speculate that the cause of your souring may significantly affect the amount of alcohol present in your "undrinkable" beer. And the bacterial contamination very well could produce flavors which would affect the flavor of a distilled product from it.

Did your beer ever ferment properly? What was the recipe and brew protocol? How was it fermented, ie - temperature control?

Finally, to answer your original question...if you want to try to distill it, then do it. What is the worst that could happen?...you spend time and energy running it through the boiler and you get very little product and/or it smells and tastes bad?? What have you lost....a beer that you would have otherwise dumped down the drain? Why not try and see if you can get anything out of it. Will it be good??...pot luck! You won't know unless you try.

Bottomline here....the best spirits start with good ferments. Pay attention to the processes that lead to a superb distiller's beer and you'll have a better spirit in the end.

Otherwise, garbage in....garbage out. But hey, you may get lucky and end up with something better than the soured beer you have now.

Good luck.
ss

[BigDeal2213]

The beer fermented beautifully, a west coast style IPA. The problem was a contract bottling facility was used, the bottles were contaminated. Resulting in an undeliverable product.

I agree with you that there is nothing to lose by distilling it. But thanks for the insight.

[Jes2xu]

The beer fermented beautifully, a west coast style IPA. The problem was a contract bottling facility was used, the bottles were contaminated. Resulting in an undeliverable product.

I agree with you that there is nothing to lose by distilling it. But thanks for the insight.

First up . .

There are few things sader in this world than good beer gone wrong Comiserations!

But,
Huge props for trying to make it into something interesting! I have wondered this my self. My only concern was how the hop oils would behave! Will they carry over and become super bitter (especially in a IPA!!), or will I they line the still it self and be hard to clean. I have however heard rumours of plenty of craft brewers doing it, so I'm interested to try!!

But it would be nice to be able to send semi-unwanted beer to a another place!

Keen to hear how it turns out!

[still_stirrin]

OK BigDeal, give it a try.

But as Jes2xu warned, the hops present in an IPA may leave residual oils in your boiler and stillhead. It's going to require a thorough cleaning when you're done, probably using a solvent that will reduce the oils.

Also, an IPA which often has more unfermented sugars due to the mashing protocol, will have a tendancy to foam up. So don't overfill the boiler when making the runs.

In summary, since the ferment of the IPA went OK and the souring occured during the bottling process, chances are that there is some recoverable alcohol in it. I would first strip it in a potstill, collecting the low wines.

Then, give your boiler and still a really good cleaning to get rid of the hop oil residue. Follow up with a steam (water) cleaning and another vinegar (50/50) run and rinse it with hot water thoroughly.

Then charge with the IPA low wines and make a spirit run to collect the product; potstill, if whiskey is the desired product.

It'll take some effort, but it is better than just pouring the beer down the drain.
ss

[Pikey]

Not a vinegar souring is it ?

I'll be interested to hear how the hops affect the taste, if you do decide to cook it.

[The Baker]

The beer fermented beautifully, a west coast style IPA. The problem was a contract bottling facility was used, the bottles were contaminated. Resulting in an undeliverable product.

I agree with you that there is nothing to lose by distilling it. But thanks for the insight.

First up . .

There are few things sader in this world than good beer gone wrong Comiserations!

But,
Huge props for trying to make it into something interesting! I have wondered this my self. My only concern was how the hop oils would behave! Will they carry over and become super bitter (especially in a IPA!!), or will I they line the still it self and be hard to clean. I have however heard rumours of plenty of craft brewers doing it, so I'm interested to try!!

But it would be nice to be able to send semi-unwanted beer to a another place!


I don't know anything about beer but you spoke of hop OILS. I googled Break Down an emulsion and found a method of heating, bubbling air through, and settling. Might work.
Geoff

Keen to hear how it turns out!

[still_stirrin]

...My only concern was how the hop oils would behave! Will they carry over and become super bitter (especially in a IPA!!), or will I they line the still it self and be hard to clean. I have however heard rumours of plenty of craft brewers doing it, so I'm interested to try!!

Geoff,

FYI, I have distilled a few commercial beers before. But typically, they were lagers which were well beyond their expiration date (old kegged beers that had some remaining when returned to the distributor). The hop character did not carry over through the still, either aroma or any flavor. But then again, typically the beers were not hoppy (think Anheuser-Busch here).

With an IPA, my biggest worry would be that the hop oils would coat the walls of the stillhead (definitely don't use packing or it will slug that up for you). And as the run progresses, the oils would become increasingly sticky to adhere, making cleaning difficult. But then again, I can only speculate how much hops are in the OP's IPA (American west coast IPA's can be assertively hopped).
ss

[Jes2xu]

There are hopped gins out there in the wild!

In fact I think there was a brewing network podcast that discussed one. They didn't go into detail about the exact way they managed to get the hop flavour to carry over into the finished product. There were however speculations that involved essentially dry hopping the gin after distillation, and also vapour infusing.

Either way it sounded pretty amazing, if only from a beer geek cross over perspective.

[bitter]

Hops will will most likely form an IPA not clean up enough in a still.

Cleaning after is the biggest worry. I borrowed an air still that had beer put through it and they had cleaned previous, took 2 sac runs after a vinegar run to clean things up. Still was nto perfect but was using it for gin.. so was not so worried.

B

[thecroweater]

firstly the hops oil wrecking your still is the biggest load of crap getting around. I'm not sure where these bullshit stories keep coming from, the internet no doubt . Try finding out how many thousands (maybe millions) of times more oil is in a rum wash or fruit. I do think an IPA is likely to give a hop taste that might be overpowering. Lots of folks say this ages out. I think Jumbo did an IPA whisky, bit of a search might find the thread

[The Baker]

I am no expert but somebody mentioned HOP oils, and there was discussion about the difficulty of removing HOP oils or smells from equipment.
Apparently they are or can be unpleasant or over strong, and I guess they are quite different to fusel oils or 'rum oils'...
Geoff

[thecroweater]

I've done enough beer and know quite few other that have/ do to confidently call bullshit on it

[Jes2xu]

I've done enough beer and know quite few other that have/ do to confidently call bullshit on it

That is VERY encouraging to me! I have heard a lot about cleaning hop oils out of the still, have yet to experience it my self.

To be honest I would have just tried it anyway, but now I definitely will!

Just out of interest what beer styles have you tried?

I think it would be VERY interesting to see what flavors you could carry over from a big stout. But I guess a lot of those flavours come from unfermented sugars. . . .. eh . .. guess I will have to try and see

[Yummyrum]

I found same as Crow on one time I ever tried it .
Stripped a carton of Tooheys Extra Dry that was out of date . I din't think the strip had any overly bearing Hops and the still didn't smell any worse than any other strip .
I ended up adding the strip to a neutral low wines that went through the VM .

I'd have no hesitations doing it again if I happened to come across some old beer

[thecroweater]

mates home brew bitter that got a bit old, same ales and draught beer. I've near tried any porters or stout nut think they would be interesting. As stated beer has unfermented sugar so needs to be cautiously run.
Edit posted same time as Yummyrum

[ShineonCrazyDiamond]

Stouts are great. First, they don't have much Hops anyway, so there really is no concern on any front. I have a recipe I have been meaning to post, a chocolate bourbon. It is an all grain stout recipe tailored for a whiskey end. Tastes just like a damn stout, in whiskey form.

Also, my stillin partner loves to come over on beer day and collect my second runnings, and grain. He throws sugar on it and we make a beer and a thin mash at the same time.

I have no personal experience running hops through the still. But the beers pre hop, hell yeah. Lots of different possibilities there. Each of the jars we put up from the beer runs is special.

[Jes2xu]

mates home brew bitter that got a bit old, same ales and draught beer. I've near tried any porters or stout nut think they would be interesting. As stated beer has unfermented sugar so needs to be cautiously run.
Edit posted same time as Yummyrum

Cool! Glad to hear it! This thread has me pretty excited to experement!
Pretty different to a APA / IPA though. There are basically no hops in these compared to a new world craft APA / IPA. So will be fun to experiment with that too!

[Jes2xu]

Stouts are great. First, they don't have much Hops anyway, so there really is no concern on any front. I have a recipe I have been meaning to post, a chocolate bourbon. It is an all grain stout recipe tailored for a whiskey end. Tastes just like a damn stout, in whiskey form.

Also, my stillin partner loves to come over on beer day and collect my second runnings, and grain. He throws sugar on it and we make a beer and a thin mash at the same time.

I have no personal experience running hops through the still. But the beers pre hop, hell yeah. Lots of different possibilities there. Each of the jars we put up from the beer runs is special.

Dude, you have no idea how happy I am to hear that! Its been kicking around in the back of my mind since I first starting thinking about distilling.

so, kinda sux some one is already doing it, not surprising though haha
But really cool that its a viable thing!

[Jes2xu]

Did anything come of this?

Kinda keen to hear how it turned out!!

[MDH]

Hop aromatics are different chemical compounds than alpha acids. This is why hops are added twice during the boil, because the last addition still contains volatile aromatics. These will make it through distillation from the late heads and onwards. The bitterness is chemically heavy and will stay behind.

[guittarmaster]

I think I"m going to hop on in here too and finally give distilling beer a shot. We can compare notes

I had a beer that decided it didn't want to stay in the keg i transferred it into and it magically poured itself on the bottom of the kegerator. I'm now feeling motivated to see what this recently expelled 5 gallons of hefeweizen could become besides a huge fucking mess!!!

[Jes2xu]

I think I"m going to hop on in here too and finally give distilling beer a shot. We can compare notes

I had a beer that decided it didn't want to stay in the keg i transferred it into and it magically poured itself on the bottom of the kegerator. I'm now feeling motivated to see what this recently expelled 5 gallons of hefeweizen could become besides a huge fucking mess!!!

. . ..ah man. . . that hurts!!! Sorry dude!

[still_stirrin]

Hop aromatics... will make it through distillation from the late heads and onwards...

I don't know....I ran about 5 gallons of a (6-7 month old) Scottish ale + 2 gallons of a Blonde ale about a week ago. I don't know what the %ABV of the beers was. When I ran the beers, I also added about 1.5 liters of feints (40-45%ABV).

I ran it first through the stripper and then a second (spirit) pass through my small gin still. I got about a gallon of 120-140 proof hearts + some early tails out of it. There isn't any hint of hops in either the flavor or the aroma. I have it setting on oak right now.

I think it'll make a fine tasting whiskey...fingers crossed.
ss

[MDH]

A brewer I know gave me a failed batch of Scottish Ale several years ago - full of Crystal 90 and 70, with Citra as the aromatic hop. With a single very slow run through a column, I definitely got hop aromatics.

Perhaps widening your head cut will help, but for me, personally, it was almost all throughout the run.